World Rainforest Movement Bulletin #3
8/8/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: World Rainforest Movement Bulletin #3
Source: World Rainforest Movement
Date: 8/8/97
**********************WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
MOVIMIENTO MUNDIAL POR LOS BOSQUES
International Secretariat Oxford Office
Instituto del Tercer Mundo 1c Fosseway Business Centre
Jackson 1136 Stratford Road
Montevideo Moreton-in-Marsh
Uruguay GL56 9NQ United Kingdom
Ph +598 2 49 61 92 Ph. +44.1608.652.893
Fax +598 2 41 92 22 Fax +44.1608.652.878
EMail: rcarrere@chasque.apc.org EMail: wrm@gn.apc.org
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W R M B U L L E T I N # 3
08.08.97
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* PRESENTATION
Dear friends,
This is the third issue of the World Rainforest Movement's Bulletin. The
World Rainforest Movement is a global network of citizens'groups of North
and South involved in efforts to defend the world's rainforests against
the forces that destroy them. It works to secure the lands and livelihoods
of forest peoples and supports their efforts to defend the forests from
commercial logging, dams, mining, plantations, shrimp farms, colonisation
and settlement and other projects that threaten them. We hope that this
Bulletin may become a tool for enhancing communication and information
among all those people concerned with this issue and willing to contribute
to stop and reverse this destructive processes. Your comments, suggestions
and contributions are welcome through: rcarrere@chasque.apc.org,
alvarog@chasque.apc.org or fax (598 2) 41 92 22.
Warm regards
Ricardo Carrere
International Coordinator
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CONTENTS:
* WRM GENERAL ACTIVITIES
* News from the International Secretariat
- Forestry model in Uruguay under siege
- Suspected murder of Mexican activist
* WRM Campaigns
- Images needed
- Good news from Sarawak
- Brazil: the Tupinikim/Guarani struggle continues
* LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
ASIA
- India: wildlife conservation and people's rights
- Laos: dams, conservation and people
AFRICA
- Malaysians in South Africa, South Africans in Brazil
SOUTH AMERICA
- The pulp and paper industry faces problems in the Amazon
- Asian companies invade the Amazon
- Gold fever threatens forests and people in Suriname
- Indonesian forestry incursions in Suriname
OCEANIA
- Clonal monocultures and genetic engineering in New Zealand
- Hawaii: eucalyptus plantations arriving
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* WRM GENERAL ACTIVITIES
- News from the International Secretariat
Forestry model in Uruguay under siege.-
Concern for the environmental consequences of the forestry schemes applied
in Uruguay is growing all over the country. The planned installation of a
pulp and paper mill in the small city of Fray Bentos, on the River Uruguay
coast, has raised a wave of protest. This fact is impressive since the
unemployment rate in that city is particularly high.
WRM is active on both issues (plantations and the pulp and paper mill)
and has facilitated the creation of a coalition of NGOs aimed at raising
awareness and organizing opposition against the model. The coalition
adopted the name of "Guayubira" (Patagonula americana), an almost extinct
native tree of northern Uruguay. The coalition is becoming very active in
different areas of the country and is also beginning to lobby
parliamentarians to introduce changes to the current forestry legislation
and to eliminate subsidies to plantations.
...........................................
Suspected murder of Mexican activist.-
On July 21 the WRM Secretariat addressed a letter to Mr. Tinoco Rubi
-Governor of Michoacan, Mexico- to inquire about the odd circumstances in
which Alberto Alonso Salmeron, President of Juchari Uinapecua Society of
Michoacan and member of the Mexican Network of Forest Organizations, died
while in police custody. According to information received from that
country, Salmeron had previously received death threats because of his
activities. The WRM Secretariat requested the Governor of Michoacan to
carry out investigations to clarify Salmeron's death and eventually to
implement measures to make the police agents who are suspected to have
denied him assistance responsible for his death. Allegedly, Salmeron had
received three bullet wounds and received no medical assistance in the
police station, which resulted in his death.
Source: Ernesto Ladron de Guevara, Union Nacional de Organizaciones
Autonomas Campesinas, Mexico
...........................................
* WRM CAMPAIGNS
Images needed
As part of the Plantations Campaign to be launched soon, we have thought
that it would be very useful to have a video on the issue. The idea is
that the video would be used as an important campaign tool (accompanied by
a script translated into English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, which
could also be translated into many other local languages). A close friend
from an NGO (Hilary Sandison from Imagenes) is willing to seek for funds
and to produce a video according to our needs. She has already produced
some excellent videos, focused on social and environmental impacts of
"development" projects. Due to time and financial constraints, she would
only be able to film in a couple of countries (Brazil -eucalyptus- and
Chile -pines). However, we feel that the video should contain images and
information from different continents, particularly from Africa and Asia.
We are therefore asking WRM affiliates and friends if they do have -or
know of people having- any professional or home-made videos that could be
used as an input for this project. Any news will be welcome.
...........................................
Good news from Sarawak.-
In our last Bulletin we informed about the inprisonment of 42 Dayak-Ibans
at Miri for resisting the expansion of oil palm plantations in their
customary lands and disseminated their letter from Lambir Miri Central
Prison. We are now pleased to inform that all of them have been
freed.
On July 7 a group consisting of 11 persons was bailed by
their wives and relatives who were worried about their health. One of them
-Mangagat Ak Bukong- was sent to hospital due to severe chest pains,
while the others are seeking medical treatment as a consequence of the
violence suffered in jail.
Additionally, on August 5 the Miri High Court revoked a lower court's
decision that three Dayak Ibans had acted illegally by protesting an oil
palm plantation being developed on their Native Customary Land. They are
Longhouse Chief TR. Riggie Ak Beloluk, Gengga Ak Timbang and Ungkok Ak
Atau, all of them from Rumah Riggie, Sungai Nat, Tinjar in Baram area in
Miri Division.
The above three, together with six Ibans who had been arrested and
detained on April 17 this year, were ordered by the Miri Magistrate's
Court to execute a six month "bond to keep the peace," before they would
be released.
Three of the nine individuals chose to remain in prison for 18 days to
protest the court's original decision. According to their statement at
the time, "We do not agree with the Order because we never committed any
criminal offense . . . the thing that is uppermost in our mind is the
fact that by signing the bond to keep the peace as ordered, we are also
accepting the Sarawak government and the oil palm plantation companies'
baseless allegation that we do not have any right over our native
customary land."
On August 6 the High Court granted an appeal filed by the Ibans
immediately after their imprisonment and squashed an order made by the
Magistrate's Court for them to execute a bond to keep the peace. The High
Court considered that the 42 Ibans had not been accorded the statutory
protection provided under the Criminal Procedure Code for a fair hearing.
Therefore the order to keep peace was considered illegal.
This case can be considered an important victory for the Ibans of Riggie
Longhouse and an important precedent for Dayak-Ibans communities
throughout Sarawak, as the High Court's decision finally seems to consider
their right to protest against the illegal entry of oil palm plantation
companies into their customary lands.
Source: Borneo Resources Institute. August 1997.
...........................................
Brazil: the Tupinikim/Guarani struggle continues
Even if the Minister of Justice devoted just a few minutes to meet with
Indigenous Peoples' delegates and representatives of CIMI on July 15th,
they were able to hand him 3800 signatures from 29 countries expressing
support to their struggle. A meeting with the undersecretary
was arranged for August 12th. In the meantime, Aracruz does not
seem to change its attitude towards Indigenous claims. It hired
Burson-Marsteller -the biggest public relations company in the world-
known for its previous activities in favour of the past Argentinian
dictatorship, of Philip Morris in the USA and Union Carbide after the
infamous accident in India. As a reaction against Aracruz's main trade
union SINTICEL, that has shown its support to the Indigenous Peoples'
struggle and even denounced problems with the firm's management in
Norwegian newspapers, Burson-Marsteller began a big campaign trying to
show that SINTICEL does not represent Aracruz workers. LO (the biggest
confederation of trade unions in Norway) and CUT (Brazilian Confederation
of Trade Unions) support SINTICEL's firm position.
Source: Winfried Overbeek. CIMI-Leste. July 1997.
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* LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
ASIA
India: wildlife conservation and people's rights
A group of about 20 social activists, wildlife conservationists,
researchers, lawyers, and mediapersons met from 10 to 12 April, 1997,
at Bhikampura- Kishori in Alwar District, adjacent to the Sariska
Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan (western India). The meeting, called by
the Indian Institute of Public Administration and Kalpavriksh, and
hosted by Tarun Bharat Sangh, was an attempt to initiate a dialogue
between those advocating the cause of wildlife protection and those
struggling to uphold the human rights of rural communities living in
and around wildlife habitats. Over the last few years, conflicts have
erupted in many of India's national parks, sanctuaries, and other
natural habitats, between officials and NGOs involved in wildlife
conservation on the one hand, and local communities and social
activists on the other hand. Clashes between the Forest Department
and local people are increasingly common. A top-down, centralised
model of conservation, which has ignored the dependence of local
communities on the resources of natural habitats, as also their
traditions of conservation, is one root of this conflict; other
factors include the increasing politicisation and commercialisation
of rural areas, breakdown of traditions, and the demands made by
growing populations of people and livestock, all of which clash with
conservation goals. Simultaneously, wildlife and wildlife habitats
continue to be destroyed by the dominant industrial-commercial
economy, and the rampant consumerism of the rich minority. The same
governments which declared protected areas (national parks and
sanctuaries) are today eager to open them up for mining, dams,
industries, tourism, roads, and other so-called development projects,
to the extent of being willing to even denotify them. Activists,
conservationists, and community members have increasingly felt the
need to respond to these conflicts, and to explore ways of working
together to conserve wildlife, ensure local people's livelihoods, and
challenge destructive industrial-commercial forces. Yet dialogue
among us has been limited and sporadic. This meeting was an effort to
initiate a more systematic process of dialogue and mutual
understanding.
The meeting agreed on a number of principles, strategies and joint
actions. For further information on these, you can either request it from
us or contact directly Ashish Kothari, I.P. Estate, New Delhi 110002, Tel:
91-11-3317309; Fax: 91-11-3319954; Email: akothari@kv.unv.ernet.in
The final paragraph of the meeting's statement clearly establishes its
approach to conservation:
"We resolve to work together towards ensuring the conservation of
species and habitats, and the traditional rights of access to
resources of local communities, for which our main struggle will be
against the destructive industrial-commercial economy."
Source: Ashish Kothari, Indian Institute of Public Administration
...........................................
Laos: Dams, Conservation and People.-
To the oil and mining companies, repressive governments and banks we list
among the world's exploiters, we must add another sector
-conservationists. Unaccountable, opaque and pursuing a model of
protection that is both repressive and outmoded, some of the world's
biggest conservation organisations are becoming indistinguishable from
other neo-colonial corsairs. Unwilling to contemplate the wider
consequences of their actions, they have ensured that conservation is now
one of the greatest threats to the global environment.
This month, the World Bank will decide whether or not to support the
construction of the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. One of the most destructive
hydroelectric schemes on earth, it will drown 470 square kilometres of the
remarkable forests and grasslands of the Nakai Plateau. Several rare
animal species will disappear. The fisheries which help feed the
catchment's thousands of indigenous people will be wiped out:
mysteriously, this doesn't feature in the dam's environmental assessment.
On the face of it there is nothing astonishing about this project: the
World Bank, institutionally corrupt and apparently incapable of genuine
reform, has been funding devastating dams for years. What is surprising is
that two of the most active supporters of the dam, who have done more than
any others to lend it credibility, are major conservation groups.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) recognise the destructive potential of
Nam Theun 2. But it is, they argue, the only means by which sufficient
money will be released by international donors to finance their plans for
the remainder of the Nakai Plateau.
Both organisations claim that the forests and wildlife of the plateau are
being gradually degraded by the shifting cultivation and hunting and
gathering of the region's indigenous people. The WCS appears to want local
people to leave the Nakai-Nam Theun Conservation Area altogether. The IUCN
will let them stay, but wants them to stop their traditional farming and
adopt the "alternative livelihoods" it prescribes. The dam project will
give these organisations the money they need for "proper management" - the
IUCN has asked the Bank for $65 million. Moreover, by increasing state
involvement in the region the dam will ensure that local people's
activities are properly policed.
Moreover, neither the IUCN nor the WCS has demonstrated satisfactorily
that local people are a substantial threat to the ecosystem. Indeed it is
arguable that conservation groups are only interested in the area because
indigenous people have looked after it so well. Experience elsewhere in
the world suggests that a strengthening, rather than a reduction, of local
people's land rights is the only sustainable means of managing an
ecosystem: they are the ones with a long-term interest in the health of
their environment.
Excluding people from their own resources while forcing them - as the IUCN
advocates - to grow cash crops, could scarcely do more to set them against
wildlife.
But neither human rights nor wider environmental impacts seem to matter
much to organisations like the Wildlife Conservation Society. Alongside
the equally prestigious Smithsonian Institute, the WCS is also working
with the Burmese regime. Earlier this year, the government forcibly
relocated 30,000 people from an area it wanted for a nature reserve. Two
thousand of them were murdered. Survival International has shown how the
Worldwide Fund for Nature's intervention in the Philippines has helped
reduce indigenous people to dependency and destitution. In East Africa,
tens of thousands of nomads who have been excluded by conservationists
from their best grazing lands now find themselves forced to over-exploit
the rest of the savannah.
The problem is as old as the conservation movement itself. Professor
Grzimek, Hitler's curator of Frankfurt Zoo and the champion of the
Serengeti National Park, claimed: "A National Park must remain a
primordial wilderness to be effective. No men, not even native ones,
should live inside its borders." Yet, beyond Antarctica, wilderness does
not exist on earth: all land is affected by and reflective of human
activities. Grzimek's preservationist model was never either a humane or
realistic means of conservation. Yet the policy has become both too
lucrative and too politically convenient to be changed. Big conservation
groups, like anyone else attempting the sequestration of resources, align
themselves with power against the powerless.
Conservation organisations like the IUCN and the WCS are not the friends
but the enemies of the environment. We must fight them as we fight the
governments and corporations with which they so gleefully collaborate.
Source: "Conservationists who are enemies of the earth", The Guardian.
Wednesday August 6 1997, by George Monbiot
...........................................
AFRICA
Malaysians in South Africa, South Africans in Brazil.-
Malaysian forestry companies could be given a thirty-year concession in
South Africa to establish 300.000 hectares of industrial tree plantations
in the Transkei in Eastern Cape province. Such project has raised very
difficult and delicate questions given that this is probably South
Africa's most impoverished area and plantations are being presented as
providing development, jobs and money. Malaysian companies would also
receive exclusive rights to develop elite and exclusive tourist resorts in
the most pristine areas of coastal forest endemism. For sure this will
prevent rural people from having access to their own natural resources and
will degrade the local ecosystems.
On the other side of the ocean, South African pulp and paper company Mondi
became, in May 1996, one of Aracruz Celulose's three major shareholders.
Aracruz is the world's largest bleached eucalyptus pulp producer and owns
203.000 hectares of land in the Brazilian states of Espirito Santo and
Bahia.
Those plantations have invaded indigenous peoples lands, who are
struggling to recover them and have resulted in widespread environmental
degradation. Development, jobs and money are also used here as
catchwords, but the true beneficiaries are mostly the companies'
shareholders.
Sources: Chris Albertyn, EJNF, South Africa; Aracruz Celulose: Facts and
Figures 1996
...........................................
SOUTH AMERICA
The pulp and paper industry faces problems in the Amazon.-
The four big pulp and paper projects in the Brazilian Amazon (Companhia
Suzano de Papel e Celulose and CELMAR in Maranhao, Jari Celulose in Para,
and Champion in Amapa) are facing important problems from the economic,
social and environmental points of view. The anarchic character of the
pulp and paper industry has resulted in falls in the prices of market
pulp. Rural workers denounce illegal work contracts while peasants protest
about the expansion of the lands owned by the companies. Champion bought
a total of 448.000 hectares in Amapa. Regional governments -as that of
Amapa- have denounced that some of the land sales to the companies have
been illegal since those were publicly owned. The utilization of
agrotoxics in eucalyptus plantations has raised workers' protests. They
claim suffering from headache and pains in their eyes and muscles as a
consequence of the application of Round-up and DMA and denounce not having
received the required health care.
Source: Instituto Socioambiental. Parabolicas 30, June 1997
...........................................
Asian companies invade the Amazon.-
A report on the activities of Asian logging companies in the Brazilian
Amazon, prepared by a special committee of the Brazilian Chamber of
Deputies will be ready by the end of August. According to Deputy Gilney
Viana of Matto Grosso (Workers' Party), two dozen transnational logging
companies are working in the Amazon. Those financed by Malaysian and
Chinese capitals entered the area in 1995. The Malaysian WTK Group bought
1.400.000 hectares at Carauari Municipality, Amazonia State, in
association with the Brazilian company Amaplac that exports plywood. A
second Malaysian group -presumed to be connected to Riguma and Jau
companies- has created a holding for wood industrialization together with
two Brazilian firms. This shows that the main strategy of foreign logging
companies is to associate with national firms, with the aim of avoiding
internal criticism for their depredatory activities. However, Brazilian
companies themselves should also be responsible for conserving the Amazon
environment. Viana pointed out that Article 225 of the Brazilian
Constitution, that declares the Amazon as being a national heritage, needs
to be regulated in order to avoid this kind of abuses. Nowadays foreign
economic groups can exploit at will 8 to 10 million hectares of the Amazon
without any kind of control from the public authorities.
Source: Gaucha Ecologica (Radio Gaucha) and Ecologia en Destaque (Radio
CBN/1120). Brazil. August 1997.
...........................................
Gold fever threatens forests and people in Suriname
The relatively untouched areas occupied by rainforests in Suriname
-source of a rich biodiversity and ancestral homeland for
thousands of Indigenous peoples and Maroons, descendants from ancient
African slaves- are threatened by the increase of mining concessions that
the Government is granting to foreign companies.
Plans of Canadian mining companies Golden Star Resources and Cambior Inc.
to mine gold in the Gross Rosebel concession, call for the relocation of
the Maroon of Nieuw Koffiekamp, which is strongly resisted by that
community. Since 1994, when the construction of the mining camp began,
Golden Star has been denying them access to their gardens, hunting and
fishing areas. A negotiation process is being carried out, but the
Government and the companies would not consider the will of the community
to stay in their lands. Only a resettlement agreement is to be negotiated.
The basic reason for this is that Suriname is the only country in the
Western Hemisphere that does not legally recognize some form of
traditional land tenure. "Our lands are of fundamental importance for our
survival as Indigenous and Tribal peoples. Without the land, forest and
rivers there are no trees, birds, animals and fish and we as Indigenous
and Maroon peoples will not be able to survive" declared a Gran Krutu
(Great Gathering) of Indigenous and Maroon leaders held in November 1996.
Golden Star and Cambior's background is not good at all: they were
partners in the infamous OMAI mine in Guyana, that dumped 3-4 million
litres of cyanide and heavy metal wastes into the Essequibo River when a
dam ruptured in August 19, 1995. This is considered one of the worst mine
disasters in history. Golder Associates of Toronto and Rescan of
Vancouver, respectively responsible for the building of the failed dam at
OMAI and the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Project, will also
take part in the Gross Rosebel Project. As a matter of fact, the
possibility of State control is inexistent since Suriname does not have
any environmental protection law and the Government lacks any monitoring
capacity. Thus the population of Suriname and especially its forest
peoples are forced to rely upon self-monitoring and self-regulation of two
companies that have proved to be completely unreliable in this respect.
Moreover David Fagin, Chairman of Golden Star, has even stated that his
company "has looked increasingly at the Guyana Shield because of the
increased pressure from environmentalists and the government in the United
States", where Golden Star is based.
This company has also formed a joint venture with Broken Hill Property, an
Australian mining giant, to explore the Tapanahogany and Tempati
concessions. BHP's background does not look very clean either: it has had
disputes with Aboriginal peoples in Australia and has caused environmental
degradation in other parts of the world, for instance, the dumping of
toxic wastes that occured in Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea and
the dispute for territorial rights with the community of Santa Rosa in
Guyana.
Finally a third case: the acquisition of three new mining concessions in
the Brokopondo District by the Canadian Canarc Resource Corp, that has
become one of the largest strategic mineral landholdings in Suriname. The
Maroon communities affected by these concessions were previously neither
informed nor consulted. Canarc's activities in the Baramita region of
Guyana -where it worked associated with Echo Bay- brought it into conflict
with local Indigenous peoples. As for Echo Bay it received a heavy fine
under the US Migratory Birds Treaty Act for poisoning birds with cyanide
at McCoy Clove mine in Nevada.
Source: Forest Peoples Programme, July 1997
...........................................
Indonesian Forestry Incursions in Suriname.-
After more than two years monitoring and carrying out research visits to
Suriname, the Tropical Rainforest Team of IFAW (International Fund for
Animal Welfare) and SKEPHI have published an interesting report on N.V.
MUSA Indo-Surinam -an Indonesian logging company- operating in that
country.
"Today in many countries in Africa, Central and South America, Mainland
South Asia, South Pacific and even in eastern Europe, direct logging
operations or indirect interests in timber supply can be seen in
conjunction with the expansion of South Eastern companies. While natural
forests in SE Asia have decreased to a critical state, the timber industry
(plywood, pulp and paper) in Malaysia and Indonesia is ever ambitioning
market expansion" state the authors. Important politicians and officials
of Suriname have facilited MUSA's expansion ignoring public concern for
the back-tracked record of the company. Even if -as is usual in this kind
of projects- MUSA claims that its activity will bring social and economic
benefits to the host country, reality shows the opposite. Apoera peasants,
in West-Suriname, where MUSA is managing a concession for logging since
1994, denounce the ecological and social depletion accomplished by the
company. MUSA's activities are a paradigmatic example of how transnational
capital operates in the forestry sector.
The report contains the following chapters:
Preface
Executive Summary
Report on N.V MUSA Indo-Surinam
Introduction
Company's name, background and profile
N.V. MUSA: its claims and machinations in Suriname
N.V. MUSA: its management, financial affairs and the situation of workers
N.V. MUSA: forestry activities
Unresolved and potential problems in Surinam
Further analysis of MUSA and its operation
Conclusion
Recommendation
Letter
MUSA's phantom front companies in Surinam
News Reports
Those interested in getting a copy please contact:
IFAW's Tropical Rainforest Programme (Fax ++32 2 23 10 402) or SKEPHI
(skephieu@xs4all.nl)
...........................................
OCEANIA
Clonal tree monocultures and genetic engineering in New Zealand
Aotearoa (New Zealand) has planted extensive industrial
tree plantations (more than one and a half million hectares), mostly
based on one exotic tree species: Pinus radiata. In recent decades
planting clonal stock has become standard practice. Currently, more
than 95% of new planting (this includes new afforestation and
planting after harvest) is based on Pinus radiata clones, selected
primarily for rapid growth (and thus reliance on fertilisers), tree
form to maximise the amount of `clear' (knot free) wood, and
qualities that suit industrial purposes. Current research focuses
indicate that it won't be long before the industry will be attempting
to release genetically engineered material, particularly for
herbicide (glyphosate) resistance, particular growth form or wood
quality traits, and sterility (to stop naturalisation into indigenous
ecosystems).
Source: Grant Rosoman, Greenpeace New Zealand, author of "The
plantation effect: an ecoforestry review on the environmental effects
of exotic monoculture tree plantations in Aotearoa/New Zealand."
Wellington, Greenpeace, 1994. Email: Grant.Rosoman@dialb.greenpeace.org
...........................................
Hawaii: Eucalyptus plantations arriving.-
Amid strong local opposition, eucalyptus plantations are coming to Hawaii.
Following a move by Bishop Estate, a huge local landowner, to lease 6400
hectares of ex-sugar lands on the Big Island of Hawai'i to a subsidiary of
Prudential Insurance company for eucalyptus pulpwood plantations, the
state and county of Hawaii are preparing to offer a rental agreement to
Oji Paper/Marubeni on an additional 4150 hectares of public land.
Oji/Marubeni are also seeking private land leases on the Big Island and
elsewhere. Some 10,000 hectares of state lands, in addition, may soon be
taken out of cattle grazing and put into pulp timber.
The eucalyptus would be chipped on the island and shipped to Japan as a
raw material for paper production, joining a flow of wood chips to Oji
from countries as far-flung as Chile, Australia, South Africa, New
Zealand, Viet Nam, and Fiji.
State officials have denied any interest in eventually also bringing a
pulp mill to the island. But local critics of the plantations, more than
2000 of whom have expressed concerns about Prudential's aerial spraying of
herbicides and large-scale field burning, remain unconvinced.
A local non-government organization called Friends of Hamakua, in
conjunction with local farmers and community organizations, is in the
midst of formulating an alternative land-use plan for the 4150 hectares on
the verge of being leased to Oji/Marubeni.
Hamakua County Councilman Dominic Yagong suggests that, instead of turning
to tree monoculture, the county lease its lands to 144 landless members of
a local agricultural co-op as a way of tapping the diversified potential
of these "prime agricultural lands".
Such a move, he claims, would provide far more jobs than would giving over
public lands to the pulp industry for 55 years.
A decision on the state and county lands is expected in the next month or
two.
Source: Larry Lohmann, August 1997.
For more information please contact:
Ada Pulin-Lamme
Friends of Hamakua
PO Box 1060
Honoka'a, HI 96727, USA
email: luana@aloha.net