The expansion of tourism has meant the increase of the possibility of enjoying leisure time for many people wordwide. Nevertheless, tourism usually brings negative social and environmental consequences with it and more so in the case of the fragile mangrove ecosystems.
Bulletin articles
Three good human beings -Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatek and Lahe'ena'e Gay- were murdered on March 4th in Colombia. A FARC guerrilla commander committed this outrageous and senseless crime, which has deserved universal condemnation. We strongly adhere to that condemnation.
A workshop on “Petroleum and Local Resistance”, organized by Environmental Rights Action, took place at Port Harcourt, Nigeria, from 9 to 14 February. Oilwatch Africa also held its assembly in the same place. Delegates from several countries in the region --Cameroon, Ghana, Gabon, Chad and Nigeria-- as well as representatives of Oilwatch International attended both events, after which the group made a trip to oil fields in the Niger Delta, where a strong conflict between Shell and the indigenous Ogoni people is ongoing.
The expansion of the paper industry worldwide is provoking severe social and environmental problems through three types of activities which are part of its production chain: the chipping of native forests, the plantation of extensive monocultures --that generally follow the previous clearcutting of the forest-- and the pollution of water and air caused by the industrial process itself.
Forests of Cambodia are being menaced by Vietnamese loggers (see WRM Bulletin 18). However, this not the only problem that Cambodian forests are facing. Half of the mangroves of the province of Koh Kong have been cleared either for shrimp farming or for high quality charcoal production. Of the province's original 10,000 hectares of mangrove forest, only 5,000 remain nowadays. Five years ago, the Ministry of the Environment had warned that the clearing of the mangroves would irreparably damage fisheries and wildlife in the area.
Industrial shrimp pools are increasingly occupying mangroves areas (see article above and the one related to Ecuador in this issue) and agricultural lands in many Southern countries. Their expansion is being strongly resisted by local peasants who have to suffer repression together with the loss of their land and livelihood. Sometimes peasants are forced to become exploited workers at the service of the companies. One example is coming from Indonesia.
For years, environmentalists have accused Indorayon's paper and rayon pulp factory (PT IIU) in Porsea, near Lake Toba in North Sumatra, of polluting the lake and its rivers, clearing the surrounding forests and setting up monoculture plantations of eucalyptus and acacia to obtain raw material. Countless demonstrations and protests have accompanied the company's activity and an Indonesian NGO (WALHI) even brought up a court case against both the company and the government which sanctioned its construction in 1989, for the high level of pollution it was provoking.
Carmelita and Uaxactun are two communities who for over 80 years have been living within the boundaries of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala (created in 1989), which is currently menaced by oil concessions. The Reserve involves an area of 16,000 sq.km, and constitutes the largest protected tropical forest in the country. Both communities have traditionally lived on the extraction of “xate” (Chamaedorea spp.), the exploitation of "chicle" (chewing gum, Manilkara achras) and the commercial use of pepper (Pimenta dioica), having established a sustainable use pattern of the resources.
At the end of October and the beginning of November 1998, the Northwestern region of Nicaragua was devastated by hurricane Mitch. The consequences of this natural disaster were enhanced by the extreme vulnerability of the country, by the lack of organization to face this kind of phenomena and by a historically unsustainable use of the land. For example, in the Western Region almost 80% of the rivers have dried up during the last 30 years because of the felling of dry tropical forests (see article below).
The Nicaraguan territory lies in a zone of the Earth especially prone to natural phenomena such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. Their consequences are generally presented as the result of the rage of nature, without taking into account that the negative effects of natural agents depends not only upon their intensity but also on the vulnerability of the affected society and territory.
Statistics of year 1997 show that the deforestation rate in Costa Rica reached 16,400 hectares a year while the reforestation rate was by that time of 12,600 hectares a year. These figures could make us think that there is only a slightly negative balance in annual forest cover. Nevertheless it needs to be underscored that “reforestation” is based upon monocultures of exotic species as gmelina, teak and pine, and the regrowth of secondary forests, while primary forests continue to disappear.
Critics to tree plantations mostly refer to eucalyptus or pine monocultures and to their negative environmental and social impacts. Here we present a different case, based on interesting comments whose more relevant fragments we transcribe- we have received related to a recently published book on a teak plantation project in Costa Rica, written by Dr. P. Romeijn: