The Hoktek T’oi community of the Wichi People (Province of Salta, Argentina) has just won a resounding victory in the court action they brought against the Provincial government for the permit granted in 1996 by the Environmental Secretariat to the Los Cordobeses S.A. company, for the deforestation of 1,838 hectares of the community’s traditional territory (see WRM Bulletin 49).
Bulletin articles
During the second half of September this year, the Ecuadorian NGO Acción Ecológica organized a national meeting in Quito on the subject of “Plantations are not forests.” On 20 and 21 September, approximately 40 organizations representing Ecuadorian Indigenous movements, peasants, people of Afro-Ecuadorian descent, NGOs and parliamentarians, together with representatives from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay analysed the issue of plantations and exchanged experiences.
Like so many other countries in the South, Uruguay has been convinced (by FAO, the World Bank and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, among others) that it should promote large-scale tree plantations. From the start, it was very clear that the objective was to produce sufficient raw material for pulp production and for this reason, fundamentally, the plantation of eucalyptus was promoted.
The Imataca Forest Reserve’s native forest, located in the extreme east of the country, of imposing scenic beauty and rich biological diversity, fulfils a fundamental role in soil and water protection – of the rivers Yuruan, Cuyuni, Orinoco, Brazo Imataca, Rio Grande, Botanamo, Barima, Orocaima – and is a cultural and sacred reserve for the Indigenous Peoples.
My family's individual struggle and victimisation is typical of what is happening across the populated and high-rainfall areas of rural Australia. In 1984 we moved to North West Tasmania and chose a relatively isolated area to live --one that was away from farms that used chemicals and where the stands of native bush were extensive and beautiful.
The month of September has certainly been rich in important events, warranting the active participation of relevant social actors. The ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico, was doubtlessly the most resounding one, both because of the presence of thousands of people and organizations from all over the world, demonstrating in the streets against the WTO, and because of the firm attitude of some countries from the South, in facing the domineering attitude of certain governments from the North. The world will never be the same after Cancun.
From October 13th to 16th the Africa Forest Law Enforcement and Governance ministerial meeting will take place in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Whether this initiative will result in any concrete actions to tackle the immense problem of illegal and unsustainable logging operations in Africa remains to be seen. In the meantime, illegal logging in Cameroon’s forests continues to wreak havoc on the environment, economy and local peoples’ livelihoods.
Kenya is a semi-arid country and is classified among countries affected by chronic water scarcity in both its urban and rural areas. Within such context, the planting of eucalyptus trees appears to be suicidal. And it certainly is.
The term "sustainability", which also means "maintainability" is readily and loosely used nowadays and is often quoted as the "magic buzzword" whenever politicians and entrepreneurs alike wish to gain easy acceptance for a proposed development or programme.
The acting commissioner for forestry, Deo Byarugaba, said a recent study by the forestry department revealed that indiscriminate logging and charcoal burning had destroyed hundreds of square miles of forest land.
Tadao Chino, the President of the Asian Development Bank knows what civil society wants from his Bank. During the ADB’s 2001 Annual General Meeting in Hawai’i, President Chino accepted a statement, "People’s Challenge to the ADB", signed by 68 NGOs. The statement included the demand that "Directions for future policies and practices must emerge from public debates and discussions, and not through closed-door negotiations among elite groups of ADB management, national and government elites and technical ‘experts’."
Since the 1960s, Cambodia has been promoting the rehabilitation of rubber plantations as well as the development of new ones. As long as rubber plantations involve using large areas of land, many people have been evicted from their traditional lands and many more have lost their livelihoods, to make way for the plantations (See WRM Bulletin Nº 59).