SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Forest Colonialism in Thailand
Published
3 years agoon
British firms not only controlled 80 per cent of the established ‘logging lands’ in Thailand, but they also influenced the establishment of the Royal Forest Department, which came to have total power over the nation’s forests. Massive land grabs and various colonial laws made half the country’s territory into a colony of the central state.
A 19th-Century Concession System
In 1874, during the age of European colonialism, the Siamese monarchy based in Bangkok annexed Chiang Mai in what is now Northern Thailand as its own colony. Under the Chiang Mai Treaty, a Siamese forest concession model was imposed in 1883 that allowed European companies direct access to the region’s large teak tracts, with much of the profit to be divided with the monarchy in Bangkok.
Between 1889 and 1896, UK’s Bombay Burmah Company, British Borneo Company, Siam Forest Company Ltd. and Louis T. Leonowens Ltd., and Denmark’s East Asiatic Co., commenced logging in earnest. (1) British firms controlled 80 per cent of the established so-called ‘logging lands’. (2) They also played a role in the establishment of the Royal Forest Department in 1896, which came to have total power over the nation’s forestry activities. A British national was head of the Department for the following 28 years, and British logging activities extended over seven decades.
Forest Colonies
Under the country’s first forest law of 1913, the Forest Preservation Act, forests were defined very much in terms of colonial occupation. Any land without royally-granted title deeds permitting cultivation or house construction was considered under the control of the Forest Department. Accordingly, the Department was able to amass large areas of land for logging concessions on which farmers without land documentation were already living, relying for part of their subsistence on forests.
The 1938 Forest Protection and Preservation Act maintained the same spirit, defining forests as ‘waste’ or unoccupied land in the public domain. Similarly, the 1941 Forest Act regarded forests as land that had “not yet been acquired by anyone under the Land Law”. These laws effectively made half the country’s territory into a forest colony of the central state, annexing community lands, forests, fields and village territories alike.
125 Years of Forestry
Thai forestry activities and forestry science grow out of the history of teak logging in the country’s North from 1840 onward. In Northern centres of the government such as Chiang Mai, Lampoon and Lampang, nobles had originally granted permission to various Chinese, Burmese and Thai Yai (ethnic nationality across Southeast Asia) businesses to extract teak for a fee. Then, in 1855, the central Siamese state signed the trade agreement known as the Bowring Treaty with Britain. This enabled the British, as well as ethnic nationalities under British rule including the Burmese, Thai Yai and Mon, to expand teak logging in the region. Thus the British Borneo Company was already on the scene in 1864 as a timber purchaser, even before the formal annexation of Chiang Mai as a Siamese colony ten years later.
It was only in 1954-55 that the vast logging concessions granted to foreigners expired and were turned over to Thailand’s Forest Industry Organization and provincial logging firms. By that time, the country’s mature native teak stands were largely exhausted, and concessionaires were turning to other commercial species. The following decades saw the country’s deforestation rates rise to become among the highest in the world, driven largely by the expansion of commercial agriculture but also by logging under the concession system as well as dam construction, both of which often opened up new areas for cultivation. Logging had a wide impact on forests that had been preserved and maintained by local communities for their own use, spurring resistance in the North and elsewhere in the country and motivating a growing Thai environmental movement. Logging was finally banned in 1989.
Authoritarian Conservation
As the logging era waned in the 1980s, the focus of the forestry establishment shifted toward commercial industrial tree plantations and forest conservation. But the pattern of internal colonialism remained, accompanied by growing local resistance to state hegemony over lands, including forests, used by millions of villagers.
Although the Thai government enacted two conservation laws in the early 1960s, the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act and the National Park Act, it was only after logging was banned, 93 years after the Forest Department was established, that official conservation thinking really took off. Conservation areas expanded bit by bit, encroaching especially on minority communities residing in highland areas, first taking over former logging concessions, then expanding further in line with the recommendation of UN-FAO’s ‘experts’ that Thailand should have no less than 40 per cent tree cover. As a result, ordinary villagers have been deprived of access to needed resources, government units have been set up close to communities to limit their use of forests, and many people have been evicted from their land. Violent conflicts between rural villagers and the state have increased.
The latest amendments to Thai forest law – following the military coup of 2014 that resulted in retired army general Prayut Chan-O-Cha becoming Prime Minister – include the fourth National Reserved Forests Act of 2016, the National Parks Act of 2019, and the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act of 2019. Violations carry increased penalties of one to 20 years (3) in prison and fines of between US 600 and 60,000 dollars. Recent years have also seen legal cases brought against villagers for damage to ‘natural resources’ and for contributing to global warming. Residents on state forest land have been unjustly sued for damages with huge fines that they have no means of paying.
The new laws have greatly increased the power of officials to make arrests and seize property in National Park areas. To be able to stay on their land without threats of prison or fines, community members must obtain residence permits with a time limit of 20 years (4) as well as special permission to use the forests. Indeed, in many ways, National Reserve Forests and National Parks now resemble territories under martial law. There are strong echoes of the 1914 Martial Law Act promulgated during the First World War, which gave military officials power overriding that of civilian authorities, allowing them to search persons, vehicles or buildings at will; issue prohibitions; seize goods; build strongholds; expel the populace; and destroy or modify terrain or burn down houses to deny the enemy any advantage in battle.
Since the complex colonization processes of forested lands in the country, racist and oppressive views over forests and its inhabitants were imposed. This colonial mind-set has continued to influence national decision and policy-making, seriously harming forest communities, who are largely falsely considered as intruders or damaging the forests. This in turn is manifested with extreme violence and discrimination towards these communities and their traditional livelihoods and cultural practices.
Despite the difficult and forceful circumstances, forest communities continue to challenge and struggle against this oppressive context. In early 2021, indigenous Karen People from Bang Kloi returned to their ancestral home in the Kaeng Krachan forests, after years of dispossession due to the creation of the Kaeng Krachan National Park. Thirty people were arrested for “encroaching the national park”. (5) They are forbidden from returning or trespassing on the Park without permission. If they still disobey, they will be withdrawn on bail and sent to prison immediately.
It is clear that the Karen People fighting to have their territory back is not only about the land, but it is also about recovering their identity, culture, dignity and lives from a history of colonization and occupation.
Pornpana Kuaycharoen
Land Watch Thai
(1) Master Thesis, “Development of teak logging in Thailand 1896-1960”, Salarirat Dolarom, Silpakorn University, Thailand, 1985
(2) Idem (1)
(3) Section 30 under the National Reserved Forests Act B.E. 2019 and Section 41 under the National Parks Act B.E. 2019. See National Parks Act 2019, English version here.
(4) Section 64 under the National Reserved Forests Act B.E. 2019
(5) Thailand’s imposition of National Parks: The Indigenous Karen People’s struggle for their forests and survival, WRM Bulletin 254, March 2021; and ALERT! Karen indigenous communities face danger after returning to their ancestral territory in Thailand.
Original Source: World Rainforest Movement
DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
Statement: The Energy Sector Strategy 2024–2028 Must Mark the End of the EBRD’s Support to Fossil Fuels
Published
1 year agoon
September 27, 2023The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is due to publish a new Energy Sector Strategy before the end of 2023. A total of 130 civil society organizations from over 40 countries have released a statement calling on the EBRD to end finance for all fossil fuels, including gas.
From 2018 to 2021, the EBRD invested EUR 2.9 billion in the fossil energy sector, with the majority of this support going to gas. This makes it the third biggest funder of fossil fuels among all multilateral development banks, behind the World Bank Group and the Islamic Development Bank.
The EBRD has already excluded coal and upstream oil and gas fields from its financing. The draft Energy Sector Strategy further excludes oil transportation and oil-fired electricity generation. However, the draft strategy would continue to allow some investment in new fossil gas pipelines and other transportation infrastructure, as well as gas power generation and heating.
In the statement, the civil society organizations point out that any new support to gas risks locking in outdated energy infrastructure in places that need investments in clean energy the most. At the same time, they highlight, ending support to fossil gas is necessary, not only for climate security, but also for ensuring energy security, since continued investment in gas exposes countries of operation to high and volatile energy prices that can have a severe impact on their ability to reach development targets. Moreover, they underscore that supporting new gas transportation infrastructure is not a solution to the current energy crisis, given that new infrastructure would not come online for several years, well after the crisis has passed.
The signatories of the statement call on the EBRD to amend the Energy Sector Strategy to
- fully exclude new investments in midstream and downstream gas projects;
- avoid loopholes involving the use of unproven or uneconomic technologies, as well as aspirational but meaningless mitigation measures such as “CCS-readiness”; and
- strengthen the requirements for financial intermediaries where the intended nature of the sub-transactions is not known to exclude fossil fuel finance across the entire value chain.
Source: iisd.org
Download the statement: https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/ngo-statement-on-energy-sector-strategy-2024-2028.pdf
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Will more sovereign wealth funds mean less food sovereignty?
Published
1 year agoon
April 13, 2023- 45% of Louis Dreyfus Company, with its massive land holdings in Latin America, growing sugarcane, citrus, rice and coffee;
- a majority stake in Unifrutti, with 15,000 ha of fruit farms in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Philippines, Spain, Italy and South Africa; and
- Al Dahra, a large agribusiness conglomerate controlling and cultivating 118,315 ha of farmland in Romania, Spain, Serbia, Morocco, Egypt, Namibia and the US.
Sovereign wealth funds invested in farmland/food/agriculture (2023)
|
|||
Country
|
Fund
|
Est.
|
AUM (US$bn)
|
China
|
CIC
|
2007
|
1351
|
Norway
|
NBIM
|
1997
|
1145
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADIA
|
1967
|
993
|
Kuwait
|
KIA
|
1953
|
769
|
Saudi Arabia
|
PIF
|
1971
|
620
|
China
|
NSSF
|
2000
|
474
|
Qatar
|
QIA
|
2005
|
450
|
UAE – Dubai
|
ICD
|
2006
|
300
|
Singapore
|
Temasek
|
1974
|
298
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
Mubadala
|
2002
|
284
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADQ
|
2018
|
157
|
Australia
|
Future Fund
|
2006
|
157
|
Iran
|
NDFI
|
2011
|
139
|
UAE
|
EIA
|
2007
|
91
|
USA – AK
|
Alaska PFC
|
1976
|
73
|
Australia – QLD
|
QIC
|
1991
|
67
|
USA – TX
|
UTIMCO
|
1876
|
64
|
USA – TX
|
Texas PSF
|
1854
|
56
|
Brunei
|
BIA
|
1983
|
55
|
France
|
Bpifrance
|
2008
|
50
|
UAE – Dubai
|
Dubai World
|
2005
|
42
|
Oman
|
OIA
|
2020
|
42
|
USA – NM
|
New Mexico SIC
|
1958
|
37
|
Malaysia
|
Khazanah
|
1993
|
31
|
Russia
|
RDIF
|
2011
|
28
|
Turkey
|
TVF
|
2017
|
22
|
Bahrain
|
Mumtalakat
|
2006
|
19
|
Ireland
|
ISIF
|
2014
|
16
|
Canada – SK
|
SK CIC
|
1947
|
16
|
Italy
|
CDP Equity
|
2011
|
13
|
China
|
CADF
|
2007
|
10
|
Indonesia
|
INA
|
2020
|
6
|
India
|
NIIF
|
2015
|
4
|
Spain
|
COFIDES
|
1988
|
4
|
Nigeria
|
NSIA
|
2011
|
3
|
Angola
|
FSDEA
|
2012
|
3
|
Egypt
|
TSFE
|
2018
|
2
|
Vietnam
|
SCIC
|
2006
|
2
|
Gabon
|
FGIS
|
2012
|
2
|
Morocco
|
Ithmar Capital
|
2011
|
2
|
Palestine
|
PIF
|
2003
|
1
|
Bolivia
|
FINPRO
|
2015
|
0,4
|
AUM (assets under management) figures from Global SWF, January 2023
|
|||
Engagement in food/farmland/agriculture assessed by GRAIN
|
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Farmland values hit record highs, pricing out farmers
Published
2 years agoon
November 21, 2022Breaking: West and Central African women meet in Senegal over the climate crisis.
Total Energies’ oil exploration activities are displacing dozens of families due to flooding.
Drought ruining Kasese farmers’ livelihoods
EACOP: Another community of 80 households has lost its land to the government and Total Energies to construct an oil pipeline.
EACOP: Another community of 80 households has lost its land to the government and Total Energies to construct an oil pipeline.
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Carbon offset projects exacerbate land grabbing and undermine small farmers’ independence – GRAIN report
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