If there is one thing that the other possible world we are appealing for must contain, it is biological diversity. Life shouts this out at us at each step we take. The message is there for all to see. The greater the diversity of an ecosystem, the greater its wealth, the greater its beauty. The precious tropical forests, deep receptacles of innumerable animal and plant species, of colours, shades and sounds, the cradle of springs and streams, the matrix of human populations.
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In 1972 the Norwegian group Borregaard set up a pulp mill in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, a few kilometres away from the City of Porto Alegre, (municipality of Guaiba), on the banks of the river Guaiba. This mill was to close down in 1975 as a result of public pressure against the contamination it was causing. That same year it was purchased by the Klabin Company, and reopened under the name of Riocell.
Consumerism and poverty are the two extremes of the current world paper market. Manipulation of markets, cartel agreements, establishment of prices and other similar practices give a group of companies the necessary power to control it. In between are pollution of air, water and soil, land accumulation and appropriation by foreign companies, scale increases and strengthening of a form of production requiring fewer and fewer workers.
The Mumbai Porto-Alegre Forest Initiative
Organizations and representatives from social movements from Eastern and Western Europe, as well as North and South America came together in Buenos Aires, Argentina over the first half of December, 2004 to tell the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s tenth Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to ban GE trees from the Kyoto Protocol —the international global warming treaty.
By the time the international negotiations on climate change in Buenos Aires ended on Saturday 18 December 2004, workers had already started dismantling the conference facilities. Yet after two weeks of negotiations, the best that the more than 6,000 participants could achieve was an agreement to hold another meeting.
The hydropower industry has long relied on subsidies to build large dams. Hydropower proponents are now promoting dams as "climate friendly" in a desperate attempt to gain carbon financing for dams.
The International Hydropower Association (IHA), together with the World Wind Energy Association and the International Solar Energy Society, has formed the International Renewable Energy Alliance (IREA). IREA held a side event during the international climate change meeting in Buenos Aires in December 2004.
“To prevent the climate change, we have to change” [COP 10 motto]
The possibility of observer status to the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change held in Buenos Aires this past December immediately created conflicting expectations in me.
by Phetsavanh Sayboualaven
1) Introduction
Wangari Maathai and Florence Wambugu have dramatically opposing approaches to tree planting in Kenya. Maathai’s approach is anti-colonialist and empowers the people planting trees. Wambugu’s is neo-colonialist and makes the people planting trees dependent on biotechnology.
Proponents of industrial tree plantations often argue that plantations can relieve pressure on forests. Brazil’s pulp and paper industry exposes this myth for the pro-industry propaganda that it is. Rather than growing more wood on less land, the industry grows more wood on more land. Every year the area of plantations increases and every year the area of forest decreases.
The Chilean forestry sector seems to accept no limits to the expansion of its monoculture pine and eucalyptus plantations. On the one hand it has turned to repression and lies to face local opposition. On the other, it has extended its operations to other countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay, where it has installed plantations, timber industries and pulp mills, thus increasing its impact on other environments and populations.