Press Release
November 12, 2006

WRM presents research findings related to problems with carbon sink plantations to the delegates at the Climate Conference in Nairobi

Copies of summaries of findings on researches published by the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) are being distributed among gubernmental delegates and participants at the United Nations Climate Change Conference that is being held in Nairobi from November 6 to 17.

WRM states that it wishes to share its research findings as: “Tree plantations have been included in the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism as being capable of serving as carbon sinks and therefore eligible for carbon credits. Independently from the debate about whether that is true or not, it is important to note that in the context of this Convention tree plantations have been analysed under the perspective of the trees’ capacity to store atmospheric carbon, mostly ignoring the already proven social and environmental impacts of existing large-scale tree plantations”.

Adds that “those impacts, include the appropriation of extensive areas of local communities’ land, net losses of work opportunities at the local level, differentiated gender impacts, depletion of water and soil resources, biodiversity loss and many other”.

The document aims at raising awareness among government delegates about the social and environmental problems that the establishment of large-scale carbon sink plantations would result in, so as to enable them to adopt informed decisions in this respect. All summaries are accompanied by the web page address where the full case studies are available.
The full document is also available here

For additional information please contact:
International Secretariat Ph: +598 2 413 2989
Ricardo Carrere (Coordinator) Fax: +598 2 410 0985
Maldonado 1858 E-mail: wrm@wrm.org.uy
Montevideo 11200 - Uruguay
Web site: http://www.wrm.org.uy