Few large-scale industrial tree plantations have so far successfully been developed in Laos. However, companies and aid agencies are keen to promote them through changing Lao forest policy and through subsidies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is leading the push for plantations in Laos, particularly through its US$11.2 million "Industrial Tree Plantation Project" (see WRM Bulletin 43).
Bulletin articles
Community map making has been an increasingly important tool for the indigenous communities in Sarawak. For people struggling to prove their land rights, the making of a map has been a necessary step in getting the boundaries of their lands recognised. In Sarawak, numerous NGOs have assisted communities in making maps of their village boundaries, which have then been used as evidence in court cases, as a resource management tool, and for many other purposes.
Christopher Gibbs of the World Bank office in Hanoi, requested that WRM publish his response to article on Vietnam in WRM Bulletin 51. Mr Gibbs' letter is reproduced in full below, followed by Chris Lang's reply.
November 16, 2001
Dear WRM,
Some years ago, geologists from the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) found that important bauxite deposits were present in the subsoil of the El General Valley in Costa Rica. In 1970, the country’s Legislative Assembly passed law No. 4562, relative to an industrial contract whereby ALCOA has (or had, we still do not know), the right to exploit, for 25 years and with a possible 15 year extension, a volume of up to 120 million tons of bauxite and the obligation to install an aluminium refinery in the same Canton.
Digna Ochoa, the lawyer defending Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera recently liberated (see article in this section), untiring defender of peasant rights, has been murdered. At 37, she had spent over 10 years defending the rights of the communities from an unjust system privatising local forest resources in favour of major national and foreign companies. Her murder is a symbol, both of the dignity of the Mexican people, and of the unworthiness of those holding power.
It is with great pleasure that we received news on Thursday 8 November that a few hours previously, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, the environmentalist peasants, unjustly imprisoned in Guerrero since May 1999, had been liberated. President Fox has not recognised their innocence, but under the pressure of the unanimous claim of Mexican and international society, he has pardoned them for humanitarian reasons.
In February last year, “Río Foyel S.A.” a company set up in March 1999 and recent owner of a 7,800 hectare plot located in the zone of El Foyel, in the southern province of Rio Negro, submitted a project for the logging of four thousand hectares of ñire native forest and then reforestation of the zone with exotic Oregon and Radiata pine and the “sustainable” management of over 1,800 hectares of native species (see WRM Bulletin 38, September 2000).
What has recently happened in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo is a great motivation for people struggling throughout the world to halt the further spread of monoculture tree plantations. The news is that the State Parliament finally passed a law --after lifting the Governor's veto by 20 votes in 25-- which bans eucalyptus plantations in the state until an agroecological mapping --which will determine where eucalyptus can and cannot be planted-- is carried out.
For some time now we have been addressing the issue of oil palm plantations. But it was in our June 2001 special bulletin --entirely devoted to the subject-- and in the book "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm: dispossession and deforestation", that we entered more specifically into the derivations that this large-scale monoculture has on the situation of the workers.
Throughout the world, tree plantations and the installation of pulp mills are promoted by governments using, among others, the argument that these activities generate employment. However the true situation shows how false this argument is.
There are clearly two conflicting international agendas, one positive and another negative. The former, officialized in international fora such as the 1992 Earth Summit and its related conventions and processes, is aimed at the sustainable use of resources for the benefit of the present and future generations. But there is another international agenda, aimed at increasing production, trade and consumption of all types of products, regardless of their sustainability, for the benefit of private business and governments.
Every November 7th, the Korunamoyee Memorial Day takes place in Harinkhola. Korunamoyee Sardar has become a symbol of the struggle for land rights and against shrimp farming among the landless people in Bangladesh. I asked some people to tell me what happened that day, ten years ago.