Bulletin Issue 6 – November 1997

The Forest Stewardship Council has suspended the forest certification activities of SGS Forestry, an FSC-accredited pioneer of independent forestry assessments. The suspension may indicate a rift at FSC Board level. The decision was taken despite an earlier finding by the Council´s executive director Dr Tim Synnott that SGS had "identified and addressed" weaknesses in the West African Leroy-Gabon forestry operation.

Nnimmo Bassey, President of Oilwatch Africa, was detained on Sunday 26 October, when returning to Nigeria from the meeting of the International Committee of Oilwatch in Ecuador. An architect, poet and active defender of human and environmental rights in this country, Nnimmo has been carrying on a persistent denounce of the abuses of oil companies in Nigeria. Although he has been politically active in Nigeria for years, it is only since becoming a high-profile, vocal critic of the oil industry that he has been imprisoned. In June-July 1996 he was imprisoned during 43 days for attempting to attend a West African regional meeting of Friends of the Earth.

UPM-Kymmene of Finland and Singapore-based Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd.(APRIL), have agreed to establish a strategic alliance to develop jointly their respective fine paper operations in Europe and Asia. In Europe, UPM-Kymmene will hold 70% and APRIL 30% of a new company called UPM-Kymmene Fine Paper, which will comprise UPM-Kymmene's fine paper units, Nordland Papier in Germany and Kymi in Finland. This new company will be the largest fine paper producer in Europe with a combined annual capacity of 1.7 million tonnes of paper and 460,000 tonnes of related pulp. Similarly, in Asia, APRIL will hold 70% and UPM-Kymmene 30% of a new company, APRIL Fine Paper, which will comprise APRIL's paper mills under construction in Sumatra, Indonesia and China.

Extensive mangrove areas at Pazhayangadi, Kannur District in Kerala, are under threat of logging. Local groups and activists have been taking legal steps like getting a stay order from the court and writing to various Government bodies on such destructive practises.

About 30 transnational corporations are in the process of developing projects for gold exploration and exploitation in Costa Rica. Included in this list of mining companies are the Canadian Placer Dome Inc. and American Barrick Gold, listed among the six largest gold mining corporations in the world. Such activities will affect protected areas of enormous ecological and cultural value as well as their influential areas and buffer zones. The area that has been solicited or granted as concession for open pit gold mining activity comes to approximately 408,000 hectares, which is equivalent to 8% of the Costa Rican national territory!

The Rainforest Action Network is embarked on a new campaign to drive old growth wood products out of the marketplace. The term “old growth” refers to products derived by logging any primary forests worldwide. The campaign started during World Rainforest Week '97 (October 18-26) with demonstrations and other activities taking place in every state in the United States and in other countries. Its goal is to project the vision that the planet's remaining primary forests -that in fact occupy a very limited area- must no longer be viewed as resource extraction zones.

Fulgencio Manuel da Silva, Brazilian union leader, and leader of dam-affected peoples' movement died in Recife on October 23 after having been shot the night before in Santa Maria da Boa Vista. Fulgencio had received death threats from drug traffickers in the region, for he had waged a crusade in favour of the farmers of the Sao Francisco River valley, and for the cease of the violence at the “caatinga”, the impoverished Northeastern region of the country. He helped to construct a unique social movement -the Union Pole of the Lower and Middle Sao Francisco- which defied and continues to defy local powerbrokers, drug traffickers, the Brazilian government and the World Bank.

In 1997, the Brazilian government defined its new policy strategy, in coordination with the recently launched “Brazil in Action” plan, regarding investments in infrastructure and new settlement and agricultural frontier in the Amazon region. The initiatives contained in the plan are designed to stimulate the expansion of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market, formed by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and to improve conditions for increased exports to the northern hemisphere.

The Steering Committe of Oilwatch was meeting in Quito on October 21st, when it received news that a group of indigenous women from the province of Pastaza -who had walked to Ecuador’s capital to demonstrate against oil exploration in their territory by the state-owned Tripetrol corporation- was being repressed by the police. The steering committee immediately suspended its session and went to express its support to the protesting women.

In previous issues of our Bulletin (Nr. 2 of 10/7/97 and Nr. 4 of 8/9/97) we included information about the conflict at Imataca Rainforest Reserve, where concerned Venezuelan NGOs and citizens have been playing an important role. On November 11 Cecilia Sosa Gomez -President of the Court of Justice- informed that Presidential Decree 1,850 was voided, as a consequence of the legal action initiated by Alexander Luxardo (Union of Sociologists and Anthropologists of Venezuela), Alicia Garcia and Maria Eugenia Bustamante (AMIGRANSA), Jose Moya (FORJA), Frank Bracho (OilWatch) and Juan Sans Uranga. The controversial Decree opens up this vast tropical forest to mineral exploitation.

On October 7 Suriname's Minister of Natural Resources and the Dutch Embassy to Suriname signed a contract worth US$30 million for the Forestry Production Control Project, intended to monitor logging activities by using mobile inspection units. This is one component of a larger project that will support reconstruction of the Forest Service's infrastructure that was destroyed in the Civil War (1986-92) and the establishment of a Timber Institute to control logging and promote investment in the Forestry Sector.

Pulpwood plantations being proposed for the Big Island (Hawaii) are a long way from being real forests, full of a variety of different kinds of mixed ages trees, rich with vegetation and wildlife. Tourists who come to Hawaii for its natural tropical beauty will see instead industrial enclaves of mile after mile of one type of tree, planted in straight, easily harvested rows, kept clear of undergrowth. Fast growing eucalyptus are repeatedly aerial sprayed with poisons, and clear-cut every five to seven years, with the field debris burned. Left behind is barren land susceptible to soil erosion and runoff.

At the inauguration of the international boat exhibition "Hanseboot" in Hamburg on October 25, activists from various ecologist NGOs inflated a 50 feet long, 17 feet high chainsaw, claiming "Mahogany is Murder!" and "No Teak on my deck!". In their statement "Hanseboot kills forests" over 30 organisations from Germany, England, Switzerland and Cameroon called on importers, builders and consumers to stop the plundering of the rainforests and to use only tropical timber which has been independently certified.

On November 4 the period of 60 days ended during which FUNAI had to make a restudy, according to a letter of the Minister of Justice dated August 4. Concerning the decision of the Minister, there are three possible options: - to declare the boundaries of the claimed lands and establish its demarcation. In this case Aracruz will go to court, according to declarations of representatives of the company; - to declare the boundaries, but proposing a reduction of the area - to take no decision.

The International Secretariat sent messages to public authorities in Brazil and Ecuador responding to the request of support by local NGOs. Faxes were addressed to the president of Brazil, the Government of Santa Catarina (Brazil) and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, expressing our concern over the situation of Wigold Scaeffer and Miriam Prochnow -two distinguished leaders in the campaign to protect the Mata Atlantica from logging activities- who have repeatedly received death threats.

We received a reply from Aracruz’s Environment and Corporate Quality manager Carlos Alberto Roxo to our letter of 6 October in support of the Tupinikim/Guarani’s right to their lands. Mr Roxo is “pleased to have the opportunity of explaining the company’s position in relation to this matter, which has been deeply misinterpreted by some segments”. The letter includes an interesting heading in its annex, which we think contains useful information about the company’s economic interests in this issue. The heading’s title is “The importance of the lands under dispute to Aracruz” and says: “In addition to having the legal right to the lands, Aracruz considers them as very important for the following reasons: