5. 7. 2000 ( A SEED Europe)
Dear folks,
I have a very urgent plea to make to you; PLEASE spend some of your time the coming days to help cancel the World Bank financed Western China Poverty Reduction Project. This project involves the resettlement of 60.000 Chinese people into a territory in Tibet now occupied by 4.000 Mongolian and Tibetan nomadic people.
Last week, a very critical, if not to say devastating report on the project by the Independent Inspection Panel of the World Bank was leaked, creating a huge turmoil in the Bank. The report showed that Bank staff knowingly violated many of its own safeguard policies and procedures in the design of the project (for more details on all this see below).
The Board of the World Bank is supposed to make a decision on how to proceed -or not- with this project coming THURSDAY JULY 6. Given all the problems with the project, well documented by the Banks' own Panel, NGOs and Tibet support organizations demand that the project will be canceled.
The coming days are crucial to achieve this. I know you are all incredibly busy people but it is very important that Friends of the Earth International joins the efforts put pressure on the Bank to cancel the project. Please contact your countries' representative in the Board and demand the project to be canceled. Also inform media, parliamentarians in your country about this project so as to create maximum public pressure on the Bank.
The rest of this long message contains all the information you need to proceed with doing so. You find:
Short description of the project,
The report by the Inspection Panel,
Response of the Bank management,
Suggestions on what you can do,
Contact details of WB Executive Directors,
example letter to Wolfensohn.
Keep me informed about what steps you take and what you might need in terms of further support, information etc.
Please remember we have little time; Thursday July 6th is the day. If we manage to cancel the project it will not only save Tibet from a bank financed human and ecological disaster. It will also put crucial pressure on the Bank to take its own safeguard policies serious, or otherwise forever give up the pretension to have them.
All possible information can be found at the following websites:
http://www.savetibet.org
http://www.ciel.org
http://www.bicusa.org
http://www.tibet.org/sft
http://www.milarepa.org
http://www.ustibet.org
Brief Project Description:
The project involves: a) resettlement of some 58,000 poor Chinese farmers from eastern Qinghai Province to western Qinghai's Dulan County, home to Tibetan and Mongolian nomadic herders; b) development of irrigated agriculture in an arid, high desert landscape through the diversion of snowmelt, construction of a dam, and pumping of groundwater; c) development of rural infrastructure (roads, drinking water supply and electricity); among other things.
Project Cost $311 million
Loan Amount IBRD $60 million
IDA $100 million
Status of the Project:
Approved by the Board of Directors June 24 1999, in a rare vote in which the United States and Germany voted no, and France, Canada, the Nordics, and the Austria/Belgium group abstained. President Wolfensohn and the Board agreed, however, to delay implementation of the project pending the outcome of a citizen claim to the World Bank Independent Inspection Panel.
Brief Problem Description:
The resettlement of 58,000 poor Chinese farmers into a Tibetan and Mongolian ethnic region and the development of irrigated agriculture on approximately 20,000 hectares over an wide area in Dulan County on the Tibetan Plateau.
The transformation of a high desert landscape with scarce water resources and saline and sodic soils, into irrigated agriculture, could lead to desertification, destruction of wildlife, increased use of pesticides and fertilizers, and disrupt Tibetan and Mongolian nomadic cultures.
Violations of Bank Policy:
Information Disclosure, Environmental Assessment, Indigenous Peoples, Resettlement, Natural Habitats, Agricultural Pest Management, Retroactive Financing and Investment Lending.
Elaborated Social Impacts:
The transfer of 58,000 Chinese people into a Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous area will double the population of Dulan County, and further dilute the ethnic populations of both indigenous groups. Largely due to previous population transfers in this area, the traditional populations have already decreased significantly. After the project is implemented, the Mongol population will decline from 69% to 4.5%.
Language, religious and cultural identity, and the nomadic way of life will all be seriously impacted, and the cultural survival of both the Tibetan and Mongol minorities is at stake. Moreover, the influx of farmers into an area populated by nomads will increase the struggle for access to water and land resources, which could further exacerbate ethnic tension in the region.
The Bank's Indigenous Peoples Policy (OD 4.20) requires that project affected people be consulted when projects affect indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities. Yet under Chinese government authority, there is no possibility for effective consultation. China's laws penalize those who oppose the will of the government, and make it extremely difficult, if not dangerous, for citizens to express their real concerns about government-sponsored initiatives.
Elaborated Impacts on the Environment:
The Bank's Environmental Assessment Policy states that "A full EA is required if a project is likely to have significant adverse impacts that may be sensitive, irreversible and diverse." Moreover, Bank management is obligated to assign a "Category A" to projects that include dams and reservoirs, irrigation, land clearance and leveling, reclamation and new land development, resettlement, river basin development, and the use of pesticides, among other things.
All of these elements are present in the Project, yet Bank management assigned it a "Category B", requiring only a simple environmental analysis. The agricultural and irrigation development components of the project aim to turn arid desert into agricultural oases, depending upon maintenance of the irrigation system by inexperienced farmers.
Potential irreversible impacts include: desertification, soil salinization, pollution and adverse health affects from pesticides and fertilizers, groundwater depletion and pollution, and loss of traditional grasslands used by nomadic herders. The diversion of scarce water resources to irrigation may destroy wetlands and affect wildlife.
The construction of a 40 meter dam to create a reservoir for the irrigation project also poses environmental risks that have not been adequately studied. Finally, the project threatens to catalyze the development of extractive industries, including coal, oil and gas development and mining.
The lack of a full environmental assessment raises serious doubts about the technical basis upon which the project was developed and approved as well as its long-term sustainability. Finally, well-documented policy violations call into question the Bank's commitment to compliance with its own "safeguard" policies.