As governments at the 7th Conference of the Parties to the climate change convention, COP7, in Marrakesh in 2001, put the final touches on the decision that made carbon sink projects eligible for credits under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a group of NGOs formed SinksWatch, an initiative to track and scrutinize carbon sink projects related to the Kyoto Protocol.
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In WRM bulletin 64 (November 2002), we included an article (Brazil: Research questions FSC certification of two plantations) which summarized the findings of a research carried out in the state of Minas Gerais. The full report --originally in Portuguese-- has been now translated into English and is available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/fsc.html
For those of you who are not yet aware about this, we wish to inform you that since issue No.60 (July), the WRM bulletin is also being published in French and Portuguese. Previous issues in French are available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletinfr/previousfr.html , the Portuguese version can be accessed at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/boletim/anteriores.html
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a free trade and investment agreement being negotiated between the governments of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean -except Cuba. It is modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between North America, Canada and Mexico. The goal of the FTAA is to create a free trade and investment zone that extends from northern Canada to the southern tip of Chile.
On 30th October, the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved a new Forests Policy. After one of the longest and most controversial consultation processes the Bank has ever carried out, the revised policy was pushed through in two days of unprecedentedly strong debates, despite objections from some governments. Although the final text of the policy has yet to be officially released, the main elements are already clear.
A press release from the FSC UK recently claimed that the FSC label on timber and timber products gives the public an "assurance that the timber used comes from forests managed to the highest environmental, social and economic standards" and that "anyone buying FSC certified products is helping to ensure a safer future for the earth's forests and the people and wildlife that depend on them".
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was signed in the city of Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 and entered into force in 1975. Ramsar is the only environmental convention that addresses a specific ecosystem, that of the wetlands. Wetlands, as recognised by the Ramsar Convention, fulfil essential ecological functions, as regulators of hydrological regimes and as habitats for a very rich biodiversity and are a resource of great economic, cultural, scientific and recreational importance that must be preserved.
According to the Danish Data Protection Agency, the environmental NGO Nepenthes is not allowed to advise Danish consumers against purchasing from shops where they risk buying garden furniture whose production has contributed to the destruction of rainforests.
Solomon Islands in the western Pacific have been ravaged by nearly three years of civil conflict. The economy is in tatters, the main city Honiara is run by militant groups, and most education, health and public service functions are not working. In this climate the corruption ridden, destructive and often illegal industrial logging sector has continued unabated.
The 21 Indigenous Communities comprising the Federation of Awa Centres in Ecuador (FCAE) have legal deeds for 120,000 hectares in the Northwest of Ecuador, a region of humid forests and great biological diversity, known as the Awa Territory and containing the last expanse of Chocoano forests remaining in Ecuador.
In Chile, 25 years of implementation of the neo-liberal economy model have had a strong impact on native forests and indigenous and local communities in the South. Over two million hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations feed a large cellulose industry, geared for export. Over this period, hundreds of thousands hectares of native forests were converted into monoculture tree plantations. An accelerated concentration of land ownership, aided by State subsidies to plantations has led to serious territorial conflicts with the Mapuche indigenous communities, still continuing today.
Over the past few years, an increase in the participation of rural producers’ families and their economic and representative organisations has been noted in activities relating to management and conservation of resources in the Brazilian Amazon.