---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:35:56 +0100 (CET)
From: Luud Fleskens <L.A.H.Fleskens@pth.nl>
To: skephieu@xs4all.nl
Subject: Fw: Re: BIOD: Malaysian Response to Timber
------------------------------
From: svssned@antenna.nl (Luud Fleskens)
Thu, 03 Jul 97 12:21:14 GMT
To: l.a.h.Fleskens@pth.nl
Subject: Re: BIOD: Malaysian Response to Timber
Path: antenna!gn!cdp!students.wisc.edu!not-for-mail
From: grbarry@students.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: rainfor.general
Subject: BIOD: Malaysian Response to Timber
Message-ID: <2640e75f&3.0.1.16.19970701093355&*@students.wisc.edu>
Date: 01 Jul 1997 09:37:02
X-Gateway: notes@gn.apc.org
Lines: 187
From: Glen Barry <grbarry@students.wisc.edu>
Subject: BIOD: Malaysian Response to Timber Accusations
***********************************************
WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Malaysian Government Responds to Widespread
Accusations of Timber Company Misconduct
***********************************************
Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
7/1/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Denials, PR campaigns and general defensiveness seem to have set in as
the Malaysian government issues denials of gross misconduct worldwide
by Malaysian timber companies. The first piece is Borneo Post
coverage which quotes the Foreign Minister's as saying that
accusations that Malaysia logging companies are practicing
unsustainable logging and illegal logging in the Amazon "are
baseless." The second Borneo Post article provides news concerning
huge new timber concessions by Rimbunan Hijau and WTK in the Amazon,
both from Malaysia.
The conduct of Malaysian timber companies in Sarawak, Papua New
Guinea, Guyana, Suriname and elsewhere makes their brazen and
aggressive expansion an important target for the worldwide forest
campaign. While these companies are a target in their own right,
their conduct is indicative of the wider issue of destructive logging
and the tropical timber industry as a whole.
This said, increasingly the threat posed to virtually all remaining
tropical forest wildernesses by the Malaysian giants (Africa, Asia and
South and Central America) is an international ecological, political
and social crisis. In Papua New Guinea for example, it is impossible
to ignore the significance of Rimbunan Hijau and WTK, nor MUSA in
Suriname, Berjaya in Guyana, Samling in Cambodia, Toledo Atlantic in
Belize, and so on. Several other Chinese and Indonesian companies
round out the large scale Asian rainforest juggernaut.
Certainly these companies provide a new and distinct threat to
rainforests, biodiversity and indigenous cultures in terms of the size
of their concessions, the speed of their expansion and the degree of
their political and economic influence. Some of the other features for
which they've been criticized are hardly unique- among these are
obtaining concessions through bribery; contempt for national forestry
and environmental legislation; intense disputes with local
communities; entering countries and operating behind a complex web of
front companies. Admittedly the Asian Companies are remarkably bad on
all these points and bring these problems to a new level and scale of
operation.
A campaign in its own right against Malaysian style industrial
forestry is necessary because:
- they are so aggressive that they are opening up new areas that might
not have been logged (or might have been logged by better companies or
even local communities). Certainly they are not just getting
concessions but are buying up whole countries and bioregions.
-that are being actively promoted by their national governments
-they are already influencing (and even drafting) national policy and
influencing international policy. They do not just fit into a
political context but seek to change it to suit themselves. They are
also major funders of political parties in their countries and are
sometimes introducing a new culture of corruption and political
patronage into countries. Individual companies seek to dominate and
monopolize the timber sector in a country so that they can exert
economic leverage and cannot be thrown out. This is clearly different
to a timber industry based on heterogeneous competing companies.
-they are displacing and in some places completely replacing the
domestic timber industry. This is dangerous from an economic and
political basis. Being foreign companies makes them less accountable,
harder to influence domestically, and they transfer their profits.
It is critical that campaigning against Malaysian style industrial
forestry does not fall into the trap of being seen to campaign against
just Asian or just Malaysian companies. The Malaysian timber industry
represents a case study, and the leading evidence in illustrating that
the tropical timber industry is out of control and needs national and
international legal and policy restraint.
g.b. & a secret helper
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1:
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:05:37 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: MALAYSIAN COMPANIES IN BRAZIL
MALAYSIA NOT WORRIED ABOUT LOGGING BASHING IN BRAZIL
Kuala Lumpur, Thurs (Borneo Post : 27.6.97):- Malaysia is not worried
about the latest bashing by environmentalists over its involvement in
logging activities in Brazil, Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi said today.
"We are not worried because their accusations are baseless. Let them
do them do what they want and we will continue the explanation," he
told reporters after witnessing the signing of a Memorandum of
Understanding between International City Institute of Technology
(Citi) and Ohio University, here.
The minister was responding to a foreign wire report that several
Malaysia logging companies were accused of practising unsustainable
logging and illegal logging in the Amazon.
"The accusation are not true. No Malaysian companies are involved.
Maybe there is some political or economic agenda behind the bashing.
"This is not the first time. We have been bashed before in Papua New
Guinea for the same reasons. We are not worried with this latest
attempt," he said.
He said the foreign environmental groups were merely unhappy with
Malaysia's active involvement in logging activities, especially in
producing tropical woods in other countries. "Although our ambassador
in Brazil had denied the allegations they (environmental groups)
refused to listen," Abdullah said.
The report also mentioned that some western countries had joined the
environmental groups in making the accusations.
He said Malaysia would not launch any campaign to counter the
accusations but would continue explain the actual situation.
****************************
TIMBER DEAL IN BRAZIL NOT THROUGH YET: RIMBUNAN HIJAU
SIBU, Fri. (Borneo Post 28.6.97):- Rimbunan Hijau Sdn. Bhd, a major
local timber group, has yet to finalise its proposal to purchase two
logging firms in Brazil, its executive chairman Datuk Tiong Hiew King
said today.
He said the proposal was still at the planning stage and there was
nothing concrete yet on the deal.
Tiong was asked to comment on a foreign wire report which quoted a
Brazilian official as saying that Rimbunan Hijau had taken over the
two timber firms based in Belem, Para State for about US$40 million.
Asked to comment on foreign environmental activities' objection to the
deals, he said: "Well, these people always opposed, what can we say.
He had earlier attended an underwriting agreement signing ceremony
here for Subur Tiasa Holdings, a member of the Rimbunan Hijau group,
in conjuction with its proposed listing on the Main Board of the Kuala
Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE).
The report also quoted Malaysia's Brazil Ambassador Datuk Zainal Zain
as confirming that another local-based timber firm, WTK group had
purchased a sawmil and about 300,000 hectares of timber concession in
a remote area of the Amazona State.
The area was said to be situated between Jurna and Purus River not far
from Brazil border with Peru and Bolivia.
However, WTK's group chairman Datuk Wong Kie Nai was not available for
comment as he was still abroad.
A WTK official when contacted refused to confirm the deal but said
that the company had not started any timber activities in the South
American Country.
Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi when commenting on the
report yesterday said Malaysia was not worried about the latest
bashing by environmentalists over its involvement in logging
activities in Brazil.
He had said that the report was not true and that no Malaysia logging
companies were involved in (in unsustainable and illegal logging) in
the Amazon-Bernama.
###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###
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source for reprinting. All efforts are made to provide accurate,
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information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest
Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/
Networked by Ecological Enterprises, grbarry@students.wisc.edu
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