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Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing mankind since the last ice
age. Naturally, many well meaning NGO’s have grouped together to promote action plans that can help mankind avert this impending disaster. One notable grouping is the Climate Action Network (CAN).

The CAN is a worldwide network of over 365 Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs), such as Friends of the Earth and others, working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who signed his country to the IACP said that the NGO is a “significant step forward” for the creation of a global carbon trading system that will be “fundamental in arresting and reversing climate change.”

In publishing data on CO2 Emissions per capita however, some interesting
facts have emerged. Asia posted the second lowest emissions per capita of only 1.3 just above Africa (0.9) and below Latin America (2.1). Surprisingly, China which has often been touted as the second worst polluter after the USA, posted a low reading of 3.9 vis a vis Canada (17.0), Australia (18.4) whilst the USA posted a staggering reading of 19.6.

This calls the lie on the many claims made by such diverse organizations such as Greenpeace Netherlands and the World Rainforest Movement who’ve made the rather tenuous claim that palm oil is responsible for the destruction of rainforest which makes it a major contributor to climate change! Deforestation Watch
www.deforestationwatch.org is perturbed by this development as any wild and unsubstantiated position papers such as these can only damage our cause in the long run as it will ultimately destroy the credibility of our movement!

What these papers tries to conceal (which is obviously un-concealable) is that palm oil is largely grown in Asia, Africa and Latin America, all 3 of which are continents with the LOWEST emission data per Capita of any place in the world! Deforestation Watch takes the view that such unwarranted and unjustified attacks against a commodity that is contributing to uplifting the economic and social wellbeing of the peoples in the palm oil belt can hardly be described as “colonization”. Rather than colonization, the growing of palm oil actually serves to liberate economically and uplift the peoples of the lands in which palm oil is cultivated!

Logging ban protects Brazil tribe A Brazilian judge has reinstated an order banning loggers from land inhabited by a remote Amazonian tribe. The ruling covers a 166,000 hectare (410,000-acre) area of rainforest in the north-eastern Rio Pardo region. Campaigners had warned that the "uncontacted" group of Indians faced being wiped out if nothing was done to protect them. Indian rights groups are now urging the government to enforce the ruling, fearing a violent backlash by loggers. ‘Act quickly’ Federal Judge Luiz Fux had lifted the order in March following an application from a consortium of logging companies, which convinced him the ruling would damage their business. But he reversed the judgement after an appeal from Brazil’s federal Indian bureau (Funai) and state prosecutors. The original protection order has been lifted and reinstated on several occasions since it was made in 2001. It was obtained to protect the Rio Pardo Indians, a group so isolated that their existence has been hard to confirm.

Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil 25 May 2005 17:18:41 GMT Source: Reuters By Terry Wade PORTO VELHO, Brazil, May 25 (Reuters) – A Brazilian Indian tribe armed with bows and arrows and unseen for years has been spotted in a remote Amazon region where clashes with illegal loggers are threatening its existence. The tiny Jururei tribe numbers only 8 or 10, and is the second "uncontacted" group to be threatened by loggers this month, after a judge approved cutting in an area of the jungle called Rio Pardo.

Accelerating rainforest destruction threatens the tribes. Deforestation in 2003-04 totaled 10,088 square miles (26,130 sq km), the most in nearly a decade, official figures show. "The Indians have had conflict with loggers, who are cutting toward them from two different directions," Rogerio Vargas Motta, director of the Pacaas Novos national park, told Reuters. He photographed Jururei huts on a recent helicopter flyover of the remote park to catch land grabbers. One Jururei shot three arrows at the helicopter as it flew overhead, Vargas Motta said. The tribe’s wood huts have roofs of black plastic tarps found in abandoned logging camps. Indian rights activists are alarmed. "Unless Brazil acts now to protect uncontacted tribes, they will disappear off the face of the earth forever. The annihilation of a tribe, however small, is genocide," said Fiona Watson, Campaigns Coordinator of Survival International in London.

They blame a lack of political will and a powerful lobby of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers for fueling deforestation and threatening Brazil’s 700,000 Indians.

"There’s been a grave lack of funding for conservation on the part of the government," said Samuel Vieira Cruz, director of Kaninde, a nonprofit group that works to protect two Indian tribes in the area.