Bulletin Issue 84 - July 2004

World perception about mangroves is changing positively. Once described as insect-infested foul-smelling wastelands, they are now being more aptly called "roots of the sea", "amphibious rainforests" or "coastal nurseries". This new attitude constitutes a positive first step towards their conservation, because a valued ecosystem stands a better chance of being protected than one perceived as a useless wasteland. This change in attitude is to a large extent the result of the activities of numerous NGOs working together with local communities struggling to protect their mangroves, and generating awareness at the national, regional and international level about the social and environmental importance of mangrove ecosystems.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, 38% of Africa’s coastline and 68% of its marine protected areas are under threat from unregulated development. Of concern are poorly-planned or regulated shrimp farming operations. Relatively little shrimp farming took place in Africa until the early 1990s, but the continent represents a potential new frontier for the industry and large mangrove areas are being targeted by developers, drawn by rich natural resources, cheap labour and low land prices. African shrimps are valuable due to their good quality, compared to the rather small Asian shrimps.

Together with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Bank is supporting the development of comprehensive new forestry laws in the Congo, as well as the 'zoning' of the country's entire forest area which would imply the logging of some 60 million hectares of tropical forest. More than 100 environment, development and human rights groups had challenged in February of this year those projects (see WRM Bulletin Nº 80).

Way back in 1994, a group of NGO people –among whom the current WRM coordinator- were invited by the Maasai to visit a forest which they were struggling to save from tourism "development". As a means of providing international support to the struggle, an article was written and widely disseminated in November that year in Third World Network's magazine "Resurgence" (available at http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9412/0140.html). That struggle is still ongoing, but a new actor has appeared in scene -the IUCN- and what follows provides a detailed description of the situation as it now stands and on how the local people feel about it.

The environment pressure network Geasphere has charged the international Forest Stewardship Council with acting irresponsibly in certifying the massive spread of Industrial Timber Plantations (ITPs) in South Africa. ITPs come at a massive cost to the natural and social environment, and these costs have not been quantified, says Philip Owen of Geasphere, in an open letter to the chair of the Forest Stewardship Council, David Nahwegabouw. "Certifying South African Industrial Timber Plantations with a ‘green label’ is irresponsible and undermines your credibility," Owen charged, in an earlier letter to FSC board members.

The March-June edition of the magazine "Watershed" focuses on the issue of tree plantations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as part of the broader picture of the spread of industrial tree plantations in the South. This edition of Watershed is the result of a collaborative effort between a large number of individuals and organizations --mostly from within but also from outside the Mekong region-- concerned over the social and environmental impacts resulting from large-scale tree monocultures.

In a letter sent to Premier Wen Jia-bao of the People's Republic of China on June 24, more than twelve conservation groups and more than 30 individuals from the international environmental and academic communities expressed concern regarding Chinese logging in the N'Mai Hku area of northern Burma (the full letter is available at http://www.rainforestrelief.org/News_and_Events/ Rainforest_Relief_News/Burma_Forests_Letter/Letter.html ).

The Leizhou Peninsula is located in the southernmost part of SE China, and forms the stepping-stone to Hainan Island. Leizhou’s 1,500 km coastline and 12,500 km2 land area is sub-tropical, containing many bays and estuaries where long stretches of diverse mangrove forests and the associated mudflats are found. There are 24 recorded species of mangrove found there, and approximately 3,300 ha total area of actual mangrove forest scattered along various isolated stretches of coastlines.

At the entrances to the Pench Tiger Reserve straddling the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are signposts with the words "welcome to Mowgli's land." Mowgli, in Rudyard Kipling’s nineteenth century children’s book entitled “Jungle Book,” is a young boy who grows up talking to all the other inhabitants of the jungle including a mongoose and an elephant. There is no question of Mowgli and his people not living symbiotically with animals in the dense forest. And yet today, Mowgli's land is siphoned off as a National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary and the human inhabitants have either been asked to leave the forest voluntarily or have been forcibly evicted.

The Nam Leuk dam has caused serious problems for local communities, as documented in a recent report by Lao researcher Phetsavanh Sayboualavan. Based on a visit to seven villages affected by the dam in May 2003, Phetsavanh's report describes increased health problems, food shortages, flooding, destroyed fisheries, dead livestock, illegal logging and corruption associated with the project. The 60 MW Nam Leuk dam was completed in 2000, with funding from the Asian Development Bank. The ADB denies any ongoing problems caused by the project. "Where there were environmental and social impacts, these have been adequately remedied," states the ADB's 2002 project completion report on Nam Leuk. The project is "successful" according to the Bank.

Eco-tourism is perhaps the most over-used and mis-used word, not only in the travel industry but also in the “development” schemes of governments. But most of the time it just means tourism, the “smokeless industry” to which many southern countries, facing debt burdens and worsening trade terms, have turned in the hope that it brings foreign exchange and investment. Simultaneously, leading international agencies such as the World Bank, United Nations agencies and business organisations have been substantially involved to make tourism a truly global industry.

Some 3,000 people marched 200 kilometres to converge in Tegucigalpa with the aim of demanding that President Ricadro Maduro’s government protects the country’s natural resources. They came from four different Honduran cities and took from 22 to 30 June to reach the capital.

For many years, the mangrove forests were seen and actually often officially designated as wastelands, not fit for anything but mosquitoes and smelly swamp. Fortunately, this view of the tidal forests is changing, influenced by recent scientific studies and public awareness campaigns. Mangroves are now seen for their unique natural characteristics supporting high levels of biodiversity, immensely important for the health of wild fisheries and marine ecology. Mangroves are comprised of salt-tolerant trees and other plant species which thrive in inter-tidal zones of sheltered tropical shores, “overwash” islands, and estuaries which support an immense variety of marine, plant, and bird life.

It seems important to learn why for the past few years the issue of forestry in Colombia has been at the hub of the main debates and the government agenda. This article endeavours to reply to this question and to show some political elements that allow us to affirm that the issue of forestry and its environmental services are just another business, not only at national level but also at a global level.

The certification process for organic shrimps in Ecuador is promoted by Naturland, a German certifying company that launched processes in 1996 to certify shrimp farming companies in the country and to achieve accreditation of a green seal enabling exporting companies to enter markets with better prices and standards of quality. The main markets for organic shrimps are Germany, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom. In Ecuador, approximately 1,000 hectares of shrimp farm ponds have been certified. Part of the certification process requires compliance with Naturland standards -prepared with the support of the German cooperation agency GTZ– with national legislation and the obtaining of social benefits derived from this activity.

Dear Friends, I am Floresmilo Villalta, President of the Free Ecuador Poultry Association and I wish to thank you –all the organizations and people who have given me their moral and spiritual support. This has been a great encouragement to the continuation of our struggle and I also know that you too have felt very encouraged and this makes me feel very proud.

Aguide is located in the coastal zone between the Zamuro and Uvero Points, and is part of the Parish of La Pastora, Acosta Municipality, in the northeast of the State of Falcon. The population of Aguide is on the alert. A representative of a shrimp farm project is amongst them, gathering signatures to request a meeting where the “advantages” of the project for the locality will be announced. To face this, various neighbours have gathered to consider the effects the installation of a shrimp farm will have on the population and on the locality, basing themselves on other similar projects carried out in other localities of the State of Falcon and in the rest of the country, such as:

There is no smoke without fire, and in this case, the fire is in Spain, where the ENCE paper company has a pulp mill that for many years has contaminated the Pontevedra river mouth. Although the company was finally condemned and its executives ordered to pay fines and sentenced to prison, the environmental “inheritance” continues (see WRM bulletin 75). The local population is asking for the “factory to be closed” to enable them to “recover the shell-fishing areas” and “the fisheries.”

“Carbon emission trading, a vehicle for development. Is this a story that's worth telling? I think it is,” Sergio Jellinek, a “communications advisor” at the World Bank told a room full of journalists at the Carbon Expo in Cologne last week. Organised by the World Bank, the International Emissions Trading Association and Koelnmesse (Cologne Trade Fair), Carbon Expo was supposed to be “the Coming of Age of the Global Carbon Market”. In fact only a few hundred people coughed up the 980 Euros entrance fee. Most of them seemed to know each other on first name terms. One in seven people were journalists.

In June, the World Bank co-organised the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany. This trade fair showcased projects on the look-out for corporate and governmental buyers from industrialised countries for the greenhouse gas emission reduction credits these projects claim to produce.