In yet another incident, the tribal and dalit women of village Harna Kachar, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, had to bear the brunt of atrocities by the Police and the Forest Department.
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The organization Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, A.C. reported in a recently issued communiqué that on 3 October, a brutal police operation took place, violating the most basic human, individual and collective rights, involving the federal and state police, against the indigenous and peasant Tojolabal inhabitants of the Miguel Hidalgo community, Municipality of Trinitaria, Chaipas. Since 7 September, this community had been managing the Maya archaeological and ceremonial site of Chinkultic.
A Position Paper on the Potential Environmental and Economic Impacts of the Cellulosic Ethanol Industry in the Southern United States.
By Scot Quaranda Research Assistance by Mollie Petersen, Siara Cowan and Kathryne Crane
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A briefing by The Gaia Foundation, Biofuelwatch, the African Biodiversity Network, Salva La Selva, Watch Indonesia and EcoNexus, September 2008
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Planting trees is generally considered to be a positive action. The act of planting a tree – either at a school or in a peasant community – in many societies symbolizes concern for nature and a contribution by the present generation to future ones.
Press Release -
Rome, 22 September 2008. Representing the World Rainforest Movement, Raquel Núñez met today in Rome with FAO forestry officials to raise the issue of the problems resulting from the definition of forests by that UN agency that includes all types of plantations as “forests.”
By Bakari Nyari, Vice Chairman of Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems (RAINS), Ghana and African Biodiversity Network Steering Committee member
This is the story of how a Norwegian biofuel company took advantage of Africa’s traditional system of communal land ownership and current climate and economic pressure to claim and deforest large tracts of land in Kusawgu, Northern Ghana with the intention of creating “the largest jatropha plantation in the world”.
Simple lessons are not necessarily easy to learn.
For example: oil is a non-renewable and limited resource (1)
Oil and conflicts appear to be twins in today’s world. When people think of oil, in general terms, what come to mind are ‘progress and development’. Thus, people speak of oiling the wheel of progress. Today, however, what we see and experience is that oil greases the wheels of conflict. And this is very much the case in the oil fields of Africa.
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star. -Confucius
Introduction
In the past
For hundreds of years, it seems the African continent has been viewed as a kind of take-out convenience store by countries in the North – at first mainly for rare and exotic commodities like gemstones, precious metals, ivory, plants and slaves; and later for more basic items such as minerals, food, timber and oil. There is however a new rush to exploit Africa’s resources, this time aiming at the very basics – the fertile soil, relatively abundant water, and low-cost labour represented by poor people across the continent.
Liberia has just emerged from a civil crisis. The sanction on the exportations of Liberian Timber was lifted in 2006 by the United Nations Security Council UNSC. The timber industry, which provided substantial revenue for government, is closed pending the completion of a forestry reform process.
In Gabon, forests and the communities that depend on them for survival face a range of different problems. The logging industry is one of the most serious. On the one hand, it does not benefit local communities in any way. At the same time, the majority of the forestry companies operating in the country (particularly those from Asia, with China and Malaysia in the lead) do not respect any technical standards, and cut trees that do not meet the minimum diameter requirements, for example.