There is a complete report and other significant information from the Indigenous Perspectives in Forestry Education Workshop, hosted by British Columbia University in Vancouver, Canada, between 15 and 18 June 1997.
The Workshop got together delegates of aboriginal associations, universities and industry from different countries, aware of the need to address the knowledge, issues and concerns of indigenous peoples (see WRM Bulletin nr. 3)
Bulletin articles
The state of Roraima, in northern Brazil is on fire. A disaster similar to the recent fires in Indonesia is taking place and government responsibility is also similar. As in Indonesia, the Brazilian Amazon is continuously being set on fire to open up the area to "development", through a process beginning with road-building. Such roads serve as vehicles to government-promoted colonization processes, which entail the destruction of forests through logging, conversion to agriculture and cattle raising, mining, hydropower development, etc.
Responding to the immediate and increasing threat of oil exploration on their lands, the U'wa people have issued a statement demanding that both the Colombian government and Occidental Petroleum recognize their right to refuse or accept oil activity on their land as a precondition to any dialogue about oil development. The statement also demands an immediate withdrawal of the military presence in U'wa territory, which has increased dramatically over the last month.
APCOB (“Apoyo para el campesino indígena del oriente boliviano”: "Support to the Indigenous Peasant of Eastern Bolivia") is a Bolivian NGO that "during the last 18 years has been fighting for the conservation of natural resources and the improvement of socioeconomic status of indigenous peoples that inhabit the lowlands of the Eastern region of the country."
We have received the following comments on WWF's campaign from Paul Romeijn, Director of Treemail (E-mail: info@treemail.nl, Web: http://www.treemail.nl). We believe that this is an important contribution to the forest debate and that it is useful to share it with our readers. These are the comments:
We have received a message from "Global Response", expressing the willingness of this organization to collaborate with WRM in areas of common interest. What follows is part of its letter of presentation:
“Would you like to offer your support to communities around the world that are struggling to prevent environmental destruction of many kinds?
Would you like to give children and teenagers a chance to work collaboratively with people of different countries and cultures, to protect the Earth?
The International Secretariat has received a message from the Brazilian social leaders Wigold Scaeffer and Miriam Prochnow expressing their gratitude for the letter we sent in November 1997 (see Bulletin nr. 6) to the Brazilian authorities, expressing our concern about their situation. They had repeatedly received death threats in relation to their defense of the Mata Atlantica rainforests and their fight against pollution and environmental degradation through APREMAVI -Association of Environmental Preservation of Alto Vale do Itajaí, in Santa Catarina.
WRM's international coordinator was invited to present the movement's views on the recent devastating forest fires in the Amazon (see Brazil) in a Uruguayan television channel. The presentation was viewed by a large audience and we have received an important number of positive comments on it.
The Mexican Action Network against Free Trade (RMALC) has just published the Spanish edition of "Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations and the Global Paper Economy", under the title "El papel del Sur: plantaciones forestales en la estrategia papelera internacional". We are working out with RMALC the details of its distribution and purchase mechanisms and we will let you know about how to obtain copies as soon as we sort it out. We wish to warmly thank Alejandro Villamar from RMALC for all his hard work to get the book published in Mexico.
As a response to a fax sent by the WRM International Secretariat requesting information about Baton Mittee, Nigerian activist arrested in connection with the Ogoni Day, we received the following letter from the Embassy of Nigeria in Buenos Aires:
"Mr. Ricardo Carrere
World Rain Forest Movement
Re: Arrest of Baton Mittee in connection with Ogoni Day.
1. I am directed to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 28th January '98 on the above subject matter, and to inform you that its contents have been forwarded to appropriate authorities in Nigeria.
Concern is growing in Singapore and Malaysia that the region will again be smothered in smoke pollution from uncontrolled forest fires in Indonesia. Last year, such fires caused widespread health problems, disrupted air and sea traffic, and affected tourism in the region. Indonesian fires cannot merely by considered a "natural disaster" but the result of both an economic policy based upon the over-exploitation of natural resources and government corruption (see WRM Bulletin nr. 5).