The tenth issue of our Bulletin has been published in Spanish and distributed to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking people. Future issues of the Bulletin will be published in both languages. We hope that this innovation will contribute to broaden our contacts in this linguistic area of the world. We are now producing two mailing lists -one for Spanish-speakers and another for the rest. Those who wish to receive both versions of the bulletin are requested to let us know.
Bulletin articles
The March-April issue of "World Watch" (published by the Worldwatch Institute) includes an article by Ashley Mattoon on pulpwood plantations ("Paper Forests"), which constitutes an important contribution to clarify this issue to a wide audience. The WRM Internacional Secretariat contributed with comments to the author's first draft.
We have received a letter signed by Mr. Stephen Kakfwi, Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development of Northern Territories, Canada, as a response to the one sent by WRM International Secretariat on February 25, 1998, expressing our concern on the issuance of logging rights in the Cameron Hills, a territory occupied by the Deh Cho indigenous people. Mr. Kakfwi assures that his Government "will not permit any operation to cause serious ecological damage" and is "quite prepared to work with the Deh Cho First Nations."
Responding to a request of our friends of CIMI, the WRM International Secretariat disseminated among WRM members and friends the more recent news about the long struggle of the Tupinikim and Guarani for their traditional lands (see below). We also sent letters to Brazilian authorities -including President Fernando Henrique Cardozo- expressing our concern for this situation and asking them to review their decision to expel the missionary Winfried Overbeek from the country, whose only “crime” has been to defend the indigenous peoples in their claims.
The Kruger National Park is to be enlarged by 5,000 hectares, while by the same agreement recently concluded, the Makuleke community regains its right to 25,000 hectares of Kruger Park lands. Settlement of the Makuleke land claim came just in time for the celebration of the centenary of Kruger National Park on March 25. In 1968 the Makuleke community was forced to leave their lands now falling within the borders of the Kruger National Park.
News of huge forest fires -as the ones that affected Indonesia and those that are spreading in Roraima in the Brazilian Amazon- are disseminated worldwide. Nevertheless, fires at a smaller scale have also terrible consequences for local communities. This is the case of the fire that has affected the forest of Aleibiri, a village of 6,000 inhabitants in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. The carelessness of the Shell contractor was the cause for this desaster.
A group of Dayaks recently toured Australia to promote solidarity with their struggle for land rights and compensation from Australian-based mining companies, which account for more than 60% of Australian investments in Indonesia.
The timber empires of Bob Hasan and others are crumbling amid the economic crisis in Indonesia. A third of the country’s timber companies are facing bankruptcy.
Kanchanaburi March 6, 1998: Sulak Sivaraksa and some 50 students and activists who have been camping in the forest were arrested and taken out of the Huay Kayeng forest about noon time. Kancahnaburi governor was present at the event to instruct some 20 officers to take away the activists. Even though Sulak was shown a letter requesting him to testify to the police on the charge filed by PTT (Petroleum Authority of Thailand) before the arrest, the other activists were taken away without being informed properly on what charge they were taken.
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)
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.