PRESS
RELEASE
Groups
from around the world call for a moratorium on EU incentives for biofuels
from large-scale monocultures
For immediate
release – 26th June 2007, Joint
Press Release by EcoNexus, Biofuelwatch, Corporate Europe Observatory
On 27th June 2007
more than 30 groups from around the world launched the call
for a Moratorium to stop the EU rush for biofuels, which they
prefer to call agrofuels: liquid fuels made from biomass which consists
of crops and trees grown specifically for that purpose on a large
scale. They warn that agrofuel production for EU markets will accelerate
climate change, destroy biodiversity and uproot local communities.
Organisations visited Brussels on 26 and 27 June to inform the European
Parliament of their concerns about the impact of agrofuels on local
communities, biodiversity and climate. They are sceptical about the
capacity of certification projects currently being drafted in the
EU to prevent any of this damage.
In March 2007,
EU Heads of States decided in favour of a 10% agrofuel target by 2020.
The European Commission have made it clear that they expect a large
proportion of those agrofuels to come from palm oil, soya and sugar
cane from the global South. Producing the full amount in Europe would
require up to 50% of EU farm land. The current EU target of 5.75%
by 2010 has already stimulated large-scale monoculture expansion and
caused damage to tropical and sub-tropical forests, grasslands, the
peatlands of South-east Asia, and to large numbers of communities.
The 10% target is creating a further impetus for big projects for
infrastructure and production in the global South, where most of the
crops to produce agrofuels would have to be planted. Indonesia alone
is planning 20 million more hectares of oil palm plantations in order
to meet future agrofuel demand (tinyurl.com/33lb7r). Much of this
expansion is expected to happen at the expense of community lands,
peatlands and forests.
Nina Holland from
Corporate Europe Observatory stated: “The Heads of States made
it clear that sustainable sourcing of agrofuels should be a precondition
for targets. There are no proposals at all which would guarantee sustainability.
The European Commission have suggested ‘standards’ which
would allow biofuels from plantations from which communities have
been forcibly evicted to be classed as ‘sustainable’,
and they will not address large-scale rainforest destruction from
the displacement of other types of agriculture by monoculture plantations.
In the absence of any guarantees of sustainable sourcing we need a
moratorium on agrofuel support, incentives and imports”.
Almuth Ernsting
from Biofuelwatch added: “Far from reducing greenhouse gas emissions,
Europe’s biofuel policy threatens to accelerate global warming
by destroying tropical and sub-tropical forests and peatlands, which
are amongst the world’s most important carbon sinks. Even in
Europe, large amounts of nitrous oxide is released as more fertilisers
are being used to grow agrofuels, and our biodiversity suffers as
set-asides are to be abolished. Europe’s car industry has used
biofuels as a means of avoiding strict fuel efficiency standards which
are essential for reducing carbon emissions. If we want to have any
hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change then we need
drastic cuts in fuel use in Europe – not grain and oil crops
grown in vast monocultures for European cars”.
Orin Langelle
Co-director of the U.S. based Global Justice Ecology Project noted.
"Another big concern is that corporations are preparing to introduce
genetically engineered trees into large scale monoculture plantations
for use as agrofuels, which will further exacerbate the social and
ecological crisis already caused by large scale monoculture timber
plantations. "Genetically engineered trees, like agrofuels, are
being promoted as solutions to global warming; in fact they are false
solutions and both will worsen the situation, but - both agrofuels
and GE trees stand to make millions of dollars for corporations."
Langelle continued.
Ana Filippini
from World Rainforest Movement added: “The words “biofuel”
and “second generation biofuels” place us far from the
reality of the destructive process that will result during their production.
They hide the fact that second generation biofuels or agrofuels will
be produced from the same type of monoculture tree plantations described
above, but adding some new and threatening elements. The idea is to
produce ethanol from the cellulose contained in wood from fast-growing
tree plantations. Researchers are already genetically manipulating
trees for ethanol production, trying to achieve faster growth and
lower lignin content to facilitate and increase cellulose extraction
and production. Enzymes are also being manipulated for faster degradation
of cellulose into ethanol. Apart from the threatening possible impacts
of genetically modified trees and enzymes, these techniques will result
in the further expansion of the monoculture tree plantation model,
now also aimed at fuel production.
Helena Paul from
EcoNexus said, “Agrofuels are being promoted strongly by agribusiness,
the biotech, fossil fuel and car industries. Many in the European
Parliament and Commission are quite aware of this, yet the rush for
agrofuels is allowed to continue. We need a moratorium now because
decisions with very serious implications are being made too fast.”
Contacts:
Almuth Ernsting,
Biofuelwatch, 0044 -1224 324797 (mornings and evenings) or 0044 –
1224-553195 (afternoons)
Deepak Rughani, Biofuelwatch, 0044-7931-636337 (any time)
Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory, 0031-630285042 (any time)
Helena Paul, EcoNexus: h.paul@econexus.info
Notes:
1. The moratorium
document may be found at www.econexus.info. Signatories to date include
key groups from around the world such as GRAIN, Pesticide Action Network
Asia Pacific and The Rural Reflection Group, Argentina, plus European
Groups such as Corner House, FERN and Rettet den Regenwald, This document
is now being released worldwide for more signatures.
2. Expansion of
agrofuel monocultures is already causing forest destruction in many
countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The fast growing demand
for agrofuels is driving up world market prices for crops such as
palm oil, soya, sugar cane, maize and jatropha and rising prices give
companies an incentive to expand plantations. Further deforestation
could bring the Amazon rainforest to the point of collapse, with grave
implications for the region and for global climate stability and rainfall.
As Peter Bunyard writes:
“In conclusion, it is becoming increasingly clear that we perturb
climate, not simply because of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil
fuel burning, but also because ecosystems such as those of the Amazon
Basin play a massive role in the transport of energy from the equator
to the more temperate regions of the planet. Our climate system, with
its particular prevailing weather patterns, needs those energy transfers.Consequently,
we must do all in our power to prevent agro-industrial enterprises
… from destroying anymore of the Amazonian tropical rainforests.”
Peter Bunyard.
2007. Climate and the Amazon. In: Surviving the Century: Facing Climate
Chaos and Other Global Challenges edited by Herbie Girardet, Earthscan
3. Monoculture
plantations, including for agrofuels, cause people to be driven off
their land, as this declaration from Paraguay confirms:
“...the
expansion of monocultural “green deserts”, such as large
scale soy production, non-native grasses and exotic trees, promotes
and increases a mechanized agriculture without small farmers; without
people. All monocultures are damaging to the ecosystems they supplant;
they cause poverty, unemployment and the eviction and exodus of communities
in rural areas. They destroy biological and agricultural diversity,
poison water sources and the soil and undermine the food security
and sovereignty of the people and their countries.”
The Development Model for Soy in Paraguay- Irresponsible, Unsustainable
and Anti-Democratic, Asuncion, August 2006, http://www.wervel.be/content/view/663/310/
4. The impact
of oil palm monocultures on local communities is already serious:
“It’s as if we were ghosts on our own land. We have been
so pierced through by the spines of the oil palm that we are almost
dead, left haunting what was once our own land. We don’t usually
say this, but this is how it is really. We need to make our case ourselves
and explain how the oil palm is hurting us.”
Workshop participant
RSPO Smallholder Taskforce, Bodok, Sanggau, West Kalimantan, 7 June
2006”Ghosts on Our Own Land” by Forest Peoples Programme
and Sawit Watch, http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/prv_sector/oil_palm/oil_palm_press_rel_indonesia_nov06_eng.shtml
5. Twenty-nine
South African organisations responded to their government’s
Draft Biofuels Industrial Strategy by saying:
“…deals
have already been struck for large- scale plants to export Biofuels
to the European Union. In the process rural farming communities are
coerced into signing over their land for a pittance for industrial
plantations of canola, maize and soya.”
Rural communities
express dismay – “land grabs” fuelled by Biofuels
Strategy, March 2007, signed by 29 South African organizations, see
http://www.stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/node/145
