Democracy and environmental groups in Thailand and beyond are shocked and outraged at the way Twentieth Century Fox used the force of power and big money to produce the movie 'The Beach', starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Bulletin articles
The following letter from Jorge Varela of the Committee for the Defence and Development of Flora and Fauna of the Fonseca Gulf (CODEFFAGOLF) was published in Late Friday News nr. 53, a publication of Mangrove Action Project (MAP). In 1999, Jorge was one of the seven environmental and human rights activists to receive the Goldman Prize 1999. In his letter he expresses:
"Tegucigalpa, Honduras, December 8, 1999
Good News From Honduras!
In February 1998, representatives of indigenous communities -Sumus and Miskitos- local and regional authorities, environmental NGOs, and community and religious leaders joined in Rosita, a village on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, to discuss a common strategy against the illegal activities of the Korean transnational logging company Kimyung, which in 1994 had received a concession from the central government on 62,000 hectares of forest in indigenous territories (see WRM bulletin 11). Kimyung operated through the subsidiary SOLCARSA.
The issue of the environmental services that Southern countries can provide to Northern countries to mitigate the effects of global climate change is controversial. On the one hand there is the question of environmental justice at the global level, since those countries that are most responsible for the dangerous alteration of climate on Earth, instead of addressing the causes that are provoking it -for instance the unsustainable energy use and the huge emissions of CO2 by industry- are looking for doubtful and partial solutions, that can be bought for a low price in the South.
The indigenous people Pataxó-Hã-Hã-Hãe are claiming their territorial rights on an area of 53,000 hectares in the Southern Region of the State of Bahia, which contain remnants of the once luxurious "mata atlantica" forest that spread along the Ocean coast. These lands, converted into pastures, were invaded by ranchers, which are using them for cattle raising and, in some areas, for planting cacao. Such use of the land after massive deforestation has caused severe environmental impacts on soils and on water supplies.
The accelerated loss of the Amazon rainforest is perhaps the most notorious case of environmental destruction at a global level. It is not "humanity" as an abstract entity the one responsible for it. A research on forestry policy performed by the Brazilian National Security Agency (SAE) in 1998 concluded that 80% of the timber produced in the Amazon was extracted illegally. Powerful transnational companies were and are direct agents of this devastating activity (see WRM Bulletin 5).
During the long conflict that has involved the U'wa indigenous people -with the support of national and international NGOs and social organizations- and Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), there have been constant comings and goings. For almost a decade, the U'wa people have successfully prevented Oxy from exploiting oil -that they consider the Earth's blood- in their traditional territory.
The Urra hydroelectric dam megaproject in Colombia is causing negative impacts on the Embera Katio indigenous people, ancestral dwellers of the affected area. With the support of Colombian and international NGOs, the Embera Katio are bravely opposing the project boasted by the government, which menaces the permanence of their livelihoods and the survival or their entire culture (see WRM Bulletin 29).
The Mashco Piro, Yora, Amahuaca, and Yaminahua indigenous peoples in the amazonic Alta Piedras region of Madre de Dios in Peru, are being threatened by pending forest concessions. These peoples -called "uncontacted"- which have chosen to remain in isolation from Peruvian society, would have their way of life, as well as their natural resources severely impacted if logging in their ancestral lands actually takes place.
Environmental NGOs are celebrating the success of the newly elected New Zealand government in forcing the State owned logging company, Timberlands, to withdraw its plans to log extensive areas of beech rainforests on the west coast of the country's south island.
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Mekere Morauta has announced the intention of the new government to impose a moratorium on new logging, and to review existing logging concessions, many of which are thought to have been improperly granted and implemented. The announcement was well received by environmental NGOs, which consider that it is time to halt any new large-scale logging concessions in the country.
The increasing demand of paper and paperboard, especially in Northern countries, is one of the direct causes of deforestation and, at the same time, of the expansion of pulpwood plantations -which normally constitute an additional cause of deforestaton- for the obtention of fibre. Paper production and consumption at the global level has reached such alarming figures, that this industry has become one of the most resource-demanding and polluting industries in the world.