Bulletin Issue 94 - May 2005

Last March –on International Women's Day- the WRM paid homage to women’s struggles in forests and plantations. We then said that, in spite of all the difficulties, “women continue resisting both in the forest and in the tree plantations. They are speaking loud telling the world about their knowledge, their wisdom, their own definition of what development is and how it should be undertaken.” In response, we received the following message from an indigenous woman called Telquaa, which we would like to share with all of you. After thanking us for the statement she said:

Some 2.000 members of Ogiek Community in Enoosupukia region of Narok District were asked to move from the area under warning that “any person found to be inside the trust land area shall be evicted/arrested". With clashes within Kenya's fractious ruling coalition, the Lands and Housing Minister, cancelled all Title deeds issued in the Mau forest, apparently determined to evict more than 100,000 people living in the forest. The eviction plan takes place in a complex situation. In 2001, the previous Kanu Government degazetted huge tracts of land and in its haste to allocate the land, it never bothered to degazette the forests, to legalise the allocations, giving the present National Rainbow Coalition government room to justify the evictions.

The Liberian NGO Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) has conducted an inquiry into the Firestone Rubber Plantation Company's 69 years of operation, and the result is the report “Firestone: The Mark Of Slavery” (to see the full report: http://www.samfu.org/firestone.html). Firestone’s plantation - established in 1926- is amongst the world's largest rubber plantations. The area it now covers --a coastal low-land, interspersed with marshes, creeks and streams-- was originally owned and inhabited by the Mamba Bassa tribes who were evicted from there by the Firestone Plantations Company and the Government of Liberia during the signing of concession agreement without benefits to these local inhabitants.

Large scale monoculture tree plantations have been imposed globally, erasing other ecosystems, changing water patterns, eroding the soil, creating poverty. Within a project of the South African NGO Geasphere to examine such impacts on rural people’s livelihoods and culture in the Province of Mpumalanga, Godfrey Silaule conveys a vivid picture of how people from the Graskop community suffer such distortion:

In a report, the environmental activist Philip Gain describes how oil giant Unocal is setting a gas pipeline through the Lawachhara National Park, posing a major threat on that unique patch of forest. What follows are excerpts of Gain’s report: Lawachhara National Park, a 1250 hectare forest patch, is part of the West Bhanugachh Reserved Forest in the Maulvi Bazar district. The state of the public forestlands outside the Sundarbans in the southwest of the country is appalling.

Kachin State in northern Burma (Myanmar) is currently undergoing dramatic ecological change. Kachin State contains one of mainland Southeast Asia’s last remaining large areas of intact natural forests, and is one of the eight “hottest hotspots of biodiversity” in the world. But the hotspot is now under threat since one of Burma’s largest and best organized ethnic political groups, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), agreed to a ceasefire with the Burmese military regime (State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC) in 1994 that allows the KIO to retain its arms and have some territorial sovereignty while surrendering legal control of natural resources to the SPDC.

The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Land Rights) Bill 2005, which seeks to recognise the rights of forest-dwelling scheduled tribes (FDSTs) over forest produce, has been pulled off the agenda for discussion by the Indian cabinet. The Bill, drafted by the Tribal Affairs Ministry, is pending consideration before the Indian parliament, following a heated debate between tribal rights and social groups on the one hand and environmentalists on the other, over provisions in the draft bill.

Taiwan has many different ecosystems. Due to its complex topography and environment, the island is extremely rich in animal and plant life. On land, it has tropical coastal forests, evergreen broad-leaved forests, mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests, coniferous forests, and grasslands. On water it has rivers, marshes, lakes, estuaries, sea coasts, coral reefs, etc., including wetlands.

In 1979, when occupying one of the last remaining forest areas of the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Rainforest), not yet cut by the former Aracruz Florestal --currently Aracruz Celulose-- the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples in the State of Espírito Santo started a long struggle to get their lands back. This struggle was interrupted in 1998, when Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous communities, isolated and under great pressure, had to sign an agreement with Aracruz Celulose.

On 10 May, Zenen Diaz Necul, a 17 year-old Mapuche boy was run down by a truck when participating in a demonstration in repudiation of an attack carried out by the Mininco company’s forest guards against Mapuche symbolism and cultural, spiritual and religious elements. The protest took place in the area of the Malleco Viaduct (a historical railway bridge in southern Chile’s 9th Region). This event has led the Arauco Malleco Mapuche Coordinating Committee to declare: In view of the brutal murder of Diaz Necul, a young Mapuche boy:

The Colombia Plan has proved to be functional for oil palm economic groups (see WRM Bulletins Nos. 47 and 70). Military and para-military operations for the protection or promotion of the agro-industrial project have raided collective territories, built highways, felled forests and dug artificial canals. All this has been done in a setting of impunity and violation of Human Rights.

Paraguay's Congress debated in April a bill meant to protect the territory that is home to an unknown number of Ayoreo-Totobiegosode indigenous people living in voluntary isolation.

Uruguay, a territory blessed by a profuse hydrological network, with soils extending over part of the Guaraní aquifer – one of the largest aquifers in the world – bears the “natural country” logo. This could well be so, with its vast prairies and rich productive soils, with an abundance of water, scant industrial development and low population density. However, this landscape that many might consider as a sort of paradise is being threatened. In fact, before handing over power in March 2005, the outgoing government authorized the installation of two enormous pulp mills on the banks of the Uruguay River, a river that runs along the whole western frontier of the country, separating it from its neighbour, Argentina, which shares the river with Uruguay.

Before cutting any trees, Tasmania's timber industry divides the forests into coupes. It bulldozes roads through the forest. When the coupes are clearfelled only the large logs are taken. The vast amount of wood remaining is heaped into piles. Helicopters drop what the industry calls liquefied diesel gel (and the rest of us call napalm) and the remains of the forest are burnt. Huge clouds of smoke hang over Tasmania for weeks.

On last April 27, an international team of representatives including from the Ghanian Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) called on Newmont Mining, the world's largest gold producer, to urgently reform its human rights and environmental practices at its global operations and to permanently cancel plans for new, open-pit mines on densely populated farmland in Ghanaian forest reserves, in Romania, and on a mountain in Peru that is a source of community drinking water.