Recently, an article on the major "threat" posed to South African indigenous forests by illegal gatherers of medicinal plants has been widely disseminated. Michael Peter, Director of Indigenous Forestry Management of the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, said that "The medicinal plant trade is the single largest cause of indigenous forest degradation in South Africa".
Bulletin articles
"The strategy consisted of surviving." The population of Timor gave this answer to an Oilwatch delegation visiting the country a week after declaration of independence. To keep alive during the massacre unleashed and organised by the president of Indonesia. They even told us that the president of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, acted as a magician to save his life, thanks to a sleight of hand, when he was detained in 1992. He owes his life to magic.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is funding a US$1.4 million evaluation and due diligence study of the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam in Laos. Despite the project's massive impacts on forests, under the terms of the Bank's proposed new forestry policy the ADB has no obligation to consider whether the Nam Theun 2 dam project complies with its forestry policy.
Women are more than half --around 30.000-- of the workforce in Malaysian plantations, and have been historically employed as unskilled, temporary contract workers doing the most menial and underpaid jobs. Urbanisation and industrialisation has pushed men and the young to work in the new industrial zones while women stay on and continue to take on any job so that they can have a house and basic amenities provided by the plantation company, which are otherwise beyond their reach. Thus, women have played the dual role of providing cheap labour and social stability.
In Vietnam's mountainous northwest, the Son La People's Committee has moved the first 52 people of a total of 91,000 that will be forcibly evicted to make way for the massive Son La dam. In March, the authorities moved eight families of indigenous White Thai people to a new site, 200 kilometres from their homes in Muong La district. At least 13 indigenous groups live in the 275 square kilometres that would be flooded by the reservoir behind the dam.
In November 2001, a Belizean court had ruled in favour of the construction of a hydro-electric dam on the upper Macal river by Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), the majority of which is owned by Fortis, Inc. of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, (see WRM bulletins 44 and 54). The Belizean government has privatised its electricity industry, just keeping a minority share of BEL. Fortis Inc. is the owner of both the energy distribution company in Belize (Belize Electricity Limited, BEL) and the largest energy supplier in the country (Belize Electricity Company, BECOL).
The municipality of Chichicastenango is located in the department of Quiché, one of the most populated departments in the country and the one possessing the greatest number of Maya tongues, such as Uspanteco, Ixil, Sacapulteco, Quekchí and Quiché. To reach this municipality, you have to take a road that goes through steep slopes with sharp turnings and deep ravines, some covered by mixed forests mainly consisting of pine and oak trees. This municipality is located in the country's western high plateau and the climate is temperate and cold.
Genetic engineering is racing ahead to provide genetically tailored trees designed for commercial plantations with traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content in trees for commercial convenience.
The forestry plan promoted by the Government --based on large monoculture tree plantations of eucalyptus and pine-- promised large profits to the country, among which employment generation. Not only has this objective not been accomplished, but it has also been seen that the scant employment generated is usually temporary and under working conditions that in general leave much to be desired. The events that took place at the beginning of this month are a clear demonstration of what environmental organizations have long been denouncing.
Official figures from the PNG Forest Authority show that between 1993 and 2001 a total of 20 million cubic meters of logs were exported from PNG. If all those logs were laid side by side they would stretch for over 1,000 kilometres. If they were laid end to end they would stretch for 7,000 kilometres.
In the last 10 years most of the logs have been taken from West New Britain but now those forests are almost gone. Now the logging companies in PNG --most of them Malaysian-- are getting most of their logs from Western and Gulf Provinces.
In spite of what its title might suggest, this editorial is not about the war declared by the government of the United States against the people of Irak; it's about the never ending war declared by oil interests against the planet and its peoples.
In last month's issue of the WRM bulletin we quoted activist Karl Ammann's open letter to World Bank's President Wolfensohn --wrongly attributed to Jane Dewar-- in which he denounces that World Bank assistance to massive reactivation of the forestry sector would imply new logging concessions in primary rainforests with the subsequent detrimental impact on the environment and the people. (the ammended article is available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/67/AF.html#Congo )