With 22,960 square kilometres and 220,000 inhabitants Belize is the smallest and less populated country in Central America. 83% of its territory is covered by forests, most of them in a pristine state, and 40% of the country is now protected as parks and reserves. As in many other Southern countries dam megaprojects are a major problem for Belize's forests and people.
Bulletin articles
Jorge Varela, co-founder of the Committee for the Defence and Development of Flora and Fauna of the Fonseca Gulf (CODEFFAGOLF), a grassroot organization of small fishers and peasants in Honduras, is one of the seven environmental and human rights activists that have been awarded with the Goldman Prize 1999. This NGO has focused its activities in the defence of the Fonseca Gulf area against industrial shrimp farming, that has provoked the destruction of mangroves and other coastal wetlands, the pollution of estuaries, the loss of fisheries and the shortage of food for local villagers.
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.
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.