To coincide with the World Parks Congress, the World Rainforest Movement and the Forest Peoples Programme, are launching a new book, “Salvaging Nature: Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation.” Written by FPP Director Marcus Colchester, the book provides a detailed review of the experience of indigenous peoples with protected areas and makes strong recommendations for how the current and all too prevalent conflicts between the two can be overcome.
Bulletin articles
The world’s first ‘Park’, established in Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada in California was the homeland of the Miwok people. The startling landscapes of Yosemite, substantially an outcome of indigenous land use systems, were proposed for conservation by the very same settlers and miners who, twelve years previously, had waged the 'Mariposa Indian War' against the area's indigenous people - the Miwok. In this one-sided struggle, forces sanctioned by the US Government made repeated attacks on Indian settlements.
Resolution 1.49 on Indigenous Peoples and the IUCN calls upon members ‘to consider the adoption and implementation of the objectives of’ ILO Convention 169 and the CBD, ‘and comply with the spirit of’ the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Resolution 1.50 on Indigenous Peoples, Intellectual Property and Biological Diversity recognizes ‘the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and territories and natural resources, as well as their role in management, use and conservation, as a requirement for the effective implementation’ of the CBD.
Two weeks ago, the WRM and Oilwatch disseminated an open letter to David Kaimowitz, Director of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), expressing our concern over a CIFOR research paper "which appears to give green credentials to two activities that are at the core of deforestation and forest degradation: oil and mining." (see letter at http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/oil/Cifor.html )
We have already reported extensively the pervasive environmental and social impacts that the Chad-Cameroon oil-pipeline is likely to have (see WRM Bulletins 66, 45, 41, 35, 14 and 2), but there's already a lot to be said of the present impacts of the three-year long World Bank-sponsored project to build a 670-mile pipeline. The pipeline will channel oil from fields in Chad, through thick rainforests inhabited by Pygmy people in Cameroon up to this country's shores at the Atlantic Ocean.
Madagascar is widely recognised as one of the most ecologically rich countries in the world, hosting unique plant and animal species. However, dating from French colonisation, the export-led production pattern was introduced in the country. Logging of primary rainforests for use in railroad construction and timber exports, and major forest clearance of the most fertile areas for cash-crop plantations was carried out, throwing a mainly subsistence farming society into famine and scarcity (see WRM Bulletin 66).
Sao Tome and Principe is an archipelago covering 1001 km², a tropical paradise located in the oil rich Gulf of Guinea, approximately 300 km from the west coast of Africa. It is made up of the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, which are 150 km apart. The islands of the Sao Tome and Principe archipelago are of volcanic origin, with steep slopes clothed in dense and varied vegetation due to the high rainfall. The country gained its independence from Portugal in 1975.
Senegal has announced it will not grant any new permits for quarrying and mining in the country's 233 forest conservation areas. The government of Abdoulaye Wade has said it will encourage companies already operating there to move out as part of efforts to reduce deforestation and protect the environment.
The Bangladeshi organisation BanglaPraxis, together with other local groups, have reacted against a reported move from Shell Bangladesh to conduct an aerial and seismic survey in the Sundarbans mangrove forest from September 27.
The "Coalition to oppose mining in Indonesia's protected areas" has issued a media release to expose how mining activities are encountering strong and mounting opposition at various levels. The Coalition is composed of the following ten groups: JATAM; WALHI-Friends of the Earth; Indonesian Center for Environment Law; WWF Indonesia; Kehati; PELANGI; Forest Watch Indonesia; MPI; POKJA PSDA; PELA.
Electricité de France has pulled out of the Nam Theun 2 dam project in Laos. EDF announced its departure on 17 July 2003, a day before the consortium developing the dam, the Nam Theun 2 Power Company, was to have signed a power purchasing agreement with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).
The French state-owned EDF was the biggest investor in the proposed dam. In June 2001, EDF and Harza Engineering (now Montgomery Watson Harza) formed a joint venture as head contractor to build the dam.
Two plantations managed by Thailand's Forest Industry Organisation (FIO) are currently certified as well managed under the Forest Stewardship Council system (see WRM Bulletins 48 and 64).