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RAINFOREST INFORMATION CENTRE
SMALL GRANTS FUND

What is the Small Grants Fund?
Current Projects
Past Funded Projects
An Unsolicited Testimonial


WHAT IS THE SMALL GRANTS FUND?

Over the last 15 years, the RIC Small Grants Fund (RSGF) has disbursed approximately US$350,000.  Funding for this program is raised through proceeds from John Seed and Ruth Rosenhek's rainforest roadshows and deep ecology workshops plus grants from private funders and various foundations.

Much of this money is disbursed as "grantor of last resort", a few hundred to a few thousand dollars at a time to prime the pump for important, frontline projects in scores of countries which would have difficulty in finding funding from conventional sources.

RSGF is also a source for money which can be granted almost immediately for emergency uses which rule out most other funding bodies because of their lengthy funding cycles.

The Rainforest Information Centre has been a central link in the radical environmental movement since 1979 and has built up an incomparable network of contacts and friendships who feed us information on projects where a small amount of money may make a big difference or where money is needed urgently or immediately and can't wait for normal red tape and funding cycles.

DONATIONS TO RSGF ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE IN AUSTRALIA, USA, UK and CANADA


Projects Funded in 2005

INDIA


The Kadu Siva Project is reforesting the sacred mountain Arunachala in Tamil Nadu, India. This project is managed by Apeetha Arunagiri who first enlisted the Rainforest Information Centre's help with reforesting Arunachala in 1988. There are 12 villagers working full-time on this project which John and Ruth visited in January 2005 and about US$800 per month has been keeping the show on the road. See www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/india/Apeetha1.htm

$2000 to The Voice of Nature, Tiruvanammalai, Tamil Nadu to bolster their ability to prevent and fight fires on the sacred mountain Arunachala

Dr. Sathis Chandran Nair whom we first met in 1986 is one of the world's great ecologists. We were able to find 5000 Euro's funding in The Netherlands for his present project saving the remaining rainforests of the Western Ghats mountain range (highest biodiversity in Peninsular India) plus another US$4000 to replace the ancient 4-wheel drive required for his field work, surveying and mapping expeditions. We visited the Periyar Tiger Reserve with him in January 2005 and began working up a campaign to triple the size of the reserve from its present 800 sq km.

$5500 to the Rural Development Aforestation Society RDAS, Tiruvannamalai, India - for large scale tree planting project in 3 villages, creating a tree nursery, and for 2 village Women's Tailoring Vocational Training Project to create revenue generating skill base.

$3300 to the Annamalai Reforestation Society to continue the reforestation of the sacred Mountain Arunachala, Tamil Nadu. We have been supporting this project each year since its inception in the late '80's. In December 2005 we will film a sequel to our 1999 film about this project.

$1200 to the Sri Annmalaiyar Educational Society for reforestation of Arunachala.

$7,000 to the Academy of Development Science for their campaign to relieve the oppression of the Katkari tribal group in Maharastra and help restore their traditional lands and culture. We were once again able to get this amount matched by the UK-based Onaway Trust see http://rainforestinfo.org.au/katkari/. We sent another $2000 to ADS for their medicinal plants program - revitalizing the ancient ayurvedic system of medicine and protecting the plant species on which it is based www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/india/rajeev%202-05.htm.

$2500 to the Apiko movement to make a film publicising their work to protect the forests and rivers of Karnataka.

$1,000 to Tesi Environmental Awareness Movement, the recently formed first Tibetan environmental NGO for environmental remediation and education at Tibetan ceremonial sites in India. .

$750 to help establish a tree nursery at the Nadukuppam Environment Center, Auroville, Tamil Nadu.

$700 to the River Research Centre, Kerala, for their campaign to protect the Chalakudy River the fifth largest river in Kerala.

$700 to then Rural Technology Resource Center, Orissa, to build a nursery to raise plants for re-forestation of their area

$700 to Rural Organization for Social Education (ROSE) for permaculture training, reforestation and environmental education near Thiruvanammalai.

ECUADOR

$1,000 to the Los Cedros Biological Reserve. In 1989 we received $70,000 from the Australian Government aid agency AusAID to set up and demarcate this 25,000 acre reserve and we have been supporting the work there ever since. This year's grant was to help to prevent a large copper mine from destroying the rainforest and indigenous communites.

$2,000 to Amazon Watch to set up radio communications for the Sarayacu community to help their ability to protect their traditional lands from the oil industry.The Sarayacu are the front line in the resistence against the oil despoilation of the Amazon headwaters. We have sent them several grants over the last few years and wish to send more.

$1,000 towards a Participatory Mapping Project in coordination with the Pachamama Foundation and the Inter-Tribal Committee of the Shuar, Achuar, and Kichwa of Saraycu in Southern Ecuador (IC) plan to produce a geo-referenced map displaying the indigenous communities and natural and cultural resources in oil Blocks 23 and 24.

$1000 to Nicola Peel to help make a film "Blood of the Amazon" documenting the resistence to the oil industry by the Sarayacu and other communites in the Amazon headwaters of Ecuador.

$2000 to the Huaorani tribe to oppose the inroads of the Brasilian oil company Petrobras into their rainforests in the Amazon headwaters.

$4,000 to Judith Kimerling to help her organise with Huaorani and Kichwa nations opposing expansion of the oil industry in the Amazon headwaters

$3,000 to Rainforest Concern to purchase more lands for their strategic rainforest corridor

$2000 to Instituto de Regeneración Ecológica/ ALLPA to continue purchasing lands for a strategic corridor for the Paso Alto - Cambugan
Forest Project.

$1000 to Friends of the Earth Scotland towards their film documenting the resistence of the Cofan tribes of Ecuador to the incursions of the oil industry.

$1000 to Playa d' Oro protecting the rainforest and the Margay Cat population within their reservation.

PERU

$2000 to the Asociación Ametra Ucayali to organise a meeting and workshop in Atalaya to decide on a response to incursions by the Spanish oil company Repsol into the 1.5 million Ha. territory of the Asháninka, Yine, Mashiguenga, Shipibo-Konibo and Amahuaca natiuons.

$1000 to the Peruvian Amazonian community of Canaan de Cachiyacu (Shipibo indigenous people) to organize a meeting y with Peruvian authorities and the US oil company Maple Gas.

$500 to RAL (Red Ambiental Loretano) in Iquitos, to their campaign stop the Regional Government and the State natural resouces body from selling off 1,000,000 hectares of rainforest to timber companies.

BRASIL

$1000 to Núcleo Amigos da Terra/Brasil to oppose the expansion of large scale exotic monoculture tree plantations in "Rio Grande do Sul" state.

GUATEMALA

$1000 to "Cassa" who are helping women with organic agriculture and education up in a group of mountain villages.

INDONESIA

$1500 to Samdhana Institute for their environmental education facility in Bali.

POLAND

$1000 to the Bialowieza International Solidarity Network for their campaign to protect Europe's last, low-land, old-growth forest and the European Bison who live therein.

ROMANIA

$500 to Alburnus Major for their campaign to protect Rosia Montana from a Canadian gold mining company.

RUSSIA

Siberia, $1000 to Galina and Ruslana Toptigina, a mother and daughter team protecting Chui-Oozy nature reserve where the rivers Katun and Chu meet one of only 5 official indigenous "Nature Parks" in the Altai mountains.

UGANDA

$1000 to YES (Young and Elderly in Society) for awareness raising amongst community and local authorities regarding conservation or remaining natural rainforests in Nabbale through proper utilization of forest products, establishment of community tree nurseries, replanting of deforested areas, and planting of woodlots on local farms. The project also focuses on saving the indigenous medicinal trees from extinction.

$1000 to EPFASI (Environmental Protection and Food Security Initiative) for tree planting campaigns in the community and in the schools with an emphasis on training children in tree planting including the establishment of nursery beds in the three schools

$2765 to Luwero Community Effort for Development to address the depletion of local forests by introducing energy saving methods to replace rudimentary methods of cooking and heating and establishing alternative sources of wood fuel through woodlot planting.

USA

$3500 in three separate grants to Keith Harmon Snow htp://www.allthingspass.com to support rainforest defense and environmental protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by raising awareness about government and corporate intersts (mining, banking, timber, military) behind the war and illegal plunder of natural resources in DRC.

$1500 to Mountain Justice Summer to prevent the destruction of Apalachian mountains by the coal mining industry.

$1000 to Rainforest Relief to replace their stolen laptop computer.

$1000 to the World Temperate Rainforest Network.

$3000 to the Institute for Deep Ecology for "The Video Project for the Work That Reconnects" documenting Joanna Macy's work for a series of training videos.

VIETNAM

$1000 for the Vietnam Friendship Village. The Village is a recovery and support centre for victims of Agent Orange. This grant is for an organic gardens project that includes compost making and fruit orchards.

AUSTRALIA

$1500 to The Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network (IJAN), an Australian group of volunteer legal representatives and Indigenous rights activists,representing Aboriginal Traditional Owners. This grant is for ongoing litigation representing indigenous people in their ongoing struggle to protect their land from destructive development projects in New South Wales.

$1000 to support the work of Wiradjuri Elder Neville Williams in his noble effort to protect Lake Cowal from Canada's Barrick Gold's open pit cyanide leach gold mine on the sacred heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation in New South Wales.

$700 to SE Forest Rescue for their campaign of direct actions to protect the old growth forests of SE NSW.

$1000 to the Weld Valley Campaign for their campaign to protect the old growth forests of Tasmania.


PROJECTS FUNDED IN 2004

ECUADOR

$1,000 to Accion por la Vida for the campaign to stop the Brazilian oil company Petrobras from pushing a road into the Yasuni National Park. Accion por la Vida took the lead in the defense of the Mindo cloudforest with a direct action campaign in 2002 and 2003. Fortunately, they have extended their concerns to the Amazon rainforest and in particular the 2.5 million acre Yasuni.

$2,500 to the protection of the Panacocha Reserve, which maintains a wildlife corridor between the Yasuni and Cuyabeno national parks. We have been supporting the protection of Panacocha for some 15 years, most recently helping the International University of Ecuador to set up a research station at the Panacocha Lodge.

$1,000 for the defense of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve. In 1989 we received $70,000 from the Australian Government aid agency AusAID to set up and demarcate this 25,000 acre reserve and we have been supporting the work there ever since. In late 2003, there was a corrupt attempt to invalidate the title of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve by members of Ecuador’s oligarchy who hope to mine gold in the reserve. As well as granting $1000 for this legal battle we raised another $2500 from other sources.

$2,000 to Anja Light to support her work in Ecuador. Anja has been a volunteer with the Rainforest Information Centre since the mid-80’s and has been living and working out of Cotacachi in Ecuador for 5 years. Her projects there include the Cotacachi Ecology Centre, Mompiche, Cerro Secco, Tambaco Farm and the Ecological Lifestyle Model project in Intag (providing ecological examples based on permaculture design principles and ecological technologies including compost toilets, simple hydro-electric systems, solar cookers and dryers and biogas digesters.) Descriptions of Anja’s projects may be found at www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/ecuador.htm

$1,000 to Judith Kimerling to help with her expenses traveling to Ecuador to pursue a lawsuit against Texaco forcing them to clean up the toxic mess that they left there. She helped the Kichua file a lawsuit in the Superior Court in Tena, organized many community meetings, as well as delegations of representatives to Tena and Quito.

$2,000 to Jefferson Mecham of the Paso Alto forest project in the Choco-Andes corridor. For a new laptop and to nurture a community-based EcoArts project which combines permaculture/ecological education with music/arts/ cultural revival with children and youth in marginalized/indigenous communities. We have supported Jefferson’s work from time to time for nearly 15 years.

$1,000 to Madre Selva Permaculture Institute in San Lorenzo for their schools program teaching propagation of fruit trees at their nursery. Participants learn propagation techniques and are able to grow and tend fruit trees that they then take to plant at school and home. This project extends the work of Madre Selva as a community resource and education centre for sustainable agriculture that we helped create in the late ‘80’s.

$500 to the Coca Wildlife Rescue Project caring for the orphans of wild monkeys and other animals by the Rio Payamino soas, maximizing their chances of survival when reintroduced to the wild.

$4,200 in three separate grants to the struggle of the Sarayacu nation against the aggressive attempts by the oil companies to make inroads into their territory in the Southern Ecuadorian Amazon. Included was funding for a video camera to help them deal with the intimidation of a huge military presence as well as funding for legals, transportation for indigenous leadership and their lawyers, and office and communications expenses.

$500 for our colleague Martha Mondragon to lobby various ministries in Quito in support of the agenda of the indigenous Amazon communities and the environmental movement.

$1,500 to DECOIN to help organize an anti-mining forum in Intag with participation from Chile, Perú, Costa rica and Bolivia as well as Ecuador. Our grant covered transportation costs, food and lodging for 75 participants as well as educational materials distributed there. Separately, another $1000 was sent to their Emergency Anti-mining Fund.

$1,000 towards the Shuar/Achuar Territorial Defense Conference at Makuma in Shuar territory to lay out their strategies for defending their territories and cultures from the imminent threat of the petroleum policies of the Ecuadorian government. Some 300 representatives of the Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Zapara, Shiwiar attended.

$500 for Guayabillas women for Casa Sede project construction of women's centre where skill building workshops will be held for women. One underlying aim is to generate alternative revenue options for the
community to ease pressures to log surrounding forests.


INDIA

$4,000 to Sathis Chandran Nair. (1) Caring for the coast and oceans of Kerala by collection of available material on the state of the oceans and coastal ecosystems, publishing pamphlets and booklets and creating a network. (2) An ecorestoration project with tribals he has worked with for decades in Attappady along with helping people to rediscover traditional Land Ethics.

$7,000 to the Academy of Development Science for their campaign to relieve the oppression of the Katkari tribal group in Maharastra and help restore their traditional lands and culture. We were able to get this amount matched by the UK-based Onaway Trust and also made a 30-minute documentary about the plight of the Katkari to be used in future fund-raising.

$1,000 to Pipal Tree for empowerment of women & poor farmers at Uthari village on the Bangalore Kanakapura Road in the Kagalipura panchayat, Karnataka.

$4,000 to Apeetha Arunagiri for the reforestation of the sacred mountain Arunachala in Tamil Nadu. Apeetha initiated this project in 1987 with the help of $100,000 grant that we were able to provide from the Australian government.

$5,000 to the Annamalai Reforestation Society for the rehabilitation of Mt Arunachala.

$2,000 to Pandurang Hegde in Karnataka. This funding is for his grassroots work protecting the Kali River and to cover travel expenses to the UK for an Ecological Design course.

$1,000 to Pete Bakos, an Australian engineer working in Orissa helping impoverished villagers set up self help groups in their respective villages, exploring what type of group/individual income generation projects they would like to take up.

$500 to the Delhi Forum’s “Programme for Social Action” to help them stage the National Conference on Community Ownership of Forests.

$1,000 towards a permaculture training organized by the Tibetan Government in exile for extension officers in their many refugee settlements.


MEXICO

$400 to Chiapas Media Project who provide video equipment, computers and training to indigenous and campesino communities in Southern Mexico.

$500 TO UNORCA to cover the cost of campesinos traveling by bus to Cancun to participate in the anti-WTO protests.


BORNEO

$700 to BOS for rehabilitation of orphaned Orangutans in Kalimantan. Funds will be used for protection of a island tropical forest refuge for orangutans in partnership with local Dayak people

ARGENTINA

$1,000 for Renace, providing environmental news and networking several thousand Argentine NGO’s.


RUSSIA

$1,000 to Danil Mamyev, an indigenous Altai man, for his work protecting the Karakolsky Nature Park. The park was created to reserve the Karakol valley's sacred indigenous sites for traditional use only, while allowing the public to freely experience and enjoy the area's other natural and cultural monuments.

$500 for VIOLA for The Novozybkov Project to provide radiation monitors and education to the people of Novozybkov, which was heavily drenched with radioactive fallout when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melted down in 1986.


PERU

$1,300 to Racimos de Ungurahui, a Peruvian Indigenous Rights organization for a small portable LCD projector to take to the Amazon communities affected by logging and oil drilling for video showings and multimedia presentations.

$1,000 to Amazon Watch. Travel for 5 to 7 leaders to Lima during the IDB annual meeting for meetings and media work, a one-hour flyover of the areas in the lower Urubamba devastated by the Camisea project, recording massive erosion of the Camisea pipeline to have evidence to derail the loan from the IDB.


USA

$500 to the ‘Seed Lady’ in Watts for the Watts Garden Club. Anna Marie Carter is working in one of the poorest neighborhoods in LA teaching local children about growing their own food and creating their own business ventures (the kids are starting their own farmers market, as well as marketing their own soaps and lotions).

$500 to Big Mountain. There is a gathering being planned on the land for early May. It will be a chance for HPL families, relocatees and NPL families to meet together for the first time in a long time. This money is earmarked for seed money to get the gathering going. i.e. Gas money for folks to go around the reservation and get the word out, printing costs etc.

SLOVAKIA

$2,800 to the WOLF Forest Protection Movement for a computer to be used in campaigns to protect Slovakian forests and create more Nature Reserves that are fully off limits to human activity.


CANADA

$500 to GlobalAware Independent Media Organisation to help them get a witness/reporter to the Sarayacu community in the Ecuadorian Amazon when they were suffering repression by police and the oil companies.


POLAND

$1,000 to Towarzystwo Ochrony Krajobrazu (Society for the Protection of Landscape) for their work protecting the Bialowieza Forest, the wildest forest remaining in Europe and home to the last European Bison.


UGANDA

$2,800 to YES (Young and Elderly in Society) for their work fighting environmental degradation and deforestation in Kayunga and Mukono Districts, preserving medicinal trees, creating employment for young people and imparting vocation (agriculture-organic farming, carpentry) skills to them.

$750 to the Environmental Protection and Food Security Initiative for their tree-planting activities in Mukono district.


AUSTRALIA

$350 to GECO – climbing equipment for the ‘Ferntree Road’ campaign.

$350 to the Western Woodlands campaign in New South Wales.

$3,000 to Neville “Chappy” Williams, elder of the Wirradjeri tribe to support his work preventing a cyanide gold mine from being established on his sacred land at Lake Cowal (the biggest freshwater lake in NSW).

$1,000 to IJAN to pay for legal fees and telephone costs incurred in their Lake Cowal case against Barrick Gold.

$500 Friends of the Earth, Jervis Bay

$200 to the Native Forest Network for their work protecting Tasmanian forests

PHILIPPINES

$500 in resource funds to support people organizing Oil Palm Forums. These forums oppose monoculture oilpalm plantations invading Philippine ecology.

$300 to Doctors for the 3rd World.

$3,500 to The Buffer Zone rainforest project. This is an indigenous initiative of the Higaonon Tribal people to preserve the million acre rainforest that is their traditional home.

ROMANIA

$500 to Alburnus Major, the lead NGO in the campaign to oppose a Canadian gold mining company


2003 grants

US$500 to UNORCA to fund busload of campesinos to go to march in Cancun at the September 8th WTO meeting and to participate in the International Farmers Forum

AUS$500 to UNAHI Mindanao for Higaonon Tribe buffer protection project of 500,000 hectares of pristine rainforest

US$500 to World Environment Day commemoration in Jakarta, 5-8 June 2003. SGP-Indonesia, together with 50 Civil Society Organizations, Companies, Indigenous Peoples, Women Organizations, environment urban poor, marginalized and disenfranchised children. At least 450 women, children, Indigenous Peoples and SGP Indonesia's partners camped, held workshops, organized public awareness activities and press conferences for three days. Translating the international theme of this year's WED, we agreed to choose "Water for Everyone, One Earth for All" as our common theme among supporters of Community Forum for Earth.

US$1000 to The Academy of Development Sciences (ADS) to commence their project to protect the Katkari tribal group who are teetering on the brink of extinction. The Katkari community, a primitive forest tribe based mostly in Raigad and Thane Districts of Maharashtra, lives in abject poverty. Even in 2003 they continue to work as bonded labour for their "sheth" (master). Their exploitation by non-tribals is total and absolute. They have been converted into a cheap and bonded labour force by their fellow human beings. The police department harasses them at will and treats them like a "criminal tribe". While the Indian Government would deny the presence of slavery, the Katkaris are slaves and much more. All development programmes, Government or Non-Government, bypass the Katkaris. This grant has triggered a matching grant from a British funding organisation.

A$500 to National Parks Association for the campaign to protect Western Woodlands, NSW, Australia.

US$1000 to support the struggle of the Sarayacu Community (indigenous Kichwa) who are a traditional community in the Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador. The Sarayacu Community has been so far resisting the incursion and invasion of an Oil Company Consortium (CGC/BurlingtonResources/ChevronTexaco) and is in great need of financial assistance to continue to defend our sacred lands that have never been logged, mined or exploited in any way. This land is virgin rainforest high in biodiversity in fauna and flora. Within Sarayacu Territory exist a unique lake zone of approximately 100 lakes that are considered sacred. Sarayacu Community is primarily an agricultural, fishing and farming community so funds are desperately needed to be able to be effective. The community is facing human rights abuses for defending its land, way of self-subsistence lifestyle and culture. We also successfully applied to the Grassroots Foundation for another US$2000 for Sarayacu.

US$ 500 for Bruno Idioai of Bougainville. Bruno Idioai has developed, put into practice and promoted, through hands on training and awareness programs, an indigenous model of environmental restoration and self-reliance for the people of war torn Bougainville, in the south west Pacific. Hundreds of families have adopted his model which focuses on sustainable agriculture through stabilization of shifting cultivation, reforestation using diverse indigenous species, integrated animal farming systems and a clan based approach. This has been achieved in a period of civil war under a total humanitarian and economic blockade. With peace on Bougainville, these experiences of Bruno, and those he has taught and continues to teach, have the potential to be building blocks in a new autonomous Bougainville that can be a model for a new form of development for this increasingly unstable part of the world in the South West Pacific.

US$500 to Lucy Mulenkei who runs the Indigenous Information Network (IIN) in Kenya.

US$500 to Damas de Guayabillas (Guayabillas Ladies' Committee) which exists to promote, support, and sustain the integrated development of rural Ecuadorian women so that they will be better able to improve the quality of their own lives and that of their community.

US$2500 to Pipal tree for a project on ecological agriculture, empowerment of women & poor farmers at Uthari village on the Bangalore Kanakapura Road in the Kagalipura panchayat.

AUS$250 for Broadwater Action Group for campaign to halt biomass plant

US$1000 to U'wa People's Organizing / Coalition Building in Colombia funds for a video camera kit.

AUS$300 for computer support for Ellie Gilbert, indigenous rights activist (Lake Cowal campaign and Tent Embassy, Canberra

US$2800 for WOLF Forest Protection Movement purchase of computer. WOLF is creating a network of forest reserves in East Slovakia where any human interference will be excluded.

2002 GRANTS

US$2000 for Laptop for TAGPUAN, Kowalisyon ng mga Dumagat sa Aurora, Inc, indigenous Peoples Organisation in the Philippines for cultural and environmental campaigns including land rights of the Agta-Dumagat tribe over forests in logging concession area.

Protection of X'cacel in Quintana Roo, Mexico - The hotel developer Sol Melia plans to destroy one of the few remaining nesting breeding grounds of the loggerhead and green turtle. Also the beaches contain many endangered flora including vast tracts of mangrove. Funds are needed to continue this international campaign which has become an inernational effort but still to no avail.

Surface Mining Awareness and Community Empowerment Project in Ghana - This project was initated by a university environmental centre which  trained activists to do surface mining presentations and meetings in local instiutions as well as in local communities directly impacted by gold mining which has caused displacement and loss of economic power in the local regions.

The Slovak group "Green Perspective Foundation" reported that the World Bank together with the Slovak Ministry of Agriculture were floating a $200 million dollar scheme euphemistically titled "Ecological Management of Forests in Slovakia". Most of the money was slated for road building, purchase of logging machinery and technologies for biomass energy production. They asked for urgent funding for a public education program to prevent the scheme. We sent them $1000, helped them raise more. They went on to spearhead the campaign which forced a radical revision of the scheme.

Ecological Enterprises works tirelessly for the protection of the rainforests and indigenous cultures of Papua New Guinea. Their landowner awareness patrols have convinced many groups of traditional landowners not to sign contracts with logging companies and we believe that he has done more to protect PNG's forests than any other single person. $5,500 in grants to EE over the years helped them to produce 6 new pijin anti-logging posters and mail them out to hundreds of groups in PNG; to publish the PNG Conservation Resource Directory; and to enable them to conduct landowner awareness patrols through the New Guinea jungles.

$1000 to Southeast Asia Information Network (SAIN) to investigate human rights abuses and environmental destruction associated with new oil exploration in Burma.

$1000 towards travel expenses for the Voices of Forest Tour assisting 3 indigenous (Dayak) people from Borneo to travel through Australia sharing their perspectives on the impacts of so-called 'development'. From Melbourne to Far North Queensland, they shared news of their struggles for land rights, human rights and the protection of their forests. This project helped to re-energize the Australian rainforest movement, extending networks and empowering new individuals to become actively involved in future campaigns.

Sacred Earth Network - protection of Siberian Tigers $900. Along with another $2400 raised elsewhere, we supported:

The Far East Leopard Fund, who received $500 to continue their work on tiger and leopard protection in the southern part of Primorski Krai, especially in the Kedrovaya Pad nature reserve.

Dmitri Pikunov of the Far East Institute of Geography, who received $800 for the northern part of Primorski Krai (He is involved with the Hornocker Institute project in the Sikhote Alin nature reserve and has been researching large animals in the Bikin River basin for decades.);

The Society for Tiger Protection, who received $2000 for their work in central Primorski Krai. Our money allowed Dmitri Mezentsev to travel extensively to gather support, provided him with a modest salary, allowed the society to begin regular patrols, helped them to publish a newsletter and advertise their cause in major news media. It gave them the resources to publicize their group and generate interest that landed them write-ups in the US, Germany, and other countries; The money was distributed by Eric Seivers. During his winter visit to Primorski Krai to bolster these various efforts to protect the tiger, while he was in Terney in the north of the region, he went undercover with the KGB and local militia to break a tiger poaching ring. Several people were arrested. In Russia, this is an unprecedented event. Poachers are rarely fined and it is unbelievable that one will be jailed as happened in this case.

The East Sepik Women's Council is among the 6 or 7 indigenous regional environment groups in Papua New Guinea conducting land owner awareness patrols among landowning communities who are being wooed by industrial logging companies. Along with development assistance for establishing benign, economic development projects as an alternative to large-scale resource extraction, landowner awareness patrols are the most important tool we have for protecting the last relatively untouched rainforests in the SE Asia/Pacific region. $700 from JSDG attracted matching funds from WWF-Australia which enabled ESCOW to make a patrol of the Hunstein Range presenting benign alternatives for economic development and advising the landowners as to their rights as Customary Land Owners.

In Poland, the Ministry for the Protection of the Environment and Forestry, in cooperation with the experts from the World Bank, prepared a forestry development program as a basis for 100 million dollars of loans to this sector. The program would extend the logging of Poland's forests far beyond what was planned in current production programs. The Polish Forest Society claimed that the project would destroy Poland's remaining forests. $800 purchased a computer and modem for Tomasz Terlecki, the activist spear-heading resistance to the program.

Hnuti DUHA, a Czech forest action group, $1,000. Duha are a very active group in the forefront of attempts to prevent the destruction of remaining Czech forests. They are also active in creating awareness in the Czech Republic about the world's rainforests. Their campaigns include lectures to schools and universities, a traveling exhibition of Amazonia photographs, working with media and legislators and non-violent direct actions in defense of nature. Part of this grant went to publish and widely distribute their "Memorandum on the Responsibility of the Czech Republic for Rainforest Destruction."

Earth Arc's UK Mahogany Campaign, $1000. The UK anti-rainforest timbers campaign by Oxford Earth First! and the Earth Action Resource Centre (Earth Arc) highlighted the illegal harvesting of mahogany from indigenous reserves in the Amazon. Their demonstrations against Timbmet, the local timber importer and largest mahogany supplier in the country, were covered by all local TV evening news as well as Brazilian Globo, which has the largest viewership in the world (60 million viewers). Part of the grant was used to fund the action in which 200 protesters occupied Timbmet's yard stopping all work for the day. As well as the usual occupation and lock-on strategies, the action floated a 50 foot inflatable chainsaw while several people crucified themselves on Mahogany crosses. Our money also helped them produce and circulate a two colour leaflet 50,000 copies of which were inserted into UK conservation journals.

Food for All Now, Cameroon, $500. This group is working to prevent the destruction of ebony and several "cancer-cure" trees in their rainforests; attempting to domesticate several rainforest vegetables which are being unsustainably harvested for food; and working tirelessly on the education and consciousness-raising of local villagers.

Food for Penan Blockaders, Sarawak $850. The Penan were unable to access traditional food and medicine supplies when carrying out continuous blockades to try to stop the logging of their lands. Food supplies, medicines and financial support were hand-delivered to help the Penan continue their struggle to protect their land. Due to increased surveillance by the military and government officials and the remote areas where the Penan live, it is very difficult to send them financial support so the RIC volunteer crossed illegally into Sarawak on foot and back out into Kalimantan again.

Youth Environmental Education project, $650. Teaching school children the value of the environment and implementing a recycling project in northern Colombia.

MAMA-86 was created in 1990 by young Kiev mothers concerned with the health of their children after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster which took place 85km from Kiev. $1000 went to MAMA-86's independent medical clinic which examines hundreds of children free of charge, making diagnoses and recommending treatments. They are also creating a network of environmental groups capable of raising awareness on environmental issues.

Pandurang Hegde, Appiko Movement, $1,000. The world famous Chipko movement ("Appiko" in India's south), protects forests through the use of non violent direct action. Hugging the trees to stop the logging, the experience of 'ahimsa' (non violence) has been an inspiration to the wider world movement in the care of our global ecology. We have known Pandurang Hegde for 8 years as he works to protect the scant remaining tropical forests in southern India.

Poland, Protection of Old Growth Forest, $1,000. The group; 'Workshop for All Beings' coordinated a powerful campaign to preserve the last remaining fragments of the old-growth forest in Europe - the Bialowieza Forest. Last year their efforts were crowned with success with the announcement of the Bialowieza national park.

Western Australia Forest Alliance (WAFA), $1,000. a coalition of environment groups and activists,facilitated the first ever forest blockade in W.A.'s history.

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