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.
Bulletin articles
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.
On 4 December, thousands of people from cities and villages in the Provinces of Chubut and Rio Negro again marched together with the neighbours of Esquel to say “NO to the Mine.” This reaffirmation by the people took place in the midst of a new mining encroachment, as personnel of these corporations are scouring the outskirts of Cholila (in Chubut, a few kilometres from the Los Alerces National Park). If mining activities continue, various lake systems and the Patagonian Andean forest will be endangered.
The Plantar forestry company located in the State of Minas Gerais has large eucalyptus plantations in the zone, established at the expense of evicting the local populations. They were also established at the expense of the typical forest in the zone (the “cerrado”), and the trees were converted into charcoal to supply the iron and steel industry and replaced by eucalyptus, planted for the same objective.
On 12 December, the Matte (CMPC companies), Angelini (Arauco) forestry groups and a number of Chilean and US environmental NGOs signed an agreement (see http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Chile/article2.html ) whereby the companies have agreed to conserve the areas of native forest existing on their properties – representing 2.8% of the total surface of the native forests in the country – and not replace them by tree plantations.
In 1998, the author Joe Broderick finished his research on the Smurfit Carton de Colombia company, publishing his book “El imperio de cartón: impacto de una multinacional papelera en Colombia” (The Cardboard empire: the impact of a multinational paper company in Colombia). In this book he provides details of the serious social and environmental impacts caused by the activities of a branch of the Irish transnational company, Jefferson Smurfit in that country.
The Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be meeting in Milan, Italy, from 1-12 December. Unfortunately, expectations from the meeting are extremely low, given that the whole process has shifted from addressing climate change to marketing carbon emissions. Money-making is what the meeting will be mostly about, unless public pressure forces government delegates to change course.