Forests and Conflict
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arborvitae The IUCN Forest Conservation Programme Newsletter Issue 38 2008 Goma: If we don’t do anything and wait until the war is over, there won’t be any more forests and animals to conserve. 3 Sudan: Refugees need many natural resources to help them reconstruct a life, albeit a temporary one, in their hosting area.5 Feature: High levels of violence in forested areas are no coincidence. They don’t call it ‘jungle warfare’ for nothing. 9 Chiapas: Mediation is a prerequisite where Torfinn © Panos Pictures/Sven conservation and Fleeing violent clashes outside Goma, DRC indigenous rights clash. 15 Forests and conflict Contents: 2 Editorial | 3 Livelihoods and Landscapes: DRC | 4-5 Refugees and forests: Burundi and Sudan | 6-7 Does conflict help or hinder conservation? | 8-9 Feature: Jungle warfare: what comes next? | 10-11 Managing forest conflict: Asia and Africa | 12- 15 Forest conflict cases: Brazil, Thailand, Ecuador, Mexico | 16 The interview: Ashok Khosla, President of IUCN editorial2 news AV36AV38 July 20082008 AV38 Editorial This arborvitae is also available in If diamonds are a guerrilla’s best friend more vital for the livelihoods and well- French and Spanish on our website at (as Paul Collier says in his book The being of forest communities, providing www.iucn.org/forest/av Bottom Billion), then forests must come timber for temporary housing, bushmeat a close second. Forests have long provided and other non-timber forest products for If you have a comment on something armed groups with hiding places and basic rations. However, these forest you have read in a recent issue of lucrative funding sources, and ‘conflict’ resources may often be exposed to severe arborvitae, we'd love to hear from you. timber has helped support many war overexploitation as day-to-day survival You can send a message to: machines worldwide. However, in this takes priority over a longer-term view, [email protected] issue of arborvitae, we look at forest and the social cohesion necessary for conflict from a broader angle, exploring sustainable resource use is lost in the those situations that, while causing real conflict. Turning this situation around disruption to local livelihoods and will require close collaboration with threatening biodiversity, rarely make locally-respected and non-partisan the headlines. We will look at the impact organizations capable of understanding and implications of forest-based conflicts the historical antecedents of the problems between resident communities and at hand to ensure that the sustainable use refugees, between different forest- of forest resources is seen as part of the dependent groups, and between local solution, and not as an added constraint people and powerful outside actors. or unaffordable luxury. These partners will be even more important once peace We also touch on the question of how returns, as post-conflict situations can “Voting on REDD”: The essential conflict interacts with the sustainable bring a whole new set of challenges. ingredients needed for a successful management of forest resources. Given REDD recipe Stewart Maginnis that conflict is such an effective ‘poverty- IUCN has just published the results Head of IUCN’s Forest from a “Cast your Vote Live” workshop creating’ mechanism, forests become even Conservation Programme held at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, October 2008, in which participants were asked several questions relating to news in brief REDD. Although it was acknowledged that one REDD recipe does not Certification 101. TRACER, a company specialized in traceable certified forest fit all situations and that different products has launched the ‘Rough Guide to Traceable Certified Forest Products’. This approaches are needed in different booklet provides succinct and useful guidance for those who need to get a grasp of the terminologies and processes relating to the procurement of certified forest products. It contexts, participants were very can be ordered or downloaded from www.tra-cer.com. clear on what must be included and planned for at the local, national Gorilla numbers rise in Virunga. The mountain gorilla population in Virunga National and international levels if REDD is to Park is showing signs of increase, despite the conflict that has been raging in the area. become a viable option by 2012. The The first census since park rangers were forced to flee the Mikeno sector of the park in responses also highlighted that the September 2007, was conducted by the ICCN, the DRC government institution in charge ingredients considered most important of protected area management, and covered six groups of habituated mountain gorillas (i.e. groups that have become used to humans). To the rangers’ surprise, the number of by participants are already the focus gorillas in these groups had increased to 81, from 72 in 2007. “This astonishingly good of IUCN’s work. Read opinions from news about the mountain gorillas is possible thanks to the courageous efforts of ICCN the international panelists and about rangers who worked tirelessly to gain access to the gorillas despite on-going violence,” the steps some countries are taking to said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF International’s Species Programme. prepare themselves for REDD. (www. Source: www.panda.org, 27 January, 2009. See the article on the Virunga gorillas on page 6 of this issue of arborvitae. iucn.org/about/work/programmes/ forest/?2609/Voting-on-REDD) Protests against Indian tiger reserve. More than 15,000 people protested in southern India in December against plans to extend a new tiger reserve, fearing that they would lose their homes. The state government of Tamil Nadu declared this reserve earlier in 2008 as part of India’s ‘Project Tiger’, aimed at boosting the country’s dwindling tiger population. According to Rajeev Srivastava, a field director for Project Tiger, the protests were not against the declaration of a 321 sq km core area but against the creation of a buffer zone. Around 350 families living in the core area have been given a 1 million rupee ($20,800) payout, but those in the buffer areas fear they will be evicted, Srivastava said. “We have no intention to dislodge anyone from the buffer zone. In fact, people in this zone will be involved in the project as trackers and guides for eco-tourists to enhance their means of livelihood.” Source: www.planetark.com, 31 December 2008. DGIS is the Development Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands AV38 2008 livelihoods and landscapes 3 Conflict in Goma: what’s happening to conservation? In spite of the difficult conflict situation in the region, AFED continues to promote forest restoration and conservation. However, the takeover of the area around Goma by militias has created very uncertain conditions and disrupted AFED attempts to help these people build a more secure future. In fact, AFED staff members have had to put short-term survival ahead of the longer term conservation and development needs of the communities. Nonetheless, AFED has been working through networks and local committees to try and organize the distribution of food and firewood for families of displaced people in the region, drawing on its contacts with international humanitarian organizations and IUCN in these difficult times. Mtangala says, “We are used to living under this pressure in our daily lives for so many years – we have to continue doing what we believe in if we are to conserve our environment for our children, because if we don’t do anything and wait until the war is over, there won’t be any more forests and animals to conserve. And that means we will be very © Panos Pictures/Sven Torfinn. © Panos Pictures/Sven unfortunate and unhappy, because we are Women cook in the rain at the Kibati IDP camp outside Goma very dependent on our environment.” Agni Boedhihartono and Mtangala Lumpu bring news from a One of the most poignant conclusions of Livelihoods and Landscapes site in the midst of the conflict in DRC. this tragic situation is that even in such times of conflict, local people continue to collaborate and their civil society In the Democratic Republic of Congo Goma, and some 800 families in Kiwanja organizations such as AFED become even (DRC), IUCN’s Livelihoods and are now using these stoves. This is in the more important. Agni says, “International Landscapes initiative is supporting the work heart of the area where conflict has raged organizations tend to leave at the first sign of a local NGO, Amis de la Forêt et de for the past few months and where people of trouble but it is now that their l’Environnement pour le Développement from many different ethnic groups have contributions are most valuable and it is a (AFED), which is based in the war-torn been thrown together. Kiwanja hit the source of satisfaction that Livelihoods and North Kivu Province. AFED is headlines in November when tens of Landscapes has managed to continue to implementing projects on forest restoration, thousands of internally displaced people channel some support to AFED throughout sustainable forest management and (IDPs) fled its transit camps, fearing an this period. What is happening in this environmental awareness – work that has attack by the militia. Mtangala, the region is not unique – civil and military been badly affected by the recent resurgence coordinator of AFED, reports, conflicts are frighteningly common in many of conflict in the region. “Displacement of people during a war of the areas where environmental decline causes a massive destruction of the and poverty co-exist. We have to accept this These projects include, for example, the environment. Forests are invaded, trees cut reality and not abdicate our responsibilities development of nurseries for fruit tree and for firewood, animals hunted for food and in these situations.” medicinal plant propagation, and an even the tree nursery and plantations in Contact: Mtangala Lumpu, [email protected] initiative to train local people to make and Kiwanja have been damaged.