In South Africa, more than 1.5 million hectares of managed alien, monoculture tree plantations have been established, and currently more than 130 square km of new plantations are being established annually. Another 1.65 million hectares of alien invader plants exist, mostly eucalyptus, pine and wattle trees.
Bulletin articles
The Jarawa are one of four surviving tribes living in the Andamans, a cluster of islands in the Bay of Bengal, India. Two of these tribes were settled by the colonial British and Indian authorities with catastrophic consequences: one, the Great Andamanese, of whom there were 5000 in 1948, now number only 41 individuals.
Friends of the Earth-UK has just published a detailed report on forest destruction in Indonesia, focused on the damaging environmental and social impacts of Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd, otherwise known as APRIL, one of the biggest pulp and paper companies in the world.
In national forest policy, forests usually refer to land and trees, which can include primary forests of native (indigenous) trees, forests of secondary growth and plantations of commercial trees cultivated by the state or private enterprises. Forests can also refer to trees planted for reforestation or soil conservation, after primary or secondary forests are logged. Forests are seen as containers of physical resources which are commodities for sale.
The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey is endemic to northern Vietnam and is one of the world's most endangered mammal species. Before a group was spotted in Na Hang district in 1992, it was considered extinct. Today, 260 of the monkeys are known to be living in northern Vietnam. Half of the population lives in the Na Hang Nature Reserve, which was created in 1994 specifically to protect the snub-nosed monkey.
A few weeks ago we visited the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica --from Limón to Manzanillo-- and we were really impressed. We are not referring to the scenic beauties of the area nor to the friendliness of its local inhabitants that of course we were able to appreciate. We refer to the threat to open up this beautiful zone to oil exploration by North American companies, with the blessing of the government and of the multilateral financial institutions.
The community of Champerico --localized in Retalhuleu, at the Pacific Ocean coast of Guatemala-- has been fighting in defence of their livelihoods since 1995, when the shrimp farming firm Camarones S.A. (Camarsa) and its subsidiary Pesca S.A. built a fence to prevent public access to the wetlands.
In December 1999, Provincial Law No. 3,631 was sanctioned in Argentina, creating the Overall Conservation and Sustainable Development Area, known as the “Green Corridor of the Province of Misiones.” It involves 22 municipalities and covers an area of 1.108,000 hectares of Parana forest, located in the province of Misiones, spanning a mosaic of landscapes including protected areas, private property put to various uses, agricultural settlements, indigenous communities and varied socio-economic situations and even areas having land use and land tenure conflicts.
Since 1999, the WRM has been reporting profusely (WRM Bulletins 20, 21, 24, 28 and 50) on the dangerous situation of the last significant remaining primary dry tropical forest in the world, the Chiquitano forest, located in Bolivian territory.
This valuable ecosystem will be altered by the gas pipeline that the transnational companies Enron and Shell plan to build between the cities of San Miguel and Cuiabá (Bolivia and Brazil respectively), crossing the region with the well-know environmental impacts caused by this type of “development” project.
An independent scientific investigation carried out by a research team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists led by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, has provided compelling evidence that rates of forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon have accelerated sharply since 1995, returning to the catastrophic levels of the 1970s and 1980s. The research opposes the claims of the Brazilian government that threats to Amazonian forests have fallen in recent years because of improved environmental laws and public attitudes.
The Chilean forestry model, based on the promotion of large-scale monocultures of pine trees and eucalyptus for export, has been implemented at the expense of the environment and of the local peoples. In spite of this fact, both the State and the forestry companies continue to hide the truth and insist that they are “planting forests” and contributing to the country’s development.
Residents of the Waratah-Wynyard Municipality, a tree plantation-devastated community and environment in Tasmania, have issued a Joint Submission to the national authorities, the media, interested bodies and concerned people on January 13, 2002 (the full document is available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Australia/joint.html )