Bulletin Issue 55 – February 2002

As this latest WRM Bulletin is being sent out, those of us who have closely followed the World Bank’s efforts to develop a new Forest Policy are holding our breath. The release of the draft of the new Operational Policy (OP) on Forests is to be released within the next few days. Or so we are told. The date of the release of the draft OP has been postponed numerous times over the past year. In response to a letter by GLOBE, an organization of members of parliament from numerous countries, the World Bank’s Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, Ian Johnson, stated in early November 2001 that the draft OP would become publicly available towards the end of that same month.

A mountainous tropical country with altitudes of over 4,000 metres, Ethiopia has many regions which were once rich in vegetation and are now rocky, desert areas. Desertification and erosion have further increased within the past decade. Almost all the forests in Ethiopia have been destroyed in the last 40 years, according to a study by the United Nations. Less than 3% of the entire country is now covered with trees, compared to the 40% of a century ago and 16% in the early 1950s, prompting fears of an impending environmental disaster in this country which is home to coffee and one of the biodiversity hotspots of the world, now with large areas exposed to heavy soil erosion.

Kenya's ecosystems are on the edge, unable to continue providing water, plant materials and other basic human needs to its burgeoning population. Forests remain on less than two percent of Kenya's land, under protected status as a national resource. In a country plagued by drought, the forests are critical for water conservation. They are also home to indigenous peoples that live by hunting game and gathering food plants, herbs, and honey within the forests. In a bid for votes, the Kenyan government has rescinded protected status from 4 percent of the remaining forests, claiming that the territory is needed to open settlements for the country's many landless people. However, facts tell quite another thing.

Madagascar is considered as the world’s 11th poorest country and one its top 3 biodiversity hotspots. Originally inhabited by different groups of mixed Asian and African origin who lived on its resources through hunting, herding and “tavy” (shifting) agriculture, in the “way of the ancestors”, it was colonised by the Europeans in the 16th century, and became a French colony in the 19th century. The country suffered huge environmental losses through logging of primary species-rich rainforests used for railroad construction and timber exports; major forest clearance of the most fertile areas was carried out for cash-crops, mainly coffee plantations.

The Jarawa are one of four surviving tribes living in the Andamans, a cluster of islands in the Bay of Bengal, India. Two of these tribes were settled by the colonial British and Indian authorities with catastrophic consequences: one, the Great Andamanese, of whom there were 5000 in 1948, now number only 41 individuals.

Friends of the Earth-UK has just published a detailed report on forest destruction in Indonesia, focused on the damaging environmental and social impacts of Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd, otherwise known as APRIL, one of the biggest pulp and paper companies in the world. Part of the Indonesian Raja Garuda Mas Group and owned by the business magnate Sukanto Tanoto, APRIL is a Singapore held company. APRIL’s main pulp subsidiary is Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP), located in Riau Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. RAPP began operating in 1995 and has now developed a pulp mill with a capacity of 2.0 million tonnes per year, making it the largest pulp mill in the world.

In national forest policy, forests usually refer to land and trees, which can include primary forests of native (indigenous) trees, forests of secondary growth and plantations of commercial trees cultivated by the state or private enterprises. Forests can also refer to trees planted for reforestation or soil conservation, after primary or secondary forests are logged. Forests are seen as containers of physical resources which are commodities for sale.

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey is endemic to northern Vietnam and is one of the world's most endangered mammal species. Before a group was spotted in Na Hang district in 1992, it was considered extinct. Today, 260 of the monkeys are known to be living in northern Vietnam. Half of the population lives in the Na Hang Nature Reserve, which was created in 1994 specifically to protect the snub-nosed monkey.

A few weeks ago we visited the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica --from Limón to Manzanillo-- and we were really impressed. We are not referring to the scenic beauties of the area nor to the friendliness of its local inhabitants that of course we were able to appreciate. We refer to the threat to open up this beautiful zone to oil exploration by North American companies, with the blessing of the government and of the multilateral financial institutions.

The community of Champerico --localized in Retalhuleu, at the Pacific Ocean coast of Guatemala-- has been fighting in defence of their livelihoods since 1995, when the shrimp farming firm Camarones S.A. (Camarsa) and its subsidiary Pesca S.A. built a fence to prevent public access to the wetlands. Champerico is a port, being fish the main traditional diet of the local people. Thus, the fisherfolk have seen their traditional fishing grounds threatened by the intrusive moves of the company which has also polluted the estuaries, logged mangroves (activity prohibited by the Environmental Law) to build industrial shrimp ponds, provoked the death of hundreds of fish as a result of its activities, and repressed and intimidated fisherfolk.

In December 1999, Provincial Law No. 3,631 was sanctioned in Argentina, creating the Overall Conservation and Sustainable Development Area, known as the “Green Corridor of the Province of Misiones.” It involves 22 municipalities and covers an area of 1.108,000 hectares of Parana forest, located in the province of Misiones, spanning a mosaic of landscapes including protected areas, private property put to various uses, agricultural settlements, indigenous communities and varied socio-economic situations and even areas having land use and land tenure conflicts. The idea is to integrate them into a territorial unit with objectives defined on the basis of bio-regional planning, guaranteeing the connectivity of the three main blocks of Protected Natural Areas of the Parana forest.

Since 1999, the WRM has been reporting profusely (WRM Bulletins 20, 21, 24, 28 and 50) on the dangerous situation of the last significant remaining primary dry tropical forest in the world, the Chiquitano forest, located in Bolivian territory. This valuable ecosystem will be altered by the gas pipeline that the transnational companies Enron and Shell plan to build between the cities of San Miguel and Cuiabá (Bolivia and Brazil respectively), crossing the region with the well-know environmental impacts caused by this type of “development” project.

An independent scientific investigation carried out by a research team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists led by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, has provided compelling evidence that rates of forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon have accelerated sharply since 1995, returning to the catastrophic levels of the 1970s and 1980s. The research opposes the claims of the Brazilian government that threats to Amazonian forests have fallen in recent years because of improved environmental laws and public attitudes. "Forest destruction from 1995 to 2000 averaged almost two million hectares a year ... equivalent to seven football field(s) a minute," said team leader William Laurance.

The Chilean forestry model, based on the promotion of large-scale monocultures of pine trees and eucalyptus for export, has been implemented at the expense of the environment and of the local peoples. In spite of this fact, both the State and the forestry companies continue to hide the truth and insist that they are “planting forests” and contributing to the country’s development.

Residents of the Waratah-Wynyard Municipality, a tree plantation-devastated community and environment in Tasmania, have issued a Joint Submission to the national authorities, the media, interested bodies and concerned people on January 13, 2002 (the full document is available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Australia/joint.html )

Ninety seven percent of the land area of Papua New Guinea still is customary land owned by the people, who voluntarily give 3% to the government to build schools and other public buildings. This lush land with more than 700 recognised culturally and physically distinct peoples, each with their own language and traditional culture, used to have traditional landowners exercising sustainable forest management with little interference from outside.

Forests are very important for people who live in or close to forest areas and use forests for their livelihood. However, people’s use of forests for daily subsistence, provision of food, medicines, shelter and agricultural production and for their social, cultural and spiritual well- being, are commonly undervalued or ignored. The dominant view often reflected in forestry decision-making and policies is to see forests as a physical resource with an economic and commercial value which can contribute to income for the state, private companies and individuals, rather than as being a social resource.

International Rivers Network is inviting to participate in the 5th Annual International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life on March 14th, 2002, which it defines as "a time to join together in solidarity to protest destructive development and celebrate our successes over the last year. It is also a time to fight for social justice and the rights of communities over their resources and lives." Being large-scale dams a major threat to forests and forest peoples, the WRM has always opposed this type of "development" and has supported the struggles of local peoples defending their forests and livelihoods threatened by dams. The WRM therefore adheres to this Day of Action and invites everyone to take part in the planned activities detailed in IRN's