Both ENDS
Last week, President Museveni announced that the government will not necessarily stick to its plan to clear one third of Mabira rainforest for the cultivation of sugar cane. The president said that his government is open to alternative ways to increase Uganda's sugar production. Before, Museveni had said that his decision was final, but pressured by national and international environmental activists (including Member of Parliament Beatrice Anywar) he agreed to consider other options.
Written by: Boy Mochran and Sheila Kartika, Telapak, Indonesia
For the first time in Indonesian history, a public committee has been established to assist the government in water resource management. The Lamasi River Basin Committee is a platform for governmental and non-governmental representatives in the Luwu District in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia. Together with the local government, this committee will plan and monitor policy implementation, as well as coordinate water resource management.
The closing of the Barro Blanco dam last year caused not only material but also cultural damage in the affected Ngäbe-Buglé communities in Panama. So far, funder FMO is not taking responsibility for the human rights abuses caused by the project. So, what now?
In 2001 Tanzania and the Netherlands signed a treaty only known to a few; a so-called Bilateral Investment Treaty aimed "to extend and intensify the economic relations between them and to stimulate the flow of capital and technology and the economic development of the Contracting Parties". But signing the treaty was in fact mainly a symbolic act which since then has had little if any effect in this respect. In fact, a report by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis found that BITs have no positive effect on investment in low and lower middle income countries located in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania.
