A Chinese company called Shandong Sun Paper is planning to establish 100,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in Savannakhet province in central Laos. Of this area, the government has granted a 50 year land concession to Sun Paper for 30,000 hectares. The remaining 70,000 hectares is to be planted by farmers on their own land, under contract to Sun Paper. The US$15 million project is planned to start in early 2010.
Bulletin articles
Since 2004 the Mexican government has been promoting the expansion of oil palm plantations. Presently there are 9 oil extraction plants in four states, 6 of which are located in Chiapas, the main palm oil producing state in Mexico.
The Forest Movement Europe (FME) is an informal network of more than 45 NGOs from12 European countries. It is a loose movement with no formal membership and without a formal secretariat that has been working on forest issues for nearly ten years.
The Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) mandate is to protect the world’s biodiversity. Strong campaigning from an increasing number of NGOs and IPOs raised the threats posed to forest biodiversity by genetically engineered trees. The issue was discussed and addressed by the Convention, that agreed about the need to take a precautionary approach regarding the release of GE trees into the environment.
The Peruvian government chose the symbolic date of World Environment Day to launch a bloody attack on the peoples of the Amazon. The reason for this repression? The steadfast opposition of Amazonian communities to the invasion of their territory by socially and environmentally destructive industries such as mining, oil drilling, and monoculture plantations of trees and agrofuel crops.
PRESS RELEASE. In a bold outpouring of public concern for Southeast Asia’s Mekong River, more than 15,000 people from within the six-country Mekong region and around the world have signed a “Save the Mekong” petition urging governments to abandon plans for hydropower development along the river’s mainstream. The petition – written in seven languages - will be hand-delivered to Thailand’s Prime Minister H.E.
In our country, one of the crops that has caused the most negative impacts from its start to the present day is sugarcane. The sugarcane plantations are located in the Pacific Plains, a rich area with fertile soils of volcanic origin and abundant water from rainfall and the rivers born in the volcanic chain. These conditions were perfect for the development of this crop and the expansion of sugar mills.
On June 9 Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has released a press statement describing the outcome of the landmark suit instituted by Ken Saro Wiwa Jr and other Ogonis accusing Shell of complicity in the execution of author and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders in 1995, among other human rights abuses, as a significant milestone in the search for justice in the bloody oil fields of the Niger Delta.
The Peruvian government is not only responsible for the open repression of Amazonian peoples which it is currently carrying out, but also for the silent genocide of the last uncontacted indigenous groups still living in isolation within their ancestral territories.
The distance between climate science and climate negotiations was dramatically illustrated at the UN climate meeting in Bonn earlier this month. While scientists tell us we need large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, governments are setting targets for emission reductions that are so low that runaway climate change is almost guaranteed.
The June 2009 Climate Talks in Bonn served as the scenario where the new push to include forest preservation within climate change negotiations was expressed.
On May 6th, Minister of Science and Innovation of Flanders (Belgium) Patricia Ceyssens planted a tree. Nothing strange in that of course. What was unusual about this type of “green” ceremony what that this was no common tree. It was in fact the first genetically modified poplar to be planted in an open field trial by the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), to be followed by the planting of 119 more GM poplars over the next few days in the same site.