Local communities generally perceive forest management as a public affair. And yet, in the household, the public domain and investment fall within the competence of men, since women are responsible for “private,” domestic business. Because of their deciding role in household food security, women are most affected by disruptions in the availability of and access to resources. Hence, latest forest policies fuelled by international and national environmental trends that restrict people's activities in parks, affect local communities and mainly women within them.
Bulletin articles
A broad alliance of environment, development and indigenous human rights organisations organized a “Forest Forum” in Kinshasa on November 13th, 2004, with the aim of strengthening the struggle against the increase in industrial logging in DRC’s rainforests and for the respect of local peoples' rights (see WRM Bulletin 80).
Looking at the statistics for Swaziland is a depressing experience. Unemployment stands at 40 per cent. More than two-thirds of the people in Swaziland live on an income of less than US$1 a day. About one third of the people in Swaziland rely on food aid to survive. Nearly 40 per cent of the population is infected with HIV - one of the highest rates in the world. Life expectancy has fallen to 33 years for men and 35 for women.
The extremely powerful tsunamis caused by the 9.0 earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra on last December 26th, created tremendous havoc and the whole world was submerged in sorrow for such a great loss in human life and suffering.
Corruption has been identified as a major obstacle to real change in the forest sector in Cambodia. Not only the government but also the international donors have refused to confront the issue. The costs of weak forest sector governance, in terms of lost revenues, destruction of rural livelihoods and environmental damage, continue to mount, with the result that Cambodia remains completely dependent on foreign aid.
On 26 November 2004, the Province of Santa Fe legislature adopted an emergency environmental law placing an absolute moratorium on land clearing, logging, deforestation, burning or destruction of woodland and native forests for a period of 180 days, which can be extended a further 180 days by the executive.
In an open letter signed by several social organisations and personalities from Brazil, the Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde (Alert Against the Green Desert Network) denounces and rejects the certification of the huge plantation company and one of the biggest producers of bleached eucalyptus pulp in the State of Espirito Santo, Aracruz Celulose, through the Brazilian government programme CERFLOR.
The American based Rainforest Alliance is undermining the efforts of local conservation groups in Papua New Guinea struggling to combat widespread illegal and unsustainable logging.
The Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention on Climate Change will be meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina this month. Through the media, the public will receive the good news that the Kyoto Protocol has been approved in spite of the refusal of the world's main polluter -- the US -- to ratify it. Most people will thus feel relieved, thinking that the climate crisis will now be averted.
It seems that the road to the global market is paved with good intentions. And it utters void statements, it should be added.
The industrialized world tears its clothes off in the face of corruption, which it attributes to Third World country governments. And the World Bank brings together some of the leading logging companies in Africa –mainly European- with environmental NGOs to discuss issues related to Sustainable Forest Management, in what is called the “CEO Initiative”. However, true meaning should be discovered digging into declarations.
Like many other Third World countries pushed by the global policies of colonialism and later neocolonialism to poverty and indebtedness, Congo has a current debt of $4.9 billion. Like many other southern governments, too, advised by multilateral agencies to commerce their wealth –natural resources-, the government of Congo has been placing greater emphasis on the growth of the timber industry in the Congo Basin, which has the world's second largest stretches of virgin rainforest after the Amazon in South America.
Following decades of despotic rule by Mobutu Sese Seko, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) descended into a ‘civil war’ that claimed the lives of an estimated 3.5 million people. The mass carnage which reigned over the country has receded – though many believe only temporarily. The war has, at least in part, been fuelled by competition for control over natural resources.