As commented in the last issue of our bulletin, we addressed a letter to the Government of Michoacan, Mexico, to inquire on the death of the peasant activist Alberto Alonso Salmeron. By means of a fax sent on August 19 we have been informed by the government that the policeman Juan Equihua Ortiz is being prosecuted for his suspected responsibility concerning this murder.
Bulletin articles
During the recent visit of Ecuatorian President Alarcon to Santiago de Chile, the police violently repressed a peaceful demonstration against a mining project of the Chilean firm CODELCO together with Mitsubishi at Imbabura province in the Ecuatorian Amazon. As a consequence Ivonne Ramos (Accion Ecologica/Friends of the Earth,Ecuador) Lucio Cuenca (Observatorio de Conflictos Ambientales, Chile) and Luis Mariano Rendon (IEP and RENACE, Chile) were arrested.
We addressed a letter to the President and to the Forest Department (Superintendencia Forestal) of Bolivia, inquiring about the concession of indigenous territories situated in the Western Region to logging companies. This action not only is suspected to be illegal and anti-constitutional but also threatens the livelihood and cultures of forest peoples of Bolivia. We urged that these territories are given back to their legitimate owners.
International Alliance of Indigenous-Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forest & International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Indigenous Peoples, Forest and Biodiversity, London, Eks-Skolen Trykkeri, ISSN 1024-0217. The book brings together the main statements and interventions made by the Alliance at various international fora from 1992 to 1996, expressing their concerns and proposals. Those interested in receiving it can contact the Alliance or IWGIA.
A workshop on Indigenous Perspectives in Forestry Education, organized by the Faculty of Forestry of the British Columbia University, the National Aboriginal Forestry Association and the First House of Learning, took place in Vancouver, from 15 to 18 June.
Last week Marcus Colchester was in Guyana presenting his new work "Guyana: Fragile Frontier. Loggers, Miners and Forest Peoples", jointly published by WRM and the Latin America Bureau. The book is very comprehensive in its scope, summarizing Guyana's history since the arrival of the European colonizers until the present year and describes the situation of the country after a decade of "development" based upon foreign investment in logging and mining.
A group of about 20 social activists, wildlife conservationists, researchers, lawyers, and mediapersons met from 10 to 12 April, 1997, at Bhikampura- Kishori in Alwar District, adjacent to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan (western India). The meeting, called by the Indian Institute of Public Administration and Kalpavriksh, and hosted by Tarun Bharat Sangh, was an attempt to initiate a dialogue between those advocating the cause of wildlife protection and those struggling to uphold the human rights of rural communities living in and around wildlife habitats.
To the oil and mining companies, repressive governments and banks we list among the world's exploiters, we must add another sector -conservationists. Unaccountable, opaque and pursuing a model of protection that is both repressive and outmoded, some of the world's biggest conservation organisations are becoming indistinguishable from other neo-colonial corsairs. Unwilling to contemplate the wider consequences of their actions, they have ensured that conservation is now one of the greatest threats to the global environment.
Malaysian forestry companies could be given a thirty-year concession in South Africa to establish 300.000 hectares of industrial tree plantations in the Transkei in Eastern Cape province. Such project has raised very difficult and delicate questions given that this is probably South Africa's most impoverished area and plantations are being presented as providing development, jobs and money. Malaysian companies would also receive exclusive rights to develop elite and exclusive tourist resorts in the most pristine areas of coastal forest endemism.
The four big pulp and paper projects in the Brazilian Amazon (Companhia Suzano de Papel e Celulose and CELMAR in Maranhao, Jari Celulose in Para, and Champion in Amapa) are facing important problems from the economic, social and environmental points of view. The anarchic character of the pulp and paper industry has resulted in falls in the prices of market pulp. Rural workers denounce illegal work contracts while peasants protest about the expansion of the lands owned by the companies. Champion bought a total of 448.000 hectares in Amapa.
A report on the activities of Asian logging companies in the Brazilian Amazon, prepared by a special committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies will be ready by the end of August. According to Deputy Gilney Viana of Matto Grosso (Workers' Party), two dozen transnational logging companies are working in the Amazon. Those financed by Malaysian and Chinese capitals entered the area in 1995. The Malaysian WTK Group bought 1.400.000 hectares at Carauari Municipality, Amazonia State, in association with the Brazilian company Amaplac that exports plywood.
The relatively untouched areas occupied by rainforests in Suriname -source of a rich biodiversity and ancestral homeland for thousands of Indigenous peoples and Maroons, descendants from ancient African slaves- are threatened by the increase of mining concessions that the Government is granting to foreign companies.