By the WRM -
Other information
In a country already suffering severe economic hardship and repression under its military rulers, thousands of people mainly in rural areas face losing their homes and lands to seven large dam projects planned for the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) River Basin in Northern Burma’s Kachin State.
The dam projects are being built under a joint agreement between the Burma’s military regime and the China Power Investment Corporation (CPI).
The Pampas of Argentina and Uruguay is one of the largest uncultivated grasslands in the world. Grasses have dominated the Pampas for at least three thousand years. Starting in the 19th Century eucalyptus trees were planted on small areas, for shade on cattle ranches and for construction materials. Today, the pulp and paper industry and the carbon offsets industry are expanding their operations in South America. Increasingly, they are targeting grasslands for conversion to large-scale industrial tree plantations.
Lake Chini is dying. The beautiful lake in the state of Pahang is one of the only two large natural freshwater bodies in Malaysia --and is dying. It used to teem with fish and other aquatic animals and plants and has been the home of indigenous communities, the Jakuns. Various human activities have contributed to the pollution of Lake Chini especially the establishment of a dam. However one contributing factor has been the pesticides and fertilisers used in the oil palm plantations fringing the lake and in many places next to the water.
Yesterday I could cry and shed watery tears
I could labour and freely shoot watery sweat
But today
Not so, not so
Riverbeds turned dustbowls
Rivers diverted into private throats
Creeks turned into rivers of salt
I sweat blood
And weep dry-eyed
Our fathers and forefathers and mothers and grandmothers say waters from
Streams and rivers, creeks and lagoons
In their days
Were clear, odourless, tasteless, healthy
In their days
The proposed Phulbari open pit coal mine in Bangladesh would divert a river, suck an aquifer dry for 30 years and evict thousands of people from their homes. Vast machines would dig a series of holes 300 metres deep over a total area of 59 square kilometres. The coal would be largely exported via a railway and port in the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest.
By Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition - February 2008.
With concerns mounting about the competition between food and fuel due to cropbased agrofuels, the cellulosic ethanol industry is heavily promoting fuel produced from woody sources such as trees as the solution to this conflict.
By Ms Sayamol Kaiyoorawong and Ms Bandita Yangdee - Project for Ecological Awareness Building
Even capitalists now admit the oil crisis is real. But their solutions border on lunacy as they avoid the obvious answer
By George Monbiot, The Guardian, February 2008
Commentary on CBD/SBSTTA/INF/6 Paper on Potential Impacts of GE Trees
Prepared for CBD SBSTTA Meeting, Rome, Italy, 18-22 February, 2008
This document is a joint commentary prepared by those organizations involved in the CBD process that are urging for clear moratorium on the open release of GE trees, and was written in response to the INF-6 background document, to highlight areas of particular relevance and to point out areas where information has not been included or considered.
Indonesia: Call for Action against certification of Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper’s timber plantations
The giant pulp company PT. Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (PT. RAPP), operating in Riau Province, is applying for a Plantation Forest Management Certificate from the Indonesia Ecolabeling Institute (LEI) Certification System.
Riau-based NGOs and several regional and national NGOs are strongly challenging the application on several grounds including:
Increased poverty, land conflicts and deforestation: The Asian Development Bank's plantations record
The ADB has handed out more than US$1 billion for forestry projects since its first forestry project in 1977. Most of the Bank's recent forestry projects were rated "partially successful or unsuccessful". The Bank acknowledges "problems with project design and implementation" and that "its [forestry] sector investments have had a minimal positive impact on forest loss and degradation". Even this "minimal positive impact" is a result of defining a plantation as a forest.