Logging operations of Omex Industry Limited in Boloboe land on Vella La Vella island, Western Province of the country, have long been a subject of disputes and legal battles. Over the weekend of the end of July a tragedy took place.
Bulletin articles
Logging in Southern countries has proved that it may collect big export revenues for governments and huge profits for companies, but for local communities it has several miserable sides spreading environmental and social distress everywhere (see WRM Bulletin Nº 34).
As member of a group of international observers, invited by the Justice and Peace organization, we had the opportunity to visit an area in Colombia (Curvaradó) where ten years ago the local communities suffered from a violent eviction process and are now returning to their territories.
Professor Ove Nilsson is the star of genetically engineered tree research in Sweden. Nilsson and his research team at the Umeå Plant Science Centre won the race to identify the gene that controls plants' flowering allowing them to produce genetically engineered trees which flower in weeks, instead of years. In 2005, the journal Science declared it one of the most important discoveries of the year.
A new report by German NGO Urgewald on the social and environmental impacts of the pulp industry is now available. The report “Banks, Pulp and People – A Primer on Upcoming International Pulp Projects”, produced by Chris Lang, describes the impacts of the industry, analyses the track records of the companies involved and looks at new expansions in the sector. The report is available on Urgewald's new website: www.pulpmillwatch.org , which documents the problems caused by existing operations and flags upcoming problematic projects.
Once again, Stora Enso and Aracruz are using their economic power to mislead and wheedle. In addition to misleading and wheedling the Brazilian people, they are now misleading and wheedling Northern society with the aim of increasing the price of their products, increasing their sales and therefore, their profits! With this purpose, the Veracel pulp company presented itself voluntarily to FSC certification and resorted to SGS ICS, with headquarters in Sao Paulo, as certifying body.
With this issue, the WRM bulletin reaches its tenth year. This anniversary provides an opportunity to give visibility to the numerous people who, in one way or another have made it possible – month by month and year after year – to issue the bulletin.
A forum has been opened in Bolivia to discuss the issues and the vision of the Bolivian Amazon and to give back to the indigenous peoples the dignity stolen from them by the conquest of America.
At the Climate Change Convention's COP13 in Bali this year the working group on reducing tropical deforestation is due to report back. It is expected from discussions conducted so far that proposals based on Costa Rica’s Payments for Environmental Services (services contributed by forests such as carbon sequestration, sustaining biodiversity and feeding the rainfall cycle) will be advocated in a new policy proposal known informally as ‘avoided deforestation’. ‘Avoided deforestation’ will be proposed under the title of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries or REDD.
While the promotion of agrofuels -wrongly called biofuels- continues increasing and resulting in the establishment of more and more plantations in Southern countries to produce them, many voices of representatives from North and South denounce their impacts and intend to influence those who are taking decisions to promote them.
One of the decisions that is already causing a considerable increase in the production of agrofuels, is the one taken by the European Union which established the target that by the year 2020, 10 % of transport should be using agrofuels.
The race for agrofuels has reached Benin. With heavy support from the government and forming a key part of the “agricultural revival strategy” promoted by the IMF restructuring programme, millions of hectares of agricultural and forest land are to be turned over to agrofuel production for export, with no discussion or concern for the impacts that this will have on the Beninese, their food production and their environment.
Indigenous peoples living in the tropical rainforests of Central Africa are widely dispersed and identify their groups by a variety of names. Numbering a total of 300,000 to 500,000 people, those members of communities from several ethnic groups characterized by their small stature are identified under the generic name of “pygmies” (see WRM Bulletin Nº 119).