In July, the Vietnam Laos Investment and Development Company signed a $232 million deal with the Lao Government to build and operate the 210 MW Sekaman 3 dam. This month the Lao Government announced its approval for the consortium to build five more dams: Se Kong 4 (310 MW), Se Kong 5 (200 MW), Se Pian-Se Nam Noi (340 MW), the Sekaman 1 (300 MW) and Sekaman 4 (55 MW).
Bulletin articles
Samnao Srisongkhram (1965-2003), who was shot in the head and killed by a hired gunman on 25 May, was a village leader praised for his work defending the interests of fellow farmers in an area of Thailand’s Northeast affected by pollution from a large pulp mill. He was 38.
Samnao, of Khambongpattana village in Khon Kaen province, was President of the local Phong River Conservation Club. He had played a part in monitoring and ensuring compensation for the effects of pollution from the Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company since 1996.
During the month of July 2003, measures of intimidation and threats towards members of the Environmental Movement of Olancho (Movimiento Ambientalista de Olancho –MAO) culminating in the murder of Carlos Arturo Reyes from the El Rosario community, Salama Municipality, Olancho on 18 July 2002 (see WRM Bulletin 72) were denounced before Honduran and international public opinion.
The municipality of Bonanza belongs to the North Atlantic Autonomous Region. Since 1880, when gold deposits were discovered, the region has suffered from the "gold rush." It also gave rise to strong migratory currents from many parts of the world in the search for this metal. Presently, the main economic activities of the region continue to be the exploitation together with industrial and artisan processing of gold, and subsistence agriculture.
Chiapas is a zone that is very rich in natural resources, where water and forests are abundant, and who says forests, says diversity, fruit, seeds, flowers, wild animals, fish, medicinal plants, materials for various uses --for firewood, building, crafts, implements, etc.
In some cases following a very dubious public participation process and in others, causing strong reaction, the Protected Areas Bill was submitted to consultation. In general, there is rejection of the Bill’s attempt to legalize entry of oil and mining companies into protected areas such as the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory, and the Amboro and Madidi Parks. Peasant organizations in Cochabamba stated that if protected areas are for the oil or logging companies, they prefer them not to exist.
In many regions of Brazil, woodlands and areas previously used for agriculture are now substituted by large-scale monoculture tree plantations, recruiting their work force among men, women and children. In the case of Minas Gerais, plantation implies a series of activities carried out by women on a par with men, except logging which is a masculine activity par excellence.
In 1980 the Shell Company, logging companies and Evangelical missions forced contact with the Indigenous Yora people, causing the death of approximately 50% of the population due to epidemics. Indigenous organizations requested the government to set up a reserve, which they finally obtained in 1990.
Plantation forestry --promoted by the 1987 forestry law and consisting of large-scale monoculture plantations of alien trees-- promised an infinite number of benefits to the country: exports, industry, thousands of new jobs. Subsidies, tax exemptions for the import of machinery and industrial equipment, land rates, net worth tax, credits from the World Bank and the Bank of the Republic and the possibility of corporations becoming owners of the land by means of exceptions to the law, were some of the benefits those entrepreneurs received.
Will it ever be possible to resolve community conflict around natural resource management - particularly the logging of forests - in Australia?
Oil palm is now Papua New Guinea’s largest agricultural foreign exchange earner, ahead of coffee. At present, there are four major oil palm projects, most of them of the Nucleus Estate model with a ‘parent’ palm oil company predominantly foreign owned. Under such scheme, growers are organized into Village Oil Palm (VOP) and Leaseholders. VOP are operated by landowners in their own customary lands. Leaseholders lease land from other landowners for the plantings.
September 2003 is a crucial month for the global environment movement. During September, global trade talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation are to be held in Cancun, Mexico. Social and environmental organisations plan sharp protests against the way the Bretton Woods organisations are still pushing the world headlong down a slide towards unregulated markets, international trade without equity and liberalization without restraint.