For years, since their inception in 1944, the World Bank has funded projects across the Earth, without regard to environmental protection. For example:
- In 1981 the Bank lent Brazil US$445 million for the Northwest Brazil Integrated Development Programme to build 1500km of roads in the region of Rondonia which borders Bolivia. This allowed loggers and farmers to invade the forests and clear them for cultivation.
- The World Bank loaned millions of dollars to CIB for logging in Pokola in Congo. CIB began to illegally log highly valued trees in the Ndoki national park. The same has happened to other forests in Guinea and Ivory Coast.
- The Bank loaned $500 million to Indonesia to move several million people from the island of Java to the islands of Sumatra and New Guinea. Over 4% of the forest was felled to make way for the 'new' people and their farming methods - however countless more acres have fallen as the people move to new lands due to poor nutrients in the soil which have suffered monsoon erosion.
The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline, approved in 1999, was built by French, German and US companies with money from the World Bank to direct oil from Chad to the coast of Cameroon. The $3.6 billion project, owned by Exxon, Shell and Elf, was put through native/virgin rainforests without any regard to indigenous peoples, the ecosystems or to health and safety practices, and therefore without any environmental impact study - well, there was probably one but one which didn't raise any alarm bells!
Investigations by a friend have led to either no or incoherent responses from the World Bank, the US Treasury and Lafarge.
This is one small example of the pursuit of greed for profit without care for the environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment