Pulpwood plantations being proposed for the Big Island (Hawaii) are a long way from being real forests, full of a variety of different kinds of mixed ages trees, rich with vegetation and wildlife. Tourists who come to Hawaii for its natural tropical beauty will see instead industrial enclaves of mile after mile of one type of tree, planted in straight, easily harvested rows, kept clear of undergrowth. Fast growing eucalyptus are repeatedly aerial sprayed with poisons, and clear-cut every five to seven years, with the field debris burned.
Bulletin articles
At the inauguration of the international boat exhibition "Hanseboot" in Hamburg on October 25, activists from various ecologist NGOs inflated a 50 feet long, 17 feet high chainsaw, claiming "Mahogany is Murder!" and "No Teak on my deck!".
In their statement "Hanseboot kills forests" over 30 organisations from Germany, England, Switzerland and Cameroon called on importers, builders and consumers to stop the plundering of the rainforests and to use only tropical timber which has been independently certified.
The International Secretariat sent messages to public authorities in Brazil and Ecuador responding to the request of support by local NGOs. Faxes were addressed to the president of Brazil, the Government of Santa Catarina (Brazil) and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, expressing our concern over the situation of Wigold Scaeffer and Miriam Prochnow -two distinguished leaders in the campaign to protect the Mata Atlantica from logging activities- who have repeatedly received death threats.
We received a reply from Aracruz’s Environment and Corporate Quality manager Carlos Alberto Roxo to our letter of 6 October in support of the Tupinikim/Guarani’s right to their lands. Mr Roxo is “pleased to have the opportunity of explaining the company’s position in relation to this matter, which has been deeply misinterpreted by some segments”.
A new pulp mill that will produce between 400,000 and 500,000 metric tonnes a year, largely for export, is being planned for the Umtata-Kokstad-Ugie triangle. According to Enoch Gogongwana, provincial MEC for Economic Affairs, Environment and Tourism, such project would create 600 direct and 1000 indirect jobs. The total investment would involve some 1.5 billion Rands.
At the same time as the Indonesian delegate sat at the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests –a UN body aimed at the sustainable use of the remaining world’s forests- the Indonesian forests in Sumatra and Borneo were going up in smoke. As many other country delegates in international fora –both Northern and Southern- the Indonesian delegate spoke about sustainable forest management as if it were something that was really happening or about to happen in his country. He even stressed the need for NGO participation in Indonesia!
Analysis of NOAA satellite data indicates that burning in the Brazilian Amazon increased 28% between 1996 and 1997. The average number of fires per day increased from 466 to 599. The actual increase for the year may be even greater, since 1997 is drier than 1996 and burning continues. Analysis of the NOAA-12 data under-counts the actual number of fires, so the situation is in reality worse.
The "yungas" are forest lands that spread along the Andes from northern Argentina to Venezuela, and from an altitude of 500 to 3,000 metres, according to their latitude. From the floristic point of view they belong to the Amazonian Domaine and their typical formation is the so called misty forest. These montain forests maintain high levels of endemism and biodiversity, but they are being threatened by increasing deforestation, especially for crop production.
Indigenous women, some of them accompanied by their men and children, initiated a march on September 28 in Pastaza province -northern Ecuador- with the aim of joining the National Constitutional Assembly to be held in Quito on October 12.
Advance unedited text
(New York, 1-3 October 1997)
1. The Forum considered suggestions regarding its future activities as contained in the report of the Secretary-General (E/CN.17/IFF/1997/2).
This forum met for its first time in New York (1-3 October), with the participation of an important number of NGOs and indigenous peoples organizations. The IFF is the continuation of the process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), which presented its conclusions to the CSD in April 1997. The IFF discussed the terms of reference of its future work and grouped it under the following categories (see full text at the end of this bulletin):
On September 4 we addressed a letter to president Suharto and Mr Robert Wilson, chairman of Rio Tinto Co., expressing our concern for the death -possibly murder- of four Ekari tribal people around Freeport and Rio Tinto’s mine, as well as for the obligation of Ekari villagers to hand over their working tools to the police. We also demanded that abuses of foreign mining companies in the region cease.