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.
Bulletin articles
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.
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.
In October 2002, the World Bank adopted a new policy on forests. Reversing the previous policy which had prohibited the Bank from funding projects that would destroy primary moist tropical forests, the new policy, adopted with the encouragement of the WWF, was aimed at encouraging greater involvement in forestry. The aim was to help the World Bank achieve the targets set by the World Bank-WWF Alliance for securing 200 million hectares of forests under responsible logging (‘independently certified sustainable forest management’).
In 2004, the task manager for the World Bank’s Forest Concession Management and Control Pilot Project (FCMCPP) described Cambodia’s forest concession system as "inadequate on paper, dysfunctional in reality". He might have added that all the concessionaires had committed legal or contractual breaches and extensively looted what the World Bank termed "Cambodia’s most developmentally important natural resource". Such considerations have not, however, prevented the World Bank from investing five years in supporting this same flawed management system and its piratical operators.
Despite years of controversy surrounding World Bank forestry projects in India, the Bank is pressing ahead with major plans to make the way for large loans for further forestry projects in several States. In 2005, the Bank has pilot “community forest management” (CFM) and participatory forest management (PFM) projects beginning in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand states. These pilot projects are intended to precede major loans for full-scale State-wide forestry projects.