The Omo National Park in Southern Ethiopia is being taken over by the Dutch conservation organization, African Parks Foundation (APF) and 50,000 tribal people are in danger of being displaced and/or of losing access to their vital subsistence resources.
The 1570 square mile Omo National Park is home to the Suri, Dizi, Mursi, Me'en and Nyangatom tribal peoples. These tribal peoples live in or use nearly the entire park for cultivation and cattle grazing. They have made this land their home for centuries.
Bulletin articles
The Omo Forest Reserve –located in the South west of Nigeria- was legally constituted as a forest reserve by Order No. 10 of 1925 and the Order was amended in 1952. The forest was practically unexplored by then. The forest was ceded to Government for reservation on the 8th of October, 1918. The agreement was made between the District Officer, Ijebu Ode on behalf of the British Colonial government and the Awujale of Ijebu Ode on behalf of the Ijebu Native administration.
As part of a two-year process to review FSC policy on the certification of timber plantations, members of the policy review working-group (PWG) recently visited South Africa for their final meeting. What follows are some quotes from the report on the field trip to visit plantation areas, produced by Wally Menne (member of the local Timberwatch Coalition).
Aung Ngyeh, a 31 year old Karenni, fled to Thailand in 2002, forced out of his home in Karenni State by the Burmese military’s war against ethnic populations. He now lives in the refugee camp along the Thai border working with the Karenni Development Research Group (KDRG) campaigning to stop foreign investment in the Burmese regime’s “development” projects.
When the British invaded India 250 years ago, they found the sub-continent covered with a mosaic of vegetation they did not comprehend. Tall dark trees, gnarled and knotted creepers, wild grasslands…the sheer tropical abundance of India’s forests shocked, overwhelmed them. Ultimately, forests came to signify a number of simpler issues (or things): snakes, tigers, barbarians/rebels, pests, and adventure. British colonizers/traders never neglected the mundane and practical, though, which lay beyond this ‘exotic’ and ‘orient’.
Another new FSC certificate of a major logging operation, this time in Indonesia, has got forest watchers scratching their heads.
In Malaysia, women plantation workers appear to have been neglected in the Government’s plans to eradicate poverty and enhance the status of women. The progress achieved so far in empowering women has been unequal. Women plantation workers still lag behind, since they are unable to free themselves from the vicious cycle of poverty they find themselves in.
The world is becoming aware of the situation of the Indigenous Peoples living in isolation in the Amazon. It seems incredible, but some animals are better protected than the human groups seeking to preserve their isolation. There is no doubt that this is a basic human right that the peoples in isolation have the faculty to exercise and defend and we to respect.
According to Recommendation no. 01 of 18 November 2005, the Federal Public Ministry, through the Attorney of the Republic in Ilheus-Bahia, is demanding the removal of eucalyptus plantations in a radius of 10 (ten) kilometres in the buffer zones of the Conservation Units of the Do Descubrimento, Monte Pascoal and Pau Brasil National Parks, as determined by Brazilian legislation.
Following the adoption of the Forestry Bill in Congress, it was sent for presidential sanction on 13 December 2005. President Alvaro Uribe objected to 12 of the articles of the Law and it was expected that the text would be returned with the objections for discussion by Congress as set out in the procedure.
A new FSC certificate of a major logging operation has again raised eyebrows among foresters, environmentalists and human rights activists. In Guyana, the Swiss certification company SGS Qualifor has just granted an FSC certificate to the Malaysian-Korean logging giant, Barama Company Limited (BCL), which operates a 1.69 million hectare concession in North West Guyana.
Biodiversity loss is rapid and ongoing. Over the last 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems faster and more extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history. Tropical forests, many wetlands and other natural habitats are shrinking in size. Species are going extinct at rates 1,000 times the background rates typical of Earth’s past. The direct causes of biodiversity loss --habitat change, overexploitation, the introduction of invasive alien species, nutrient loading and climate change-- show no sign of abating. ...