Deforestation is commonly perceived as an environmental issue, resulting in biodiversity loss and in impacts on water and soil resources. That is, however, only part of the problem.
Forests are in fact inhabited by millions of people, whose livelihoods depend on the resources provided by them: food, wood, fuel, medicines, fibres, fodder, etc. Forest conservation is therefore crucial for providing to the survival needs of all those millions of people –in India alone estimated in some 150 million.
Bulletin articles
In January 1998, and coinciding with the annual meeting of the Davos World Economic Forum --the small luxury skiing station in Switzerland that gives its name to this event-- 192 organizations from 54 countries, united in the Global Peoples’ Action, launched a “Declaration against the Globalisers of Misery.”
Since 1992, the world has had a Convention on Climate Change. The signing and ratification of this convention implies obligations, both legal and moral. Most governments have already ratified it. However, after all these years, governments have little to show except for tons of paper resulting from endless negotiations.
With a population generally estimated to number about 100,000 persons in Cameroon, "pygmies" constitute the best known and the most vulnerable of Africa’s forest peoples. Their lifestyle is closely linked to the forest, from which they obtain their food (meat, fruits, honey, roots, etc.) and the traditional medicinal products for which they are known to be great experts. The forest is their natural habitat in which they continue, for the most part, to be nomadic.
In a continent still ravaged by more than 20 armed conflicts backed by foreign interests and financed through pillage of the continent’s natural resources --oil, diamonds, gold, timber, copper, cobalt and coltan--, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD, comes as a question mark for some.
While Kenyans celebrate their forty years of independence, the Ogiek remember the forty years of dispossession and institutional marginalisation. They have suffered systematic oppression, suppression and brutality through a policy of assimilation leading to extinction.
A wide range of stakeholders from environment and community groups, research bodies and decision-makers from government and industry came together in Nelspruit, South Africa in mid-November to discuss a burning issue - the impact of timber plantations.
Burma is famous for its rich deposits of gemstones which include rubies, sapphires, and jade. The town of Mogok, which is located in the eastern corner of Mandalay Division along the Shan State border, has been the centre for ruby and sapphire mining for eight-hundred years.
With more than a year into its construction, the controversial US$1.2 million Ladia Galaska road network project will link the west coast of Aceh with the eastern coast of northern Sumatra. Over 90 kilometers out of the planned 505-kilometer-long road cuts through the relatively pristine forest of the central highlands at the Leuser national park, and this would have notorious permanent negative impacts on the environment.
It is estimated that already 40% of the Philippines territory has been given away under the form of concessions to multinational mining companies. However, this process has not happened without opposition. From the Cordillera region in northern Philippines to the South Eastern region of the Palawan Island, the Subanen, Tagbunau, Pala'wan, Tau't bato and Batak indigenous groups (see WRM bulletins Nº 11, 28, 67) have struggled to defend their territories from the pervasive impacts of mining.
On 1 December 2003, SmartWood suspended the Forest Stewardship Council certification of two of Forest Industry Organisation’s teak plantations. SmartWood is accredited by FSC to assess whether forestry operations conform to FSC’s principles for well managed forests or plantations.
On the night of 26 November 2003, journalist Germán Antonio Rivas was shot and killed. He was the managing director of Corporación Maya Visión television station, which broadcasts from the western city of Santa Rosa de Copán, on the border with Guatemala. He was the director of the news program “CMV-Noticias,” known for its criticism of the installation of a mining operation within the Guisayote National Park in the department of Ocotepeque, questioning the activities of the mining company due to the impact they would have on the environment and the conservation of natural resources.