Mapuche Press Release. The national march for the recognition of the Mapuche Nation and its rights is advancing towards Santiago and more than one hundred Mapuche have walked 200 kms in seven days.
After seven days, more than one hundred Mapuche have walked some 200 kms from Temuco, Wallmapuche -Mapuche Territory- heading towards Santiago de Chile with the aim of achieving the recognition of the basic rights and freedoms of the Mapuche People.
Bulletin articles
A second grade teacher in a Chicago inner-city school says she received six or seven phone calls from an official in the Boise Cascade Corporation who wanted to know why she was teaching "bad things" about his company.
The teacher, Maria Gilfillan, had been teaching her second-graders about rainforests. As a class, they talked about how they could help conserve forests. One way, they decided, was to stop using paper towels. They use the drip-dry method instead!
The recent murders of three activists - Ingrid Washinawatok, a member of the Menominee tribe from New York, Terence Freitas, from Oakland, and Lahe'ena'e Gay, from Hawaii- who were assisting the U'wa indigenous people to protect their land from oil drilling, illustrate the high level of violence in conflicts concerning the use of resources and territorial issues in the South American rainforests and calls into question U.S. foreign policy (see WRM Bulletin 21)
Given that both deforestation and the expansion of tree monocultures are negative processes affecting people and the environment in Paraguay, local NGOs are actively involved in the monitoring of such processes.
Growing opposition to monoculture tree plantations has forced the forestry sector to respond to NGO claims that this type of forestry model is detrimental to the environment and that it does not benefit the country or its people. They chose to use "science" as a weapon to counteract such claims.
The communities of Morador and Tierra Buena in Venezuela's continue struggling against pulp and paper transnational Jefferson Smurfit, responsible for deforestation activities and for the set up of vast tree plantations in Portuguesa State, and questioning the authorities' attitude in relation to this conflict. The WRM has been actively supporting this struggle (see WRM Bulletins 18, 20 and 22).
Placencia Lagoon in southern Belize separates the Placencia Peninsula from the southern Belize mainland. Mangroves in the Lagoon are an essential component of the Placencia Peninsula estuary system, filtering inland water, protecting the coastline and serving as home to large numbers species of the tropical wildlife.
The Tehuantepec Isthmus is home to the most important humid tropical forests in a country considered one of the five most megabiodiverse countries in the world. The area is also the only natural bridge between tropical subhumid and humid forests of the Pacific and the Golf of Mexico coasts. It is also the region with the greatest availability of accessible water.
The community of Ejido Pino Gordo, in the State of Chihuahua, formed by Tarahuamaras (or Raramuris, as they call themselves) indigenous peoples, is struggling against illegal logging that is destroying the 200-year old forests that surround their village in the Sierra Madre, about 850 miles northwest of Mexico City.
A very interesting debate on the impacts of tree monocultures in South Africa is currently taking place in the SAWAC (Southern Africa Water Crisis) web site.
The debate starts with some critical comments on an article published in Sawubona magazine ("How green are my forests"), in which the forestry industry presents itself as the champion of nature conservation. The Chief Director of the Forestry Department of Water Affairs and Forestry replies defending that position, while other participants in the debate also express their points of view questioning the industry's approach.
The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests will be meeting from 3-14 May in Geneva to continue working on the implementation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests' proposals for action and on other matters left pending. Among the different inputs this meeting will be receiving, we would like to focus on two intersessional meetings, one held in Costa Rica (on the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation) and another in Chile (on tree plantations), which have resulted in a number of conclusions and recommendations which will be considered by IFF3.
Thousands of hectares of mangrove forest and fresh water swamps of the Niger Delta, in the Cross River State, will be destroyed by ongoing oil exploitation activities. Responsible for the situation are the companies Moni Polu Nigeria Limited, that in early 1998 started its oil prospections in the area, and Nobles Drilling, which was contracted to start drilling oil wells. By December 1998 about 8 oil wells had been sunk. A 1000 km long pipeline, that will pass through over 25 communities, has also been programmed.