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Forest Controversy Simmers On |
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By By Sonia Parra*
An
international consultancy became involved in the implementation
of Colombia's new forestry law, and unleashed a flood of criticism
BOGOTA, Oct 2 (IPS/IFEJ) - The implementation
of Colombia's General Forestry Law, enacted by the government in
April, has reopened the debate on this legislation as a result of
the appearance on a government web site of a regulation process
drawn up by an international consultancy in the industry.
On the web site of the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial
Development, a proposal appeared this month signed by the Colombia
Forestry Program, a cooperation initiative of the U.S. International
Agency for Development (USAID) administered by Chemonics International,
which had explicit participation in the drafting of the law.
In the wake of a flood of criticism, the text was removed from the
site.
The ministry's director for ecosystems, Leonardo Muñoz Cardona,
said in an interview that the initiative was not solicited by the
ministry nor does it reflect its official position, despite being
presented on the web site -- but its recommendations will be taken
into account.
The Ministry of Environment is preparing a package of regulatory
decrees, to be presented in mid-October. At that point, it will
set a three-month period for discussion and collect the opinions
presented, and then submit the texts for the signature of President
Alvaro Uribe for the law to be completely in force.
The regulation suggested by the Colombia Forestry Program has come
under fire from environmentalists, minority groups and lawmakers,
who had opposed the legislation pushed by the government.
The controversy now is focused on the basic aspects of the law:
rights to land versus rights to forest cover, regulation of forest
and jungle territories, administration of resources and mobilization
of forest products.
One of the challenges to the proposal is the continuation of the
concept of forest cover, borrowed from Bolivian legislation, which
considers the forest mass -- not the land -- as a good that can
serve as collateral in financial or credit operations.
During the debate about the law, the critics forced the government
to exclude the application of this approach in collectively held
territories of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities. But the
language reappeared in the drafts of the decree.
Muñoz Cardona assured that its application will refer only to forestry
plantations and that the ministry did not agree with the proposal
presented by the Colombia Forestry Program.
According to Colombia's 1991 constitution, collective territories
are inalienable and free from embargo.
But if a clear ban is not defined, the necessities and, in some
cases, the organizational weakness of the communities will lead
to negotiation with individual lumber companies and exploitation
of forests on an industrial scale, says activist Mariela Osorno,
of Ecofondo, an umbrella of more than 100 environmental groups in
Colombia.
Meanwhile, the business sectors that promoted the law are finalizing
initiatives, like productive chains in the forestry sector, which
imply an alliance with industries for the transformation, marketing
and transport of goods.
Afro-Colombian communities in Tumaco, in the southwestern department
of Nariño, and in Bajo Atrato and Baudó, in the northwestern Chocó,
say that private agents have proposed financing studies for forest
exploitation, and that they themselves are working on obtaining
permits in order to establish the commercial alliances set forth
in the law, according to José Santos, of PCN, a network of Afro-Colombian
organizations.
Another item to be dealt with is the new demarcation of forested
areas.
The Law 2 of 1959 established seven national forestry reserves that
include collectively held territories, from which 14 million hectares
and 52 regional reserves of 500,000 hectares have been subtracted,
according to official data.
The ministry is in the process of defining and mapping the reserves,
and will do so through the autonomous regional agencies' forest
regulation plans, for which it still has two years, said Muñoz Cardona.
But the minority groups, mainly the Afro-Colombian and indigenous
communities of Chocó and the Amazon, see a threat in that section
of the law, because it opens the possibility of limiting their territories
and even of partial or total loss in those cases in which land titles
are still pending and where communities are being forcibly displaced
to escape the country's 40-year civil war.
Furthermore, the proposal by the Colombia Forestry Program for mobilization
of forest products will allow removal of all the lumber from the
forest without an environmental permit, said Diego Cardona, spokesman
for Censat Agua Viva, a member of the Friends of the Earth network.
"The controls dictated by Law 99 of 1993 have been left invalid,
and there will be no way to know if all the wood that is sold comes
from forest plantations or from natural forests that are being exploited
without regulation," he said.
But the ministry spokesman responded that all forest plantations
are and will be clearly identified, so there will be no risk of
natural forests being logged.
Nevertheless, illegal logging is estimated on 100,000 hectares annually
in this Andean and Amazonian country, whose biodiversity-rich forests
cover 44 percent of the national territory of 1.1 million square
kilometers.
The National Attorney General and the Comptroller General of the
Republic are closely following the implementation of the law, about
which they have already formulated juridical observations.
"There exists a grave risk that the natural forests will have to
adapt to the conditions of the market and logging, without prior
existence of a regulation that guarantees their sustainability.
The same thing occurred with the national nature parks, whose tourism
services are being granted in concession, without basic management
plans," Comptroller General Antonio Hernández said in a presentation
before Congress during the legislative debate.
While implementation is being defined, a group of organizations
and lawmakers are preparing to file a claim of the law's unconstitutionality
before the Constitutional Court at the end of the year.
The litigants -- including Ecofondo, Censat Agua Viva, Semillas,
PCN and the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia -- will
denounce the violation of articles of the constitution and failure
to comply with international conventions signed by the country related
to biodiversity, climate change and wetlands, among others.
Meanwhile, Censat, Swissaid, Semillas and the Center for Indigenous
Cooperation are working with other groups on the Selva Viva (Living
Forest) campaign, aimed at advising the affected communities so
that they can take action in response to the law and reinforce a
culture of forest conservation.
* This story is part of a series of features
on sustainable development by IPS - Inter Press Service and IFEJ
- International Federation of Environmental Journalists.
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