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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Rainforest
Alliance's Latin American Forest News Briefs
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
August
29, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Following
is the Conservation Media Center's (a Rainforest
Alliance
program) bi-monthly publication which spotlights
significant
developments relating to forests and their loss and
conservation
in Latin America. This issue includes
items entitled
1)
Sellout of Suriname's Forests? 2) Central America Captures U.S.
Gas, 3)
Manatee Tourism in Belize, 4) Fallen Timber Raises Funds,
Hopes,
5) UPDATE: Panama Park Road. This item
was posted in
econet's
rainfor.general conference. For further
information on
EcoNet
membership, a nonprofit online system, send any message to
<econet-info@igc.apc.org>.
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/*
Written 10:04 AM Aug 29, 1995 by canopy
in igc:rainfor.genera
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---------- "Latin American News briefs" ---------- */
ECO-EXCHANGE:
A bi-monthly publication created by the Conservation
Media
Center (a Rainforest Alliance program based in Costa Rica).
These
news briefs can be used or edited with or without credit to
the
Conservation Media Center.
Sellout
of Suriname's Forests?
Conservationists
in Suriname hope they can convince the government
to
reject or modify requests from three Asian timber companies
that
want to log millions of forested acres.
An Indonesian
investment
group called MUSA has already been granted a concession
to
slash 350,000 acres.
Untouched
rainforest still cloaks more than 90 percent of
Suriname,
and the small South American country has one of the
lowest
deforestation rates in the world. Only
five percent of the
population
of 400,000 lives in the country's forested interior, in
scattered
villages along three major rivers.
We are
trying to show the Parliament that there are alternatives
to
logging the forest on a large scale, explains Stan Malone,
director
of Conservation International in Suriname.
We are
supplying
them with all the relevant information, so overnight
they
understand all options for sustainable development projects.
The
Amerindians and descendants of runaway slaves, or maroons, who
live in
Suriname's interior have made clear to the government
their
strong opposition to the concessions.
Nigel
Sizer of World Resources Institute, which has analyzed the
proposed
timber sale, says that selling concessions would be a
bad
deal financially for the government; environmentally, a
serious
threat to the forests; and socially, a threat to
indigenous
peoples.
Contacts:
In Suriname, Conservation International, 597/432305; in
the
U.S., World Resources Institute, 202/638-6300, Conservation
Intl.,
202/429-5660.
Central
America Captures U.S. Gas
A new
concept in conservation, called Joint Implementation, has
caught
on like wildfire in Central America, with strong backing
from
the United States. Joint
Implementation, or JI, was born at
the
1992 Earth Summit, when nations pledged to reduce their
emissions
of carbon dioxide and other gases that accumulate in the
atmosphere,
where the gas mass allows the sun's rays to pass
through
but not escape. This causes global
warming, or the
greenhouse
effect.
JI
permits an industry in one country to fulfill its commitment to
reduce
greenhouse gases by sponsoring an emissions-mitigating
project
in another country. Some critics claim
JI is unfair,
because,
they say, it lets developed countries evade the
responsibility
of controlling pollution at its source. But Central
America
remains enthused. At a June JI
conference in Costa Rica,
Central
American delegates and U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel
O'Leary
signed an agreement that makes all seven Central American
countries
potential hosts for U.S.-sponsored JI projects.
Five of
the first seven JI projects certified by the United States
are in
Central America. One involves Tenaska,
a utility company
in
Washington state, which is purchasing for the Costa Rican
national
park system about 6,000 acres of forest in the southern
part of
the country. Because this rainforest is
now saved from
destruction
and because trees absorb carbon dioxide, Tenaska is
compensating
for its damaging U.S. emissions.
At the
June conference, Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres
proudly
proclaimed that Central America will become the world's
Joint
Implementation laboratory.
Contacts:
In the U.S., Center for Sustainable Development in the
Americas,
1604 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20009
202/588-0155,
Tenaska Washington Partners, 503/294-0548; In Costa
Rica,
Joint Implementation Office, 506/257-1417.
Manatee
Tourism in Belize
The
West Indian manatee or sea cow is the most endangered marine
mammal
in the Caribbean. The docile creatures
live along
shorelines from Florida to Brazil, including some
Caribbean
islands.
The greatest concentration outside of Florida is in
Southern
Lagoon, Belize, where more than 50 manatees have been
counted. Now the people living on this lagoon, in a
community
called
Gales Point, think that tourism can save their village and
the
manatees at the same time.
Gales
Point has withered as logging and fishing declined. But
tourism
is flourishing in Belize, which still has intact
rainforest
and a world-famous coral reef.
Sunburned visitors are
eager
to see the rare manatees and will pay for the privilege.
The men
of Gales Point offer their boats and their services as
expert
manatee guides.
We've
been fishing these lagoons all our lives.
We know where the
manatees
hide, says village spokesman Walter Goff.
Under Goff's
leadership
and the help of the Belize Enterprise for Sustainable
Technology,
or BEST, Gales Point may make the transition from a
village
on the rocks to an ecotourism hotspot.
BEST technicians
are
advising and bankrolling entrepreneurial women who offer food
and lodging
in their homes, artisans who can sell their handiwork,
and
farmers who can produce organic fruits and vegetables.
Throughout
their range, sea cows suffer from collisions with
speeding
boats, and the 300-pound animals are still hunted
everywhere
they live except Florida. The fishermen
turned manatee
guides
in Belize vow to save their new tourist attraction.
Contacts:
In Belize, BEST, PO Box 35, Forest Drive, Belmopan,
501/82-3150
(tel), 501/82-2563 (fax); in USA, Sirenia Project,
Gainesville,
FL 32601-3701, 904/372-2571 (tel), 904/374-8080
(fax).
Fallen
Timber Raises Funds, Hopes
Farmers
in the Osa Peninsula of southern Costa Rica are making a
living
by selling timber -- without felling a single tree. Six
families
have formed a cooperative that is harvesting only
selected
logs leveled by nature on 600 acres of rainforest. Coop
member
Miguel Sanchez, sizes up a massive, fallen chiricano tree
he
estimates to be 300-years-old. Jeiner
Jimenez, a master with a
chainsaw,
cuts the tree into remarkably straight slabs, which are
dragged
from the site by a team of oxen to the cooperative's saw-
mill. The lumber should fetch about $1500. Our
low-tech methods
waste
no more than 10 percent of the wood, Sanchez explains.
Usual
methods of logging, which involve heavy machinery that
trashes
the surrounding forest, often squander up to 60 percent of
each
log. The fallen-timber project, which is sponsored by a Costa
Rican
conservation group called Fundacion TUVA, is backed with
$75,000
from such funders as GTZ-Germany, the National Fish and
Wildlife
Foundation, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society.
From
eventual profits, the cooperative will pay landowners about
$30 per
acre annually for permission to take windfalls from their
property. Manuel Alonso, executive director of TUVA,
believes
this
price will encourage landowners to leave their forests
standing
and productive. Cleared land in the Osa
usually erodes
quickly
and is soon infertile.
The
pilot project is located in a swath of lowland forest that
connects
to a 100,000-acre national park. Alonso
hopes to
duplicate
the project all along the corridor, preserving an
important
ecosystem while providing income to local residents.
Contacts:
In Costa Rica, Fundacion TUVA, Apdo. 54, Puerto Jimenez,
506/735-5013;
in USA, Andrew Kendall, Mass. Audubon Soc., 617/951-
2555.
UPDATE:
Panama Park Road
Engineers
are poised to begin construction on a highway that would
cut
through a popular park in Panama (see Panama Road: Ecological
or
Devilish?, Nov-Dec Eco-Exchange). The
30-mile highway would
connect
Panama City with the busy Caribbean port town of Colon.
The
government says the road is needed to relieve traffic
congestion
between the two cities. But the highway
would divide
Panama
City's Metropolitan Nature Park, 650 acres of rainforest
inhabited
by a rich array of wildlife, including more than 200
species
of birds. According to Brooke Alfaro, board member of
Metropolitan
Park, an alternative route recommended in a 1985
study
would be far less damaging. Neither the Mexican company that
is
building the highway nor the government have been able to
produce
one logical, scientific or technical reason for not using
this
alternative route, Alfaro says.
Contact:
In Panama, Brooke Alfaro, 507/228-6725 (tel), 507/228-
8527
(fax), William Adsett, Panama Audubon Society, 507/430-4994.
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