Many years before there was scientific evidence of the destruction of the environment, the major artists and poets had noted the phenomenon in their essays, songs and poetry. In Puerto Rico, authors such as Enrique Laguerre, Abelardo Diaz Alfaro and Luis Llorens Torres denounced the destruction of our beautiful landscape and valuable natural resources, done in the name of "progress". The well-known poet, Juan Antonio Corretjer observed with great pain the overwhelming encroachment of concrete and the use of poisonous chemicals in Puerto Rican farming.
Bulletin articles
On 23 November, 2002, at the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention for the conservation of wetlands, held in Valencia, Spain, the Honduran environmental organisation, Committee for the Defence and Development of Flora and Fauna in the Gulf of Fonseca (Comité para la Defensa y Desarrollo de la Flora y Fauna del Golfo de Fonseca - CODDEFFAGOLF), denounced serious irregularities that involve its country's official representation, discredit the Ramsar Convention and undermine attempts to conserve mangrove forests, lagoons and other coastal wetlands.
The phyto-geographical region of the Yungas, or cloud forest, is a humid forest occurring in mountainous sectors linked to the cordillera of the Andes. It extends in a discontinuous way from Venezuela, through Ecuador, crossing Peru and Bolivia and reaching the north east of Argentina where its extreme remnants are to be observed in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucuman and Catamarca. In general, conservation of this zone comes under the National Park system: Baritú and el Rey in the province of Salta, Calilegua in the province of Jujuy and Campo Los Alisos in the Province of Tucuman.
In 2002, hope overcame fear. In 2003, hope may result in a political agreement between the middle class voters who, devastated by unemployment and impoverished by the economic policy, lost their fear of change, and the worker voters who, hounded by poverty and violence, no longer fear being happy.
According to information available in FSC's web page, seven companies in Chile have certified "forests" covering a total area of 262,168 hectares. However, only one of these companies (Las Cruces S.A.) is actually managing a forest, covering an area of only 3,588 hectares. The rest (258,580 hectares) are monoculture tree plantations, which unfortunately continue to be considered as "forests" by FSC.
In Ecuador, the Esmeraldas forests are part of the relict tropical forests on the Pacific coast of America. These forests are part of the Choco bio-geographical region, one of the planet's ten "hot spots", stretching from the South of Panama to the North of Esmeraldas. There are some 10,000 species of plants in this zone, of which some 2,500 are endemic. This is the home of the Awa, Chachi and Tsachila peoples and of Afro-Ecuadorian communities, which keep up traditional life styles.
The richness of PNG's forests is well known, and so is their level of destruction due to industrial logging. This unsustainable activity --in most cases related to high levels of corruption-- has provided large revenues to corporations while at the same time has left local communities without their sources of livelihoods.
Local Non Governmental Organizations --organized under the Papua New Guinea Eco Forestry Forum-- together with local land owners are pushing forward another model of forest management (see WRM Bulletin 44).
Three important international forest-related events took place during 2002: the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity; the World Summit on Sustainable Development; and the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change. They were not much use. Beyond the rhetoric and the commitments agreed on at these and previous meetings, no positive impact can be noted.
Burdened by a mounting foreign debt and pushed by globalisation and trade liberalisation, Ghana, as many other West African countries, has had its ability to finance domestic public spending severely constrained. In addition most of the exports of African countries suffer decline in prices leading to overall poor returns in revenue and contributing to huge budget deficits.
A traditional hunter, gatherer and honey collector culture, the Sengwer are an indigenous ethnic group from Kenya's Rift Valley, who used to live in small scattered groups spread over large areas in the plains of Kapchepkoilel (Trans Nzoia) and part of Uasin Gishu.
The cuddly tree logo of the Forest Stewardship Council adorns the products of alien industrial tree plantations, as well as those of the real thing (forests, that is). It could mean virtually anything to the average person buying those products, but it is clear that the intention of the logo is to enhance the marketability of the timber products in question.
According to a paper produced by the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Forestry and Beekeeping Division, the Forest Policy in Tanzania identifies deforestation as the major problem in forest management, which is believed to proceed at the rate from 130,000 to 500,000 hectares per year. The main areas affected are unreserved lands belonging to the government. The reasons for deforestation are clearing for agriculture, overgrazing and wildfires, charcoal burning and over exploitation of wood resources.