Timber!

Demanding Change in the Wood and Paper Markets

by Ned Daly

The world is losing its forests, and fast. Three quarters of the earth's land mass were once covered with forests. Half of those forests have already been destroyed or converted to other uses, with the bulk of the destruction occurring since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Of the remaining forests, over half are badly degraded and seriously fragmented. Only one fifth of the original forest cover remains healthy and intact, according to a recent World Resources Institute report, "The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge." Of these still pristine forests, only 2 percent have any type of legal protection. MORE >>

Big Pulp v. Zapatistas: Cellulose Dreams in Southern Mexico

by John Ross

San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico -- Soon after the horrific Christmas-time massacre of 46 Tzotzil Indians in the Chiapas highlands by a paramilitary death squad almost certainly armed by the state security apparatus, the newly appointed governor met with the entity's three Catholic bishops, to pray for peace and reconciliation. Also in attendance was the Cardinal of Monterrey, Adolfo Suarez Rivera, a senior member of the oligarchy that has run Chiapas for the past century and a half. The Cardinal brought with him his good friend Alfonso Romo, whose Pulsar corporate empire includes brokerage houses, cigarette manufacturing, real estate in the north of Mexico, timber holdings in the south and paper production. The tycoon was on the platform to preach peace too -- reconciliation through investment and employment.

In a region of abjectly poor Mayan Indians, and in association with powerful U.S. pulp and paper producers (Simpson and Louisiana Pacific are mentioned in a company prospectus), Pulsar proposes large-scale junk tree plantations (largely eucalyptus) to generate jobs for tens of thousands of disgruntled indigenous people. Pulsar already projects enormous plantations dedicated to cellulose production in neighboring Tabasco state, where it now has 2,500 acres under experimental species in Balancon, near the Campeche border. MORE >>

Railroading Mexican Workers: Privatization and Rebellion in Mexico's Railyards

by Dan La Botz

In a desperate protest against the forces of globalization and neoliberalism -- World Bank policies promoting privatization of railroads in countries throughout the world, the Mexican government's sale of the Mexican National Railways (FERRNONALES) to new private parties and the depredations of the new owners, consortiums of Mexican and U.S. capital which include such multinational corporations as Kansas City Southern Industries and Union Pacific -- Mexican railroad workers engaged in a series of strikes in February and March in an effort to preserve their jobs, union contract, wages and working conditions.

"We organized a work stoppage on the railroad, and we blocked the International Highway," says Gustavo Lopez R., a member of the executive board of Local 8 of the Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM). The International Highway parallels the Pacifico Norte line and carries virtually all truck traffic down the west coast of Mexico. MORE >>