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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Chile Forest Project Tests Free Trade

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8/20/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The Cascada lumber project planned for Southern Chile has become a

test case of whether free trade agreements, in this case between Chile

and Canada, will honor commitments to environmental protection.  A

Chilean NGO is taking the Cascada project to the Chile-Canada

Commission for Environmental Co-operation set up to arbitrate

environmental disputes under the free trade agreement.  Shockingly,

the environmental impact study for the project only covers the 177

hectare area of the project's processing plant, and includes no data

on how the project would biologically and ecologically affect the

immense biological wealth of local forests.  69,039 square kilometres

of native forest, some of the most biodiverse and endemic temperate

rainforests in the World, would be devastated by the project -- but

are not mentioned in the environmental study.  Failure of the various

treaty commissions to halt this senseless liquidation of priceless

ancient ecosystems signals that free trade, even when accompanied by

environmental protocols, is incompatible with ecological

sustainability.  This article is a couple weeks old, but I thought it

important to pass on nonetheless.

g.b.

 

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

 

Title:  ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Forest Project Puts Canada Treaty to Test 

Source:  [c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

Date:  August 4, 2000  

By:  Gustavo Gonz lez

 

SANTIAGO, Aug 4 (IPS) - A lawsuit environmental groups filed against

the Cascada lumber project slated for southern Chile has turned into a

test of the environment protocol of the free trade agreement the South

American country signed with Canada in 1997.

 

The Chile-Canada Commission for Environmental Co-operation took up the

complaint initiated by the 'Fiscal­a del Medio-Ambiente' (FIMA -

Environmental Prosecutors), a non-governmental organisation of

attorneys that seeks to prevent the Cascada project from

materialising, citing its negative ecological impacts.

 

If the binational commission, based in Canada, ultimately determines

that the treaty's environmental standards have not been fully applied

throughout the approval process for the project, the Chilean

government risks charges of non-compliance with the 1997 free trade

accord.

 

If this occurs, the case moves to the Joint Committee for Petition

Review, another body created by the Chile-Canada treaty, to carry out

an in-depth analysis of the charges and then issue a ruling.

 

This would set a precedent for future trade accords that Chile is

currently negotiating with individual countries or blocs from the

industrialised world, something activists see as a positive for

environmental protection.

 

The business community, however, maintains that if this dispute goes

any further, it will send a negative message to foreign investors as

far as risks they might face in this country.

 

Chile is negotiating a trade and integration treaty with the European

Union and is still bound by trade agreements with the United States,

both through bilateral accords and the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA).

 

The Cascada project, slated for construction 1,100 km south of

Santiago in Ilque bay, southeast of Puerto Montt, is a partnership

of the US-based Boise Cascade and Chile's Maderas C›ndor.

 

The 180-million-dollar project involves construction of a plant in

Ilque, a coastal town of 700 people, to process wood taken from nearby

forests to make plywood and wood chips.

 

The plant would be supplied with logs purchased from third parties and

would have the capacity to process a million cubic metres of wood per

year, which represents a major threat to the area's forests, say

ecologists.

 

The environmental impact study for the project, which was approved

under former president Eduardo Frei, did not include data on how the

project would affect the biological wealth of local forests.

 

The study mentions the 177 hectare area the Ilque plant would occupy,

but ignores the 69,039 square kilometres of native forest that would

be devastated by the project, say the plant's detractors.

 

It was this omission that prompted FIMA to file the complaint with the

Chile-Canada Commission for Environmental Co-operation with the

backing of Chilean environmental groups and of the Inter- American

Association for the Defence of the Environment.

 

The commission came about as part of the environmental measures of the

trade treaty Frei signed with Canada in 1997, after failing to gain

Chile's full admission into NAFTA the year before.

 

The treaty with Canada, which also includes a labour protocol, was the

first one Chile had signed with an industrialised country, after

signing numerous accords with Latin American countries that did not

take environmental factors into account.

 

International environmental organisations adopted the Cascada project

as a symbol of the defence of temperate rain forests as they set their

sights on protests against the so-called Millennium Round of

international trade talks.

 

The groups took part in the massive demonstrations in the US city of

Seattle outside the third ministerial conference of the World Trade

Organisation, held Nov 29 to Dec 3, 1999.

 

The Chilean environmental groups accuse the Chile-US partnership of

having lobbied the National Environmental Commission (Conama) to win

approval for the project.

 

Biologist Adriana Hoffman was designated by current president Ricardo

Lagos to serve as Conama's leader. Until March, Hoffman headed the

Defenders of the Chilean Forest organisation, an umbrella group that

has energetically fought the Cascada project.

 

She has disqualified herself from participating as the Chilean

government representative in the case initiated by FIMA before the

Chile-Canada commission. (END/IPS/tra-so/ggr/ag/ld/00)

 

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