VICTORY
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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Chilean
Beech Forest Harvest on Hold
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
10/18/98
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
Following
is an update regarding Trillium Corp. of Washington's plan
to log
ancient forests in Chile. Due at least
partly from public
pressure,
including letters you all wrote and hard work by talented
forest
campaigners, they have withdrawn.
Unfortunately, there is some
chance
that they may simply move their equipment for forest harvest to
Argentina. This is about a month old but thought it
important to
point
out victory!
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM
#1:
Title: Trillium Looks to Argentina, May Put
Native Forest Project
in Chile on Hold for Several Years
Source: CHIP NEWS
Status: Distribute Freely, with credit given to
source
Date: September 2, 1998
Byline: James A. Ahlers
Forestry
company Trillium S.A. is cutting almost its entire staff in
Chile
and looking to Argentina as an alternative, head of forestry
operations
Bob Ellis told CHIP News Tuesday. The statement follows an
announcement
by the company on April 1 that it would postpone the
environmentally
controversial venture.
Trillium,
based out of Bellingham, Washington, is the owner of the
US$200
million Rio Condor project in Tierra del Fuego, which would
harvest
some 103,000 hectares of old-growth native lenga forest. The
company
says it has sought to develop a model for sustainable
harvesting,
but has nonetheless drawn fierce opposition from
environmental
groups since it began the project in 1994.
The
governor of Chilean Tierra del Fuego, Silvia Vera, has been one of
the
project's most vocal supporters, and she is joined by the Frei
administration,
the business community and some academics. Others,
like
Harald Schmidt, director of the University of Chile's lenga
research
program, and Marcel Claude, the economist who heads the
Terram
Foundation, question the sustainability of Trillium's proposed
harvesting
rate, among other factors.
Environmental
authorities have twice approved the company's
environmental
impact statement (EIS), only to have court rulings or
additional
environmental demands derail Trillium's plans. The
Magallanes
(Region XII) Regional Environmental Commission (Corema)
approved
Trillium's second EIS, imposing some 100 stipulations for re-
engineering.
Trillium
General Manager Edmundo Fahrenkrog after the ruling expressed
optimism
that the company would be able to continue with the project.
But
injunctions filed by Greenpeace and two Chilean environmental
groups,
who say the project will destroy precious native forest
reserves,
have again delayed Rio Condor.
The
weight of Corema's stipulations for approving the EIS, as well as
other
administrative barriers, are also becoming apparent. One of
the
requirements, for example, is that before beginning production
Trillium
must set aside an environmental deposit bond, a sort of
insurance
policy for the Chilean government against environmental
damage.
Ellis said Tuesday that no law exists to manage such a bond,
thus
opening up another can of worms.
Further,
he said, National Forestry Commission (Conaf) and Corema
officials
in Magallanes have been downright hostile. Trillium staff
members
asked Conaf officials to accompany them in compiling the
cartography
of the area, he said, but they refused. When the company
submitted
it management plans, along with the US$70,000 fee, Conaf
rejected
them.
At the
end of March Trillium announced it would postpone further
development
to focus on its legal defense, but insisted it is not
abandoning
its plans. Trillium may abandon Chile, however, at least
for a
few years. Whereas Rio Condor in Chile was to be the first stage
of the
project, and Lenga Patagonia in Argentina was to be the second,
now the
company is thinking of doing the reverse.
"We
are as of now putting a higher priority on our Argentine
operations,"
Ellis said. "I think we've made our decision. I think
there's
nothing Chile can do now, except maybe give us a clean EIS,
and say
forget all these conditions, ... all this crap ...
The
numbers also show that Trillium is pulling out. When Ellis arrived
in
Chile in February 1997, the company had 52 employees. When Trillium
cuts
six more staff members this week, he said, the total number of
employees
will fall to five. In May, the company will cut down to
three
employees, all Chilean, including General Manager Farhenkrog.
Ellis
himself will leave in June.
Trillium
is seeking relief with the Supreme Court, and if it does not
get it,
it will have to consider other options. The Argentine
government
appears willing to provide infrastructure and other
incentives
for Trillium to head up the operation there, Ellis said.
Further,
the price of lenga is rising everyday, he said, so leaving
the
property in Chile unharvested for a time may provide greater
returns.
Lenga
Patagonia and Rio Condor together would provide Tierra del Fuego
with
some 1,000 jobs, Ellis said. If Trillium heads to Argentina and
sets up
in Rio Grande, it will take with it maybe the 400 best jobs,
in
management and processing plants.
ITEM #2
Title: Washington company backs out of Chile
Proposed logging project
Source: Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest
PO Box 154
Peshastin, WA 98847
Status: Press Release, Distribute Freely
Date: September 24, 1998
PRESS
RELEASE
For
Immediate Release
Thursday,
September 24, 1998
Contact: Pat Rasmussen
Leavenworth
Audubon Adopt a Forest
(509)
548-7640
TIERRA
DEL FUEGO, CHILE--In the face of an international uproar over
the
proposed logging of hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin
hardwood
forest at the tip of South America, a Washington state timber
company
has laid off most of its 52-person project staff and put the
venture
on hold.
The
news from Bellingham-based Trillium S.A. comes after years of
protests
over the company's plan to log off some 398 square miles old-
growth
native lenga forest. The statement from Trillium followed an
announcement
by the company on April 1 that it would postpone the
environmentally
controversial venture.
Trillium-which
is known in its home state of Washington for
clearcutting
large sections of Whatcom County-had claimed it was
seeking
to develop a sustainable forestry model for the Patagonian
project.
The company says it is now looking to forests in Argentina as
an
alternative to Chile.
More
then 200 environmental groups from Chile and Argentina had joined
together
with national and international organizations to oppose the
project.
The groups collected over 35,000 signatures on petitions in
Chile
and 6,000 in Argentina, rejecting Trillium's projects and
calling
for protection of Tierra del Fuego's primary forests.
Washington
state forest activists joined with Chileans to expose the
"real"
Trillium to the Chilean government and public. In April, Pat
Rasmussen,
president of Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest, took
aerial
photographs of Trillium clearcuts in Whatcom County, east of
Bellingham,
then flew to Santiago, Chile-where she showed the photos
in
numerous public meetings and press conferences.
Holding
up the photos, Maria Luisa Robleto, of Greenpeace Chile,
remarked,
"We do not believe that Trillium will do a project that
cares
for the southern forests of Tierra del Fuego because here is the
proof
of what they did in their own state."
In a
May letter to Bob Manne, director of Trillium's Rio Condor
project,
fifty-eight environmental groups said they are all too
familiar
with Trillium's clearcut legacy in Washington state, and
called
on the company to reconsider its involvement in the Rio
Condor/Lenga
Patagonia projects and to seek buyers at the original
price
they paid who can conserve and protect these treasured Ancient
Forests.
"We
are committed to informing citizens in Washington, Oregon, Idaho
and
Montana as well as the rest of the nation of your threat to the
Chilean
and Argentinean forests," the letter said.
"Trillium
go home," said Adriana Hoffmann, director of the Chilean
environmental
organization, Defenders of the Chilean Forests. "Restore
the
lands you clearcut in Washington state before you come to Chile
pretending
to do sustainable forestry."
Steve
Walker, of Middle Fork GIS in Bellingham, said, "What hubris, to
destroy
the forests of home, take the money half the planet away to
industrialize
some of the world's last remaining native forest lands,
and
call it sustainable. Observers of
Trillium's South American
activities
would be well advised to balance the company's assurances
against
the record it has established at home.
"Trillium
leaves forever unmet calls to provide forest stewardship in
Whatcom
County. As early as 1991, and as
recently as January and May
of
1997, Trillium had promised management plans for its Whatcom forest
lands.
If such a plan ever existed, a decade of evidence suggests that
it
could be sufficiently summarized as:
'Clearcut, build roads, spray
herbicides.'
Trillium's short tenure was one which saw thousands of
acres
of forests clearcut, and tens of miles of roads constructed, but
less
than one percent of the land protected.
"Truly
responsible behavior on the part of Trillium would have meant
substantial
reinvestment in the forests and watersheds from which it
extracted
so much wealth."
"The
ancient forests of Tierra del Fuego are a global treasure. They
must be
preserved as they are," said Jim Jontz, director of American
Lands
Alliance, in Washington, D.C.
Additional
contacts:
Steve
Walker, Middle Fork GIS, P.O. Box 2157, Bellingham, WA 98227
(360
)671-2505 mfgis@pacificrim.net
Jim
Jontz, American Lands Alliance, 1025 Vermont Ave,. Washington, DC
202879-3188
wafcjj@igc.apc.
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