Since India gained political independence in 1947, Protected Areas and development projects like large dams, mines, industries, roads and army cantonments displaced millions of people in the country. Planning Commission estimates suggest that 21.3 million people were displaced by development projects between 1951 and 1990 alone. Estimates of people evicted by Forest Department—to create new Protected Areas and to clear ‘forest encroachments'—are not available.
Bulletin articles
In 2004, the Minister of Forestry, through Decree No. 101/Menhut-II/2004, issued a policy on accelerating pulpwood development to supply the pulp and paper industry. The policy received broad acceptance in the province of Jambi by PT Wira Karya Sakti (PT WKS), a forestry company subsdiary of the giant Sinar Mas Group (SMG).
"We want to hold accountable those companies that built or profited from the dam - the Korean company that built it or the Belgian company that owns the dam now. There should be letters sent saying, 'You are making money from this, why don't you take some responsibility and help all those people impacted by this project - allow them to move back?' We need to have enough land for us to be able to farm, which means moving to areas we consider our old territory, and we need to be given the right to live there with self respect and independence."
Bertolt Brecht wrote from exile: "Truly, I live in dark times./ The word ingénue is senseless. An unlined forehead / reveals insensitivity. He who laughs / has not yet heard the terrible news / it has not yet reached him. What times are these when a talk about trees is almost a crime because it implies silence on so many wrongs?”
In 2003, Brazil's Aracruz Cellulose paid Klabin US$610 million to buy its Riocell pulp operations in Rio Grande do Sul. Along with a 400,000 tonnes a year pulp mill and 40,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations came a certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), saying that the plantations were well managed.
The commune of Lumaco, with its 11.405 inhabitants, is located in the Ninth Region of Chile. From the standpoint of the ancient Mapuche territoriality and the present Mapuche claim to territorial identities in this Region, Lumaco corresponds to the political centre of the Mapuche-Nalche (also known as “nagche” and “nag-che”) territory.
The Motilon Bari Indigenous Peoples have been settled for thousands of years in the basin of the Catatumbo River, in the Department of Northern Santander (Colombia). It is a forest zone, covering an area of approximately 126,600 ha and shares its frontier with Venezuela. Its humid forests, that act as a natural filter for Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), have considerable potential regarding biodiversity, wood and minerals, hydrocarbons and water resources.
On 13 May, over 400 young people of both sexes participated in an action against the plantations of the Japanese EUCAPACIFIC Company in the area of Tortuga, located in the Muisne Canton, province of Esmeraldas (see power point presentation of the action at http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Ecuador/Muisne_sin_eucaliptos.pps)
To the south of the Yasuni National Park (see WRM Bulletin No. 96), an unequal battle is being fought. Spears against shotguns.
The Yasuni National Park covers an area of 982,000 hectares. It is located in Huaorani territory and is part of the Intangible Zone where peoples of the Tagaeri and Taromenane ethnic groups live in voluntary isolation.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift –who devoted much of his writing to the struggle for Ireland against English rule- published his satire “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public” (he suggested that they should be well fed and then eaten). Had he been alive today, he would have probably had something satirical to say about the US government and Earth Day (April 22).
The New Zealand Institute of Forestry is organizing its 2006 conference under the title of “absolutely positively forests”. Although the title is open to discussion about its true –and probably very profound- meaning, our understanding is that it could either mean that the meeting will: 1) be absolutely and positively focused on forests or 2) will try to convince everyone that Radiata pine plantations are absolutely and positively forests.
The Eighth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity ended on March 31st with two important and related decisions: an upholding of the moratorium on the use of so-called “terminator technology,” and a recommendation that countries exercise caution when approaching the potential use of genetically engineered trees. The issues became related during the deliberations over the issue of extending the moratorium on the use of the dangerous “terminator technology,” the genetic engineering of plants to produce sterile seeds that cannot be replanted.