Bulletin Issue 69 - April 2003

While the bombs still fall, the military tanks roll on, thousands of people die, the probable victors are already sharing out the loot. That is what this war was all about. Saddam and his mythical weapons of mass destruction were no more than a not very credible excuse. The whole world knew and still knows it. Both the oil and the lucrative contracts to reconstruct what they themselves destroyed are already in "good" hands.

The streets of the Patagonian town of Esquel still echo with the celebrations held on the resounding victory of "NO" which obtained 81% of the non-binding plebiscite held on 23 March. The monstrous governmental-company propaganda machinery was unable to convince the population to give its support to the exploitation of a gold and silver mine, located some 6 kilometres from the town. The most important town in the Chubut cordillera, inhabited by some 30 thousand people, said NO, and Mining Argentina trembled.

In Minas Gerais during the last week-end in March, more precisely during the night of Friday 28 a deposit for chemical products belonging to the paper mill "Industria Cataguazes" collapsed. The mill, close to the city of Cataguazes, is located on the Pomba river, where millions of litres of caustic soda, chlorine and other toxic products used in making paper leaked out.

In spite of the fact that it is one of the country's most wretched zones, the Valley of Jequitinhonha in Minas Gerais has been the main and paradigmatic goal of the "citizen caravans" of the candidate Lula --in more than one of his presidential campaigns-- and one of the zones chosen to play the new government's strong card --the Hunger Zero plan-- it is odd to note that nothing has been said about the concrete reason (in addition to generic reasons due to socio-economic and perhaps political underdevelopment) that has led this part of the territory of Minas Gerais to such a degraded and economically unsustainable condition.

Could anyone imagine that cell phones are tainted with the blood of 3.2 million deaths since 1998? Also, that the same thing happens with some children's video games? And that mega-technologies contribute to forest depredation and spoliation of the rich natural resources of paradoxically impoverished peoples?

Tiomin Kenya Limited, a subsidiary of Tiomin Resources Inc. of Canada, began exploring the mineral sands of Kenyan coast in 1995 in search of titanium. (see WRM Bulletin Nº 38.). Stretching for 402 kilometers, the area is a unique tropical culture with ancient Arabic architecture, coral reefs, and fragile ecosystems.

On March 31, in the Italian port of Ravenna, Greenpeace activists uncovered a shipment of rainforest "conflict timber", a term defined by the British-based NGO Global Witness as "the timber that has been traded at some point in the chain of custody by armed groups, be they rebel factions, regular soldiers or the civilian administration, either to perpetuate conflict or take advantage of conflict situations for personal gain".

Recently, an article on the major "threat" posed to South African indigenous forests by illegal gatherers of medicinal plants has been widely disseminated. Michael Peter, Director of Indigenous Forestry Management of the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, said that "The medicinal plant trade is the single largest cause of indigenous forest degradation in South Africa". However, Wally Menne, from the South African NGO Timberwatch Coalition, has something to say about this. He stresses that "it's time to open our eyes and face the reality that the timber industry is really the biggest culprit when it comes to damaging forests".

"The strategy consisted of surviving." The population of Timor gave this answer to an Oilwatch delegation visiting the country a week after declaration of independence. To keep alive during the massacre unleashed and organised by the president of Indonesia. They even told us that the president of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, acted as a magician to save his life, thanks to a sleight of hand, when he was detained in 1992. He owes his life to magic.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is funding a US$1.4 million evaluation and due diligence study of the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam in Laos. Despite the project's massive impacts on forests, under the terms of the Bank's proposed new forestry policy the ADB has no obligation to consider whether the Nam Theun 2 dam project complies with its forestry policy. Earlier this year, the ADB announced via its web-site that it would be funding a "Power Sector Development" technical assistance project in Laos. According to Bank's information, the project is "to assist the Government of Lao PDR in undertaking the preparatory work for the development of a hydropower project in the country."

In Vietnam's mountainous northwest, the Son La People's Committee has moved the first 52 people of a total of 91,000 that will be forcibly evicted to make way for the massive Son La dam. In March, the authorities moved eight families of indigenous White Thai people to a new site, 200 kilometres from their homes in Muong La district. At least 13 indigenous groups live in the 275 square kilometres that would be flooded by the reservoir behind the dam. The National Assembly gave the go-ahead for the 2,400 MW Son La dam in December 2002. The dam, which is planned to be built 200 kilometres upstream of the existing Hoa Binh dam on the Da River, would be Vietnam's largest dam and would require the biggest eviction of people in the country's history.

Women are more than half --around 30.000-- of the workforce in Malaysian plantations, and have been historically employed as unskilled, temporary contract workers doing the most menial and underpaid jobs. Urbanisation and industrialisation has pushed men and the young to work in the new industrial zones while women stay on and continue to take on any job so that they can have a house and basic amenities provided by the plantation company, which are otherwise beyond their reach. Thus, women have played the dual role of providing cheap labour and social stability.

In November 2001, a Belizean court had ruled in favour of the construction of a hydro-electric dam on the upper Macal river by Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), the majority of which is owned by Fortis, Inc. of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, (see WRM bulletins 44 and 54). The Belizean government has privatised its electricity industry, just keeping a minority share of BEL. Fortis Inc. is the owner of both the energy distribution company in Belize (Belize Electricity Limited, BEL) and the largest energy supplier in the country (Belize Electricity Company, BECOL). Between Fortis-BEL and Fortis-BECOL, Fortis companies generate 48% of the electricity sold in Belize, with the rest coming from a connection to the power grid in Mexico.

The municipality of Chichicastenango is located in the department of Quiché, one of the most populated departments in the country and the one possessing the greatest number of Maya tongues, such as Uspanteco, Ixil, Sacapulteco, Quekchí and Quiché. To reach this municipality, you have to take a road that goes through steep slopes with sharp turnings and deep ravines, some covered by mixed forests mainly consisting of pine and oak trees. This municipality is located in the country's western high plateau and the climate is temperate and cold. In addition to being an important religious centre, it is a strategic point for trade in handicrafts, vegetables, fruit, textiles, woollen goods and animals, among others. One of the largest markets in the country is held there.

Genetic engineering is racing ahead to provide genetically tailored trees designed for commercial plantations with traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content in trees for commercial convenience. The attempt to genetically engineer trees is part of a long history of trying to convert diverse ecosystems into single-use production plants. With the Green Revolution introduced in the 50's which implied the industrialisation and "commodisation" of agriculture, the sound paradigm of diverse forest management has been increasingly replaced by a pattern which offers no space for forest uses other than wood fibre extraction, the utmost expression of it being large scale monoculture tree plantations.

The forestry plan promoted by the Government --based on large monoculture tree plantations of eucalyptus and pine-- promised large profits to the country, among which employment generation. Not only has this objective not been accomplished, but it has also been seen that the scant employment generated is usually temporary and under working conditions that in general leave much to be desired. The events that took place at the beginning of this month are a clear demonstration of what environmental organizations have long been denouncing. The big difference this time is that the complaint was lodged by a Government official.

Official figures from the PNG Forest Authority show that between 1993 and 2001 a total of 20 million cubic meters of logs were exported from PNG. If all those logs were laid side by side they would stretch for over 1,000 kilometres. If they were laid end to end they would stretch for 7,000 kilometres. In the last 10 years most of the logs have been taken from West New Britain but now those forests are almost gone. Now the logging companies in PNG --most of them Malaysian-- are getting most of their logs from Western and Gulf Provinces.

Have you ever seen "Ghost Busters", the movie? Thanks to the magic of movies, that silly story, perhaps the brainchild of a superstitious youngster became a motion picture. Many kids and a few adults maybe even believed for a moment that ghosts are for real. This is pretty close to what happened in New Zealand, at the "Experts Meeting on Planted Forests". To many of us, this is just absurd, planted forests do not exist. But, is that a reason for not being scared? - Well, I don't know what I saw, but I was scared! This is a very usual statement by fellow mortals when facing a ghost in the middle of a desolate place, usually, an old Indian cemetery taken over by "civilization", or things like that.