What follows are comments by WRM's International Coordinator on the synthesis report, presentation made at the Global Workshop on January 18th.
Before making any comments, it is important to explain how the process leading to this synthesis report -and to this Global Workshop- was implemented. From the start it was decided that the process would be participatory (and stemming from concrete realities), solution-oriented (and not accusatory) and that it would include all regions of the world.
Bulletin articles
What follows is Mia Siscawati's (Focal Point for Asia) presentation during the final plenary session of the Global Workshop on January 22nd:
Given that the outcome of the workshop resulted in a lengthy document including an important number of recommendations, we have not included it in this bulletin. However, the report is available in the WRM web page (www.wrm.org.uy) in the Underlying causes section (Global Workshop). Most of the documentation produced for and by the regional and indigenous peoples workshops are also available in the same web page.
One of the main reasons which explains why large-scale industrial tree plantations can be promoted at the global level while they are being strongly opposed at the local level, is the manipulation of concepts and information to feed the uninformed public. Trees -any trees- are presented as sinonimous to forests and forests are rightly perceived by most people as good and necessary to humanity. The fact that plantations have nothing in common with forests is not that easy to be understood by the general -particularly the urban- public.
Not according to British researchers James Fairhead and Melissa Leach.
Their recent book 'Reframing Deforestation, Global Analysis and Local Realities: Studies in West Africa', published by Routledge Press, uses extensive historical evidence from archives, travelers' reports, and oral accounts for Benin, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo to show claims of massive forest loss in these countries have been greatly exaggerated.
Specifically, they find that:
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has recently published a report on Ghana's forests and forest policies titled "Falling into Place", produced in collaboration with the Ghanaian Ministry of Lands and Forestry. Authors include Nii Ashie Kotey, Johnny Francois, JGK Owusu, Raphael Yeboah, Kojo S. Amanor and Lawrence Antwi. The book provides a historical analysis, a description of the different types of forests, the stakeholders involved and the evolution of government forest policy, ending with conclusions and suggestions for the future.
As in many other countries, Gambia's forests are facing a type of forest degradation which implies the substitution of native species by an exotic. But this is not the common situation where plantation companies substitute native forests by eucalyptus, pines or palm oil plantations. In this case, the villain is a "good" tree, brought into the country by Indian immigrants: the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica). In India, this tree has a number of positive features, among which the production of a useful natural pesticide. In Gambia, it is becoming a pest.
"Forest-Americas" is a list for forest activists in North, Central and South America who want to work together to protect forests and counter the growing threats posed by trade liberalization and globalization of the timber trade. The purpose of the list is to help activists build wider networks to share information and develop joint strategies.
In previous issues of the Bulletin we informed on the expansion of tree monocultures and the pulp and paper industry in Vietnam, under a scheme not aimed at attending the needs of farmers, villagers, or even the country’s economy in the long run (Bulletin 7, December 1997; Bulletin 15, September 1998). The unsustainability of Vietnamese forestry policy becomes evident once again: from July 1998 the Government is allowing imports of Cambodian timber, and even encouraging the re-export of both logs and sawn wood made out of Cambodian and Laotian timber.
For perhaps the first time since Indonesia's independence, the West Sumatran authorities called together 120 Mentawai people for negotiations with the local government in Padang. The representatives were community leaders, religious figures and village heads from the whole Mentawai island chain (off the West coast of Sumatra.)
The subject of the meeting was how to bring 10,800 transmigrant families to the Mentawai islands for a commercial oil palm development (PIR-Trans) by PT Citra Mandiri Widya Nusa -owned by ex-Employment Minister Abdul Latif.
Last October, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia) went on a field trip to Sarawak to interview Dayak Ibans that were affected by the Hydroelectric Batang Ai Dam and relocated in nearby districts during the past decade.
The pulp and paper industry, which lost a number of battles to peasants opposing both plantations and pulp mills in Thailand , is now putting pressure on the government for the approval of an expansion of eucalyptus plantations. The Thai Pulp Industry Association is suggesting the Agriculture Ministry ammend the existing forestry law which curbs the planting of eucalyptus. The reasoning is simple: that "the law should acknowledge that eucalyptus is an economic plant." The already well-known social and environmental impacts don't seem to be a major source of concern for the industry.