Around the year 2002, the forests in the department of Olancho were being devastated by the action of logging companies. Forest destruction was done to feed many saw-mills (both legal and illegal), and in some of them, several parliamentarians were directly involved. While the companies got richer, the local populations received the impact of timber exploitation, in particular the disappearance of water resulting from felling the forest and the ceasing of its function regulating the water cycle.
Bulletin articles
The Second Meso-American Forum against Dams "For the Peoples' Water and Life" was held from 17 to 20 July in Honduras. One hundred and fifty delegates participated, "concerned over the increasing invasion by dam-building projects imposed by large transnational companies and multilateral bodies, in partnership with the corrupt governments of the Meso-American region."
Chiapas, in southern Mexico, is home to peasants, mestizos and indigenous Tzontal, Tzontzil, Chole, Zoque and Tojolabal peoples. There, bananas, cacao, sugar cane, and rice are planted. Each family has its own agricultural plot, where they plant maize and beans for subsistence.
One hundred organizations from Espirito Santo, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais gathered on 28 and 29 June in Porto Seguro, Bahia, at the Second National Meeting of the Alert Against the Green Desert Network. These organizations prepared a letter which shall be sent to President Lula, parliamentarians and to the World Bank, demanding that greater attention be paid to the problem we describe here below.
Lying to the population is one of the tools most commonly used by governments and forestry companies all over the world to impose the model of large-scale monoculture tree plantations. Chile has wide experience in this type of deception. However, increasingly people are becoming organized to struggle against the unjust government policy which favours the companies and to defend the true Chilean forests.
The last uncontacted Indians south of the Amazon basin are being squeezed from all sides. With their last refuge being gradually overrun, they have nowhere left to hide. But if the Paraguayan government acts, the Indians can keep hold of their land and avoid the diseases that threaten to decimate their population.
Over the past 15 years, the Colina municipal authorities backing tourism development have granted lands bordering the De la Vela Mangrove. The consequent building of housing and shops has implied that these lands were filled with rubble at the expense of the ecosystem and the space necessary for mangrove growth.
The concept of "sustainability" is increasingly being emptied of any content, particularly by those who carry out basically unsustainable activities. Among them, mention needs to be made of an activity which is --by definition-- unsustainable: mining. It can be argued that mining is necessary to provide people with a number of goods, but it can certainly not be argued that it can ever be sustainable, being as it is based on the extraction of non-renewable resources.
Mining is the series of activities referring to the discovery and extraction of minerals lying under the surface of the earth. Minerals can be metal (such as gold and copper) or non-metal (such as coal, asbestos and gravel). Metals are mixed with many other elements, but occasionally large quantities of certain metals can be found concentrated in a relatively small area - the deposit - from which one or more metals can be mined with financial benefit.
There is now compelling evidence that mining severely limits a nation's ability to sustain economic growth (even within the narrow definitions usually adhered to by nation states). This is a surprising "discovery" for those who think that "riches" in the ground are unfailingly translated into money in the bank. But for those who adopt an anti-colonialist analysis of capital accumulation, the fundamental reason for the discrepancy is not hard to find. Zaire, Bolivia and Sierra Leone are not merely "poor" -they have been ruthlessly impoverished over hundreds of years.
A growing number of new corporate security operations around the world link former intelligence officers, standing armies, and death squad veterans. They go into battle for new bosses: the mineral industries.
While mining has negative impacts on all those who live in the mining communities in general and those who are affected by the mining operations, there are distinct impacts and added burdens on women.
The differentiated impacts can be begun to be understood in concrete situations, such as that faced by a Dayak woman affected by a mine owned by the company PT-IMK in Indonesia.