The biggest impact of the G8 countries is the economy, or the type of economy they want to promote in the developing countries. The most direct impact of that can be felt in the forestry sector, along with land of course. In forestry what's been happening is that the way is being prepared for the entry of multinationals and global capital in a big, big way. So it comes in the name of development for the extraction of natural resources and also for conservation. For ostensible reasons of preventing climate change, for preventing pollution and for promoting ecosystems services in the forests.
Which all means overall a very crass, a very gross commercialisation of resources. Forests are being hawked as a whole as commodities. And they are into that total market potential of forests as a whole and all sorts of services they can reasonably, or by a very long stretch of the imagination, provide. All the services are being hawked. And that means, you know that communities dependent on these resources, communities that have the most logical and rational access to those services, they are being deprived of those services. Because the services which are inalienable in nature, services which are inalienable in community rights over resources – those are being separated from the communities and those are being marketed.
Soumitra Ghosh is a forest and climate activist in India.