Category Archives: Illegal logging

by | May 17, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Video: Deutsche Bank and IFC accused of bankrolling land grabs in Laos, Cambodia

Note: Watch the video here

-The GJEP Team

By Kate Hodal, May 13, 2013. Source: The Guardian

sawmill

Two Vietnamese firms bankrolled by Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation – the World Bank’s private lending arm – are leading a wave of land grabs in Cambodia and Laos, causing widespread evictions, illegal logging and food insecurity, according to a report.

The study, concluding a year-long investigation by the watchdog Global Witness, names two of Vietnam’s biggest companies, the privately owned Huang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), as the businesses behind the land grabs. It claims they are working with the explicit support of the Cambodian and Laotian governments, who have authorised the land developments.

“We’ve known for some time that corrupt politicians in Cambodia and Laos are orchestrating the land-grabbing crisis that is doing so much damage in the region,” said Megan MacInnes, head of Global Witness’s land team, in a statement. “This report completes the picture by exposing the pivotal role of Vietnam’s rubber barons and their financiers, Deutsche Bank and the IFC.”

Global Witness researched land deals between the two governments and the firms, and found that HAGL and VRG had together been handed more than 200,000 hectares (nearly 500,000 acres) of land, including protected forest with rosewood, in which to grow rubber.
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by | April 11, 2013 · 2:00 pm

Can REDD save the thorn forests of the Paraguayan Chaco?

By Chris Lang, April 10 2013. Source: REDD-Monitor

Photo: Survival International

Photo: Survival International

The Paraguayan Chaco covers an area about the size of Poland. Thorn forests provide habitat to a wide range of species, including jaguar, ocelot, puma, tapir and giant armadillo. It is home to indigenous peoples, such as the Ayoreo, some of whom are uncontacted, the last uncontacted indigenous tribe south of the Amazon.

It is also being rapidly deforested as cattle ranchers from Brazil move in and clear the forest. Also involved in clearing the land are Mennonites, descendants of people who fled religious persecution in Russia and eastern-Europe in the 1930s. Between 2006 and 2010, one tenth of the Paraguayan Chaco was converted to ranches. Last year, the New York Times reported that satellite analyses by environmental group Guyra revealed that 1.2 million hectares of the Gran Chaco (which extends into Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil) had been cleared in the previous two years.

This short film by Survival International documents the impact of the deforestation on the Ayoreo indigenous people in Paraguay:

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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Commodification of Life, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Green Economy, Illegal logging, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests

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by | April 4, 2013 · 1:30 pm

Tree plantations in the South to generate energy in the North: A new threat to communities and forests

Note: The push for wood-based energy is fueling a major land grab worldwide.  Industry demand for wood – to be burned to generate electricity – is also driving the development of genetically engineered trees.  It is not too late to stop this process, and prevent more massive land grabbing, the spread of GE trees and the climate impacts of burning trees to make electricity.

-The GJEP Team

April 3, 2013. Source: World Rainforest Movement

cover_energyApparently out of concern over climate change and the urgent need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels, the governments of the North – particularly those of the member states of the European Union, but also those of the United States and Canada – are increasingly promoting the use of a certain type of raw material, considered “renewable”, for large-scale energy generation: wood.

To meet the growing demand for wood in the countries of the North, vast areas of land in the South face the threat of being occupied by monoculture tree plantations, which would even further exacerbate the current process of land grabbing. There are already close to 60 million hectares of land occupied by industrial tree plantations in the South.

According to a report from the European Union, one of the main promoters of the use of woody biomass, “the rising demand for woody biomass energy is likely to push the global price for wood, thus adding pressure on forests and other ecosystems and increasingconflicts between different landuses. More specific risks are deforestation corresponding with the replacement of natural forests by monoculture plantations. Rural communities are potentially harmed in their access to land and water, their food and energy security for decades given the long-term nature ofmost investments and projects.”(1)
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by | · 10:30 am

Indiana bill would make it illegal to expose factory farms, clearcutting and fracking

By Will Potter, April 2, 2013. Source: Green is the New Red

law-against-fracking-activism-300x200

Indiana lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it illegal to photograph or videotape things like factory farming, clear-cutting forests, mining, and fracking.

You read that correctly. Under Indiana’s SB 0373, anyone who sets foot on corporate property in order to document environmental, animal welfare, and health violations of these industries would face criminal penalties.

The bill has already passed the Senate, and is on track to pass the full House. It is part of a wave of similar legislation introduced across the country that have been dubbed “ag-gag” bills. [Here's a detailed look at ag-gag efforts nationally.] But Indiana is poised to become the first state to pass an ag-gag bill this year.

This ag-gag trend is the brainchild of the Big Ag industry, working with the American Legislative Exchange Council. What’s especially troubling about Indiana’s bill, though, is that it extends far beyond factory farms to the timber, mining, and manufacturing industries.
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by | April 2, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Brazil: Awá tribe’s desperate call to evict loggers

March 31, 2013. Source: World War 4 Report

An Amazonian indigenous group said to be the Earth’s most threatened tribe has sent an urgent appeal to Brazil’s government to evict invaders from their forest homeland. Despite a federal judge’s ruling that ordered Brazilian authorities to remove all invaders on Awá land by the end of March, not a single person has yet been evicted. The Awá are becoming increasingly desperate as illegal loggers close in on them and settlers encroach on their territory. In a rare video appeal to Brazil’s Minister of Justice, an Awá man said: “I am angry, very angry… The loggers come here and chop down the trees…  The Minister of Justice in Brasília can help us here, now. He must help us now!”

Brazilian football fans have loaned their support for the tribe. At a March 3 soccer match with Russia in London, Brazilian fans demonstrated their support for the Awá by brandishing icons reading “Brazil: Save the Awá.” In a campaign led by UK-based Survival International, nearly 50,000 letters have been sent to the Brazilian government urging it to evict the invaders. Survival’s director Stephen Corry said: “It is a scandal that the Awá have been driven to such desperation. As they hear the chainsaws day and night in their forest, it seems to them that the judge’s ruling and the government’s promises have been forgotten. The Awá need action, now.” (Survival International, March 26)

In a similar case also in Maranhão state, the Pukobjê-Gavião in the indigenous reserve of Governador seized four trucks and a tractor as well as a large quantity of illegally felled timber to protest the enroachment of loggers on their territory. (Noticias Aliadas, March 7)

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by | March 21, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Forest protection groups call on UN to take serious steps to halt deforestation on International Day of Forests

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project is a signatory to this letter, calling on the UN to take real steps toward addressing deforestation, and opposing false solutions like REDD+, biofuels, and monocultures plantations, which can lead to increased deforestation and human rights abuses against forest peoples.

-The GJEP Team

March 21, 2013. Source: World Rainforest Movement

On the occasion of March 21st, proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as International Day of the Forests (1), the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) and more than 300 signatories call on the General Assembly and UN Institutions and Initiatives related to forest issues to use the new initiative to address the underlying drivers of deforestation.

The letter is motivated by the fact that in spite of several UN initiatives aimed at calling attention for forests at the international level, the process of deforestation -affecting especially tropical forests- continues and the proposed solutions have not slowed down tropical forest loss worldwide – on the contrary.

“The proposals discussed at UN-level, by the FAO, CBD, UNFCCC and UNFF, to solve the forest crisis, for example REDD+ (2), are false solutions because they do not address the underlying drivers of deforestation and strengthen a false idea of sustainability. This is why deforestation has increased in many countries, rather than decreased”, declares Winnie Overbeek, International Coordinator of the WRM.
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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, GE Trees, Green Economy, Illegal logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | March 18, 2013 · 12:00 pm

March 21, International Day of Forests: Letter of support

Note: As this letter points out, the United Nations’ definition of “forest” is conveniently vague enough to consider destructive monoculture tree plantations as the same as biodiversity-rich, native forests.  And if the biotech industry has its way, genetically engineered (GE) trees could be considered “forests” as well, leading to a vast expansion of these toxic wastelands for pulp and bioenergy production.

Help Global Justice Ecology Project stop this madness by joining us in calling for a ban on the release of GE trees into the environment.  Sign the petition here: http://globaljusticeecology.org/petition.php

–The GJEP Team

Source: World Rainforest Movement

Photo: REDD-Monitor

Photo: REDD-Monitor

Dear friends,

Hereby we ask your support for a letter we formulated and we intend to publish on occasion of the first International Day of Forests, 21 March, a new international day proposed by the UN.

The following letter that will be sent to the UN and its forest-related institutions and initiatives is motivated by the fact that in spite of this and other UN initiatives to ask attention for forests at the international level, the process of deforestation, affecting especially tropical forests, continues and the proposed solutions have not slowed tropical forest loss worldwide, on the contrary. This is directly related to the fact that these “solutions”, such as REDD+, do not address the underlying drivers of deforestation and strengthens the idea of a false sustainability. The continuous forest destruction affects directly the life and future of hundreds of millions of forest dependent peoples.

We ask that as much as possible national and international networks and organizations sign up to this letter until 19 March, but also signatures of individuals and activists, mentioning your country and/or organization, are more than welcome. Continue reading →

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by | March 13, 2013 · 9:00 am

Barriere Lake Algonquin affirm opposition to Copper One mining project, all mineral exploration activity on their territory

March 13, 2013. Source: Intercontinental Cry

Photo: http://www.barrierelakesolidarity.org

A demonstration against illegal logging last year. Photo: http://www.barrierelakesolidarity.org

Today, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake are re-affirming their opposition to the proposed exploration activities of the junior mining company Copper One (TSX-V: CUO) within their unceded traditional territory. Copper One’s Rivière Doré project is within the area of an existing co-management agreement that Barriere Lake signed with Quebec and Canada in 1991 (the Trilateral Agreement).

The Trilateral Agreement was negotiated in a spirit of coexistence with Quebec and Canada in order to share the responsibility and benefits of sustainably managing a portion of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake’s traditional territory. Mining was not a consideration in the agreement and there has not been a process established by which claim staking, mineral exploration or mining could be considered within our territory. Despite a well-established body of case law (for example the recent decisions in Ross River Dena Council and Wahgoshig First Nation) the Quebec government has not fulfilled its duty to consult, accommodate and seek our consent for claim staking or mineral exploration.

In the last decade, both Canada and Quebec have failed to uphold the spirit and letter of the Trilateral agreement. As a result the people of Barriere Lake have been forced to spend considerable resources and put themselves at risk of harm and legal retribution defending their land. The government owes the community the duty to consult and obtain the consent of Barriere Lake prior to any mineral exploration. As the duty rests with the government of Quebec, the community sees no reason to negotiate with Copper One, a private party that established an interest in Barriere Lake’s territory without consent.
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by | March 5, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Video: Indonesian pulp giant APRIL is bulldozing Indigenous community forests

By Chris Lang, March 5, 2013. Source: redd-monitor

Once again, an Indonesian pulp and paper company is clearing the forests of indigenous communities to replace them with industrial tree plantations. Once again, villagers are protesting. Once again, the police and authorities are siding with the company.

In 2009, PT Toba Pulp Lestari announced that it was expanding its pulp and paper operations in Porsea, near Lake Toba in Sumatra from 165,000 tonnes per year to 300,000 tonnes per year. Since then, the company has been clearing communities’ forests, despite on-going land conflicts and protests by local communities. Recently, 31 villagers were arrested trying to stop the company from destroying their forests. 16 men are still in prison in Medan.

The indigenous people that live in Sipituhuta and Pandumaan villages have farmed resin from benzoin trees in the forests for more than 300 years. By destroying the forests and the benzoin trees, PT Toba Pulp Lestari is also destroying their livelihoods. “I struggle now to feed my children,” one of the villagers says. “All that will be left is to be a TPL plantation labourer. I do not want to be a labourer.”

Life Mosaic has produced a short video about the communities’ protests and the recent arrests (also available in Bahasa Indonesia, here):

Don’t Pulp Pandumaan-Sipituhuta: A David and Goliath Tale from LifeMosaic on Vimeo.
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by | February 28, 2013 · 4:30 pm

The REDD contradiction: Deforestation and oil palm plantations in the Congo Basin

By Chris Lang, February 28, 2013. Source: REDD-Monitor

Photo: Media Freedom International

The Congo River. Photo: Media Freedom International

Since 2009, companies have announced new oil palm plantation projects in the Congo Basin covering a total area of 1.6 million hectares. Projects currently underway cover 500,000 hectares. A new report by Rainforest Foundation UK warns that vast areas of the Congo Basin forests are potentially threatened by the expansion of oil palm plantations.

The report, “Seeds of Destruction” (pdf file, 4.7 MB), includes case studies of three of the companies involved. A company called Atama Plantations SARL has started clearing forest in the Republic of Congo for a 180,000 hectare plantation. Rainforest Foundation UK investigated the companies behind Atama Plantations and found a “web of ‘shell’ companies registered in secretive tax havens”.

In February 2012, a Malaysian company called Wah Seong announced it would buy a 51% stake in Atama Resources Inc, a Mauritius-registered company that owns Atama Plantations SARL: “The $25 million purchase of Atama by Wah Seong is almost as complicated as the web of companies behind Atama.” Continue reading →

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