The Chilean forestry model has been publicized as an example of modern forestry development and has been exported as such to the countries of the region. However, such forestry development style, implemented during the military dictatorship and resulting in economic concentration, the displacement of thousands of peasants and indigenous people and negative environmental impacts is now being severely challenged --through direct actions-- by those affected. In this case, by the Mapuche indigenous peoples.
Bulletin articles
Indigenous communities of the Sierra de Perija and a group of organizations gathered at the Federacion Ecologista del Zulia are calling for a national march to denounce the problems that are affecting indigenous peoples in that country. The demonstration, that is being organized simultaneously in Caracas, Maracaibo, Trujillo, Barinas, Cabimas and Machiques, will take place next Earth Day (22 April)
Oil prospection and exploitation is one of the most destructive activities affecting tropical forests and local communities worldwide. He are happy to announce that -at last- something positive has happened in Ecuador, where the Government has issued two decrees declaring the territory of Tagarei (773,220 hectares) and the zone of Imuya in Cuyabeno (435,000 hectares) as protected areas in perpetuity.
Ecuador is currently facing an extremely serious social situation as a result of a number of unpopular economic measures adopted by the government -in line with IMF and World Bank recommendations- which have resulted in workers' strikes, peasant and indigenous peoples' demonstrations, road blockades, violence in many parts of the country, rumours of a possible military coup and generalized caos within the country.
The destruction of the Amazon forests is strongly related to the violence that indigenous people and local communities have historically suffered to the hands of big landowners and with the compliance of local authorities. On February 22nd the Oxford Office of the WRM sent letters to several Brazilian authorities expressing concern for the assaults and murders recently happened against Macuxi indogenous people in Roraima State. The text of the letter is as follows:
The provision of political risk insurance for a natural gas pipeline that will cut through a primary tropical forest and a pristine wetlands area at Ipias, in the Bolivian Amazon, is under consideration of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). Amazon Watch, Friends of the Earth, and WWF tried to influence OPIC's Board of Directors for them to deny funding to this project (see WRM Bulletin 20)
Last January Prof. Wangari Maathai, one of the most inspiring ecofeminists and pro-democracy advocates in all of Africa, and other Kenyan activists were attacked by thugs while they were peacefully demonstrating outside Nairobi against the privatization of the Karura Forest. On February 2nd Hon. James Orengo, Hon. David Mwenje and Dr. John Makanga were arrested by the police. The day before, President Moi had spoken in favour of the privatisation of the forest. The three men were arraigned in Court by the end of the day and charged with incitement and released on personal bonds of Ksh.
On January 12th the Penans of Long Sayan and Long Belok set up blockades at strategic road points to prevent Lajung Lumber S.Bhd from conducting logging activities in their communal forest, after the company refused to meet their demands.
In October 1997 Lajung Lumber had signed an agreement with the Penans to log pre-established areas of their communal forest. However the company violated the terms and conditions stipulated in the agreement trying to log undesignated areas even without paying compensation. This abuse provoked the reaction of the indigenous communities.
An accelerated process of plantation of oil palm is going on in Indonesia. The present area of 3.2 million hectares is expected to increase at a rate of 330,000 hectares a year. Since these monocultures invade lands originally occupied by forests and generally inhabited by indigenous peoples and local communities, their expansion means a significative environmental and social problem. Many cases of conflicts regarding the use of the territory and natural resources have been denounced (see WRM Bulletin nr. 14 and 15).
Indonesian forests suffer periodically from huge fires. In 1982-83 severe fires destroyed 3.5 million hectares of forests in Kalimantan. Still fresh in our minds are the late 1997 huges fires that devastated millions of hectares of forests in this country, with consequences affecting the whole of South East Asia. Even if presented as “natural disasters” or “accidents” such fires are in fact the consequence of the overexploitation of forests by logging accompanied by the activities of plantation companies and the negligence of the authority to control them.
A number of indigenous peoples' and NGO networks of Indonesia are organizing the “Congress of the Indigenous People of the Archipelago – Challenging the positions of Indigenous Peoples and the State” to be held on March 15-22, 1999 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
For years, environmental and Human Rights groups have harshly criticized Freeport -a huge US-based mining company- for its polluting operations for the extraction of copper and gold in Irian Jaya (Indonesia) and in Bougainville and Ok Tedi (Papua New Guinea). The company has been also involved in cases of violence against local Ekari peasants, with the complicity of the authorities (see WRM Bulletins nr. 7 and 8).