Sweden, Finland and Norway rarely appear in the media. At least not in relation with the North's footprint in the South and even less so in deforestation-related matters. The US, Canada, Japan and many West European countries usually dominate the headlines. And they certainly deserve it, since corporations based in those countries are actively extracting ever increasing resources from the South and destroying the local and global environment in the process.
Bulletin articles
A report recently released on the situation of the forestry sector in Gabon confirms the existence of a negative trend that is leading to the destruction of the country's rich primary forests to the hands of a few foreign companies (see WRM Bulletin 28).
Blaming the victims is common practice in many places. In the case of Nigeria, such practice can only be defined as criminal. On July 11, more than 200 villagers from Adeje died when a gasoline pipeline exploded. Many others suffer from terrible injuries. The media reports that "the victims were villagers who were scooping up gasoline after the pipeline, which carries refined petroleum products from Warri to northern Nigeria, was punctured by thieves on Sunday night." So they were theives and those who punctured the pipeline were "vandals". As easy as that. End of the story.
Located at the Northern limit of the African tropical forest region, Togo still has 1,396,200 hectares of forest cover, which represents 24% of the country's total area. In a landscape dominated by the savanna, forests constitute a very important biodiversity site as well as a fundamental source of livelihoods for local communities. Nevertheless, forest management in Togo has been facing important problems.
The story is not new. Dam megaprojects, presented to Southern governments and local communities as a token of prosperity and progress, bring disaster with them. The promotion of foreign investments disregarding the protection of the environment and the peoples' claims is now menacing the survival of Bujagali Falls in Uganda. The government is promoting the construction of a huge dam which, if realized, will destroy the scenic virgin beauty of the Bujagali falls, and the living space of thousands of people.
Gas and oil exploitation constitute a cause of forest destruction and human rights abuses in many countries and particularly in Burma. The construction of the Yadana gas pipeline -linking gas fields in this country with Thailand- constitutes one of the hotspots regarding nature conservation and human rights in that country.
Indorayon's pulp and rayon factory (PT IIU) in Porsea, North Sumatra, has provoked a long socio-environmental conflict in the region, where villagers and local NGOs have been demanding its closure -due to the pollution affecting Lake Toba because of the factory effluents, the destruction of the forests of the area and the plantation of tree monocultures to obtain raw material- while the mill's workers want to keep it open in the absence of other job opportunities in the region.
Over the last decade or so Thailand has seen repeated protests against eucalyptus plantations. Villagers have taken part in marches, uprooted trees, set fire to plantations, declared their lands "eucalyptus free" and reclaimed plantation land by regenerating community forests. (See WRM Bulletin no. 8) Despite these protests and the problems associated with eucalyptus plantations, Thailand's two largest pulp and paper producers Phoenix Pulp and Paper Plc and Advance Agro Plc are currently planning large scale expansions.
Palms are typical of the coastal landscape in the Pacific region of Honduras, inhabited by the Garifuna communities. They are descendants from Africans that were brought to the region after the Spanish Conquest and have developed a culture strongly related to their environment, of which palms are an essential component. Palms occupy an area of 6,000 hectares and about one million people depend directly or indirectly upon it.
The Maya Biosphere Reserve in the region of Petén has been at the centre of a strong dispute where peasant communities, Guatemalan and international NGOs, the national government and oil companies are involved. The problem started in 1997 when the government put out to tender for oil exploitation an area of 300,000 hectares belonging to this Reserve, part of which comprises a territory which has been traditionally used by local communities.
Northern Santiago del Estero Province is mostly inhabited by people of mixed Quichua and Spanish descent. During the 19th century the province -as well as the whole region of the Great Chaco- suffered the environmental destruction provoked by powerful European logging companies, which used peasants as workers under a near-slavery system. After the region was almost completely deforested and logging was no longer profitable, foreign companies left the country leaving a landscape of devastation and poverty behind.
News about the association of Stora Enso with Aracruz Celulose is certainly bad news for local people in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, dominated by three major pulp corporations: Veracel, Aracruz and Bahia Sul. Veracel will now be jointly owned by Stora Enso and Aracruz (with 10% of the remaining shares in the hands of Brazilian group Odebretch). These three companies own more than 300,000 hectares of fast-growing eucalyptus monocultures, which are having strong negative impacts on water, soils and biodiversity which also impact negatively on local peoples' livelihoods.