The fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity took place in Bratislava from 4-15 May. Among its many decisions, we wish to highlight one related to forest biological diversity which "Notes the potential impact of afforestation, reforestation, forest degradation and deforestation on forest biological diversity and on other ecosystems, and, accordingly, requests the Executive Secretary to liaise and cooperate with the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . to achieve the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity."

What is the coded message behind such apparently obscure phrasing? The Climate Change Convention process is actively promoting tree plantations as one of the major mechanisms to act as carbon sinks to counteract fossil fuel emissions. Article 2 of the Kyoto Protocol states that:

"1. Each Party included in Annex I [those responsible for major fossil fuel emissions], in achieving its quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments under Article 3, in order to promote sustainable development, shall:

(a) Implement and/or further elaborate policies and measures in accordance with its national circumstances, such as:

(ii) Protection and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, taking into account its commitments under relevant international environmental agreements; promotion of sustainable forest management practices, afforestation and reforestation;"

The terms "afforestation and reforestation" in fact mean millions of hectares of monoculture tree plantations of fast growing species, particularly eucalyptus. Under this light, the Bratislava meeting's message becomes clear: if such plans are implemented, this will certainly affect biodiversity in forests and in other ecosystems.. Forests will be substituted by efficient "carbon sinks" composed of few fast growing species and there is therefore an antagonism between the aims of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the mechanism put forward by the Climate Change Convention. We share, welcome and support such concern. (Bulletin May, 1998)

The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in December 1997, has been criticised for its market-oriented approach, since it tends to establish a trading system to buy and sell carbon emissions. Tree plantations have gained a major role in relation to this issue because of their supposed condition of carbon sinks. The Protocol established that afforestation is one of the activities that Annex I countries can undertake to achieve their "quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments" for greenhouse effect gases (Art. 2). It also stated that "removals by sinks resulting from direct human-induced land-use change and forestry activities, limited to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation, since 1990, measured as verifiable changes in carbon stocks" are to be considered by Annex I countries to meet such commitments (Art 3.3.). According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this group includes industrialised countries and ex-planified economy countries, in process of transition to a market economy.

The so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), defined by the Kyoto Protocol in Article 12 as a form of cooperation between both groups, provides a way by which Northern countries will be able to comply with their commitments, simply through the establishment of extensive tree monocrops in the South. When a public or private entity of an Annex I country invests in a plantation project in the South, it is the investing country that will receive emission reduction certification for the project. As a matter of fact this provision, that goes together with the net approach, means that industrialized countries are freed of their responsibility to cut their carbon emissions in a significant way, while the South will offer their territory to projects aimed at capturing them, which will bring negative environmental consequences with them, as tree monocrops do. On the other hand it is not fair that those countries historically responsible for global warming would now receive assistance from poor countries. This is "foreign aid" upside down, isn’t it?

Let’s take the case of the tree plantation project promoted by the Dutch FACE Foundation (Forests Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emissions). This organisation aims to plant 150.000 hectares of trees to absorb CO2 equivalent to that emitted by a modern 600 MW coal fired power plant. Half of this area has been set up in the Ecuadorian Andes. Far from promoting the use of native species, the project is based on eucalyptus and pines. Even though these exotic species grow slowly in that environment, FACE justifies their use by saying that most of the native species in Ecuador have disappeared because of deforestation and that local people’s knowledge about them have been lost with the forests themselves. This is however untrue and the only reasonable argument to justify the use of exotics is that they are easier and cheaper to plant.

Large-scale monoculture plantations are known to be detrimental to the environment, both in natural forests and in grassland ecosystems: decrease in water yield at the basin level, acidification and loss of permeability of soils, nutrient depletion, alteration in the abundance and richness of flora and fauna. Nevertheless, there is an aspect of plantations that is perhaps not so well known: their social and cultural effects. Indigenous peoples and local communities that live in the forests are suffering encroachment of their lands by plantation companies and are forced to leave them, losing their lands and livelihoods, what means undermining the material and spiritual basis of their respective cultures. In many cases, plantations require the previous destruction of the natural forests. The case of the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples in Espirito Santo, Brasil, is paradigmatic. After a long and unequal struggle to recover their ancestral lands, taken away by Aracruz Cellulose to establish eucalyptus plantations for pulp production, they were recently forced to sign an agreement that reduces significantly the area of their lands, to the benefit of the company. In the Portuguesa state of Venezuela, Smurfitt Cartons is dispossessing local peasants of their lands and destroying and replacing riverine forests with eucalyputs, pines and gmelina monocrops. Oil palm plantation companies in Sumatra, Indonesia, are expropriating local peoples’ lands, which has resulted in civil unrest, since they are willing to defend their lands and livelihoods. Similar situations involving either eucalyptus and/or oil palm are also frequent in Sarawak, Malaysia, where indigenous peoples are being dispossessed of their traditional lands to make way to plantations and are fighting back to defend the forests. In Chile, large-scale pine plantations have expelled peasants from their lands and substituted the forests that provided to people's livelihoods. The list of local communities affected by tree plantations is indeed very long and the above are just a few examples to prove the social and environmental destruction that this "solution" can imply if implemented at an even larger scale.

Other global processes --as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests-- are now warning about the potential impacts of tree plantations on forest biological diversity and on other attributes of natural ecosystems. Even the Kyoto Protocol itself mentions that Annex I countries "shall strive to implement (their) commitments ... in such a way as to minimize adverse social, environmental and economic impacts on developing country Parties" (Art. 3.14). However, actions are going in the opposite direction to words. National inventories of greenhouse-effect gases that every state has to prepare for monitoring its situation in relation to the commitments of UNFCCC consider the increase of tree plantation areas --called "planted forests"-- as positive for the global environment and include carbon capture by plantations in their respective budgets. Such methodology was adopted without taking into account the mentioned negative impacts nor the regional or local features that can affect the calculation. The net effect of a plantation on carbon intake--once all the variables are taken into account-- is still at the hypothesis stage.

In sum, the promotion of tree monoculture plantations under the CDM by the ongoing global process on climate change has a weak scientific basis. From a political, social and environmental perspective, far from being a solution to the problem, they contribute to consolidate a scheme that is threatening people and the environment worldwide. A change in this approach is urgently needed. Article 9 of the Kyoto Protocol itself considers the possiblity of implementing such changes "in the light of the best available scientific information and assessments on climate change and its impacts, as well as relevant technical, social and economic information". But, of course, this is not a matter of wording but of political will. Shall the COP4 in Buenos Aires be another lost opportunity? (Bulletin October, 1998)

Nothing much seems to have happened during the 4^th Conference of the Parties held in Buenos (COP4) Aires from 2 to 13 November. From a broad perspective, this can be regarded as very bad news, given that climate change is happening and will increasingly affect the lives of millions of people. From a more concrete perspective, the same news can be seen as positive, given that the majority of governments don't seen to be willing to make the difficult decisions that need to be made: subsitution of fossil fuels by renewable, clean and low impact energy sources and worldwide forest conservation. As the whole discusion on how to address climate change is focused on negotiations to avoid major cuts in fossil fuel use and to avoid real measures to halt deforestation, the seemingly bad news coming from Buenos Aires can be considered -in such a context- as good news.

Regarding forests and tree plantations as carbon reservoirs and sinks, decisions on the definitions of deforestation, reforestation and afforestation as per Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol will be taken by the first COP following release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a Special Report on Land-Use Change and Forestry (which will take place at COP6). Additionally, it was agreed that decisions on the inclusion of any additional human-induced land-use and forestry activities eligible for consideration by Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (Article 3.4) will also be decided at the first COP following release of the IPCC-Special Report (additional activities could include forestry, forest conservation, soil conservation, other agricultural activities, etc.).

There was pressure from some countries, including Australia and some EU countries to accelerate decisions on definitions under article 3.3 to be made prior to the IPCC Special Report. In the end, these pressures for early decisions were held back, which can be considered a good thing given the important consequences that such definitions may result in. Canada -for instance- has taken the position that clearcutting of forests, including old-growth forests, should not count as a carbon "debit" since they do not consider that as "deforestation", but that replanting clearcuts should count as a carbon "credit" under reforestation. Absurd as this may seem -it would be like a bank account where none of your checks are debited, and all your deposits are credited- Canada's position is indicative of the wide range of problems that will emerge if definitions on deforestation, reforestation and afforestation are adopted without careful analysis of their consequences.

The Buenos Aires meeting also witnessed marked differences in NGO opinion regarding sinks. Some US based NGOs (namely the Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy and the World Resources Institute) promoted very wide expanded use of sinks. The World Rainforest Movement, Friends of the Earth, JATAN, WWF, Greenpeace and many other NGOs took the opposite view, stating that not only will wide use of sinks undermine achievement of the objectives of the Convention -which is to stabilize greenhouse gases at levels below which irreversible impacts to ecosystems, including forest ecosystems, will occur- but that additionally, activities promoted under it will more likely lead to overall negative impacts on forest biodiversity and local communities. Concerns included perverse incentives to log and clear primary forests, accelerated expansion of fast-growing monoculture tree plantations and impacts resulting from those processes on local communities and indigenous peoples.

In sum, neither governments nor NGOs are particularly united at the climate change level and many issues still remain open for discussion. Such situation provides a breathing space for all those concerned with people and the environment, to raise awareness among the public about the role that their governments are playing in these negotiations, so as to influence them in a more positive direction than the one they seem to be heading to. (Bulletin November, 1998)

One point that is not being sufficiently taken into consideration in the debate about plantations as carbon sinks is the production end of the issue. That is, most of these monocultural non-native species plantations are being grown for either of two products: paper or fiberboard. In both cases, the trees will be turned into chips and then made into something else.

How much of the actual wood fiber grown on the plantation is sequestered? Very little, especially in the case of paper.

Let's see: the trees grow, sucking up a certain amount of carbon as wood fiber mass. Much of the soil around the trees is compacted in the logging process. This does two things: drives out much of the carbon in the organic layer, and makes the soil more prone to erosion, which further frees up the carbon it holds.

Much of the carbon, of course, is turned into leaves which eventually fall to the ground as the tree grows. These leaves rot into the soil, becoming part of that organic layer mentioned above.

The trees are cut and chipped, eventually being turned into pulp and then into paper or cardboard. These products are then used and most often thrown away. In the case of corrugated cardboard, very few countries have achieved recycling rates over 50%. Most of the corrugated in the world is used once and then landfilled.

Even in the US, a country with a relatively high recycling rate (as compared with the rest of the world, not with other industrial countries, that is), only about 14% of white office paper is recycled. Much of the plantations in Brazil and Indonesia, two of the world's leading pulp and paper producers, is going into office paper.

So, this paper --where one would argue that most of the carbon taken up by the plantation has been sequestered-- is pretty much landfilled. Here, the bulk of it will, over time, decompose in an anearobic environment -that is, without the presence of oxygen- and be released into the landfill (and eventually the atmosphere) as methane. Methane is 25 times more effective as a global warming gas than is carbon.

Therefore, most of the sequestered carbon will be ultimately released as methane or simply re-released as carbon in the process of harvest, chipping, pulping, waste, production into paper, and finally, decomposition.

A small portion (that going into fiberboard) will become non-durable wood products which will also soon be landfilled. That is, even fiberboard is disposable over a relatively short period of time (at least in America, where this type of furniture lasts only a few years). And when it is buried in the landfill at the end of its short life, it too, will generate methane.

A tiny fraction of the wood fiber produced by the plantation will be sequestered over the long term as durable wood products, far exceeded, however, by the methane generated by the disposal of all the paper and fiberboard thrown out by an ever-expanding overconsumptive global economic machine.

The science behind carbon sequestration in plantations is not science at all, but is instead smoke and mirrors used to generate more plantations, benefitting large paper, pulp and wood products companies, at the expense of the Earth and local people.

Carbon sink plantation promoters seem to have forgotten that in order to actually sequester the carbon, the trees must either:

- be left to grow; or

- be turned into durable products that will hold that carbon for hundreds of years; and

- never be allowed to decompose in an anaerobic environment.

None of this is happening in any substantial way when it comes to fast-growing non-native plantations. (Bulletin November, 1998)

Large scale overseas plantation projects planned by Japan's paper industry cannot be accepted in joint implementation or in the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change.

What is actually resulting from plantations is forest degradation and related carbon emissions. At the same time, carbon contained in the wood that is extracted from plantations is released almost immediately in the case of pulpwood plantations, because wood is transformed into paper, much of which is short-lived, thereby releasing the stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Before assessing any CDM projects, it is therefore necessary to close a number of loopholes contained in forestry accounting.

1. The expansion of plantations was part of 'forest degradation' in the 1980s, causing loss of closed forests and carbon emissions.

In order to achieve high precision estimates of deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, the FAO conducted a satellite sampling research ("Forest Resource Assessment 1990", FAO 1995). This land use change measurement by the FAO can be utilized in the context of Global Warming. Estimates are based on the concept of Carbon Stock Change method accounting, which is one candidate to be used in the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

According to the satellite image analysis, in the 1980s, 75% of the new tree plantations in developing countries in the tropics were made by replacing closed natural forest that had existed there ten years earlier. Plantation projects therefore serve as agents of destruction for natural forests. Most of these new plantations may be for oil palm or pulpwood production purposes.

Original tropical forest stores biomass at average rates of 220 tonnes per hectare. Typical plantations store biomass at average rates of 120 tonnes per hectare. A decrease of 100 tonnes of biomass is equivalent to roughly 50 tonne-carbon, or 183 tonne-CO2 emission. Therefore, the 3.95 million hectares of forest converted to plantations in the 1980s means 725 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.

The result of initial logging and subsequent plantation is therefore an increase in the net carbon emissions that contribute to global warming,and accounted for as 'forest degradation'. Although remaining plantations can sequester carbon dioxide, part of that carbon is extracted as timber or other products, while net Carbon Stock remains constant in the remaining plantations.

High expansion rate of plantations is expected in the future, just as the case in the 1980s, which expanded plantation area 25% within the decade, so the total plantation related carbon accounting is net 'emission' of carbon dioxide.

2. Consumption patterns are essential for Carbon Stock estimates

Most afforestation schemes such as those initiated by Japanese paper companies are large scale and involve profitable non-native species. This extension overseas of Japan's "expanded forestation" paradigm is causing social, environmental and human rights problems in many targetted areas.

In the process of pulp and paper production, more than half of the carbon stored in the woodchip is consumed as a biomass energy resource and emitted into the air as CO2. Paper products are subsequently used for only one year on average. Half of these products are then recycled, but the other half are burned as waste producing further CO2 emissions.

Wood used for pulp and paper production is therefore fundamentally different from timber products that are used on a longer term basis as the timber industry claims. Rather it should be treated as the same usage as fuelwood.

3. IPCC's guideline of Sink inventory is contradictory, thus causing a loophole.

Cutting activities are accounted for the host country's activity by now, while part of planting credit will be given to the donor country. This is a carbon leakage problem, which allows the developed country to abandon its emission reduction target. A trade related cost internalization scheme, such as traded timber vs Annual Allowance Unit barter trading or simply barter accounting scheme should be developed to close the loophole. (Bulletin December, 1999)

The conclusions of the XI Global Biodiversity Forum, held last November in Buenos Aires -attended by Alvaro Gonzalez of the WRM Secretariat- reveal significant coincidences with some of WRM's viewpoints. One point in common is that which states that even if the increasing number of multilateral agreements on the environment could mean greater concern on the issue, this could also lead to a fragmented and ineffective approach to reality. On the contrary, a holistic vision is needed, that takes into account natural, social, economic and cultural factors working together. Another important point in common is the one that stresses that "done incorrectly, the forest-based measures to address climate change . . . could result in negative impacts on forests and other natural ecosystems, communities and the climate system.". This is exactly the case of tree plantations as carbon sinks: while their effectiveness in this respect is doubtful, their negative environmental and social impacts –including impacts on biodiversity- have been proven worldwide. Participants of the Forum underscored that "protecting the ecological integrity of nature and sustaining the societies which are supported by it is vital to addressing the climate change issue". (Bulletin December, 1999)

Northern countries, which are responsible for most of the world fossil fuel-related emissions resulting from their unsustainable production and consumption patterns, are seeking to buy a way out of their responsibility in relation to global warming by promoting the use the photosinthetic activity of tree leaves to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Fast-growing species plantations have been given a major role in relation to this issue because of their supposed condition of carbon sinks. Under the so called Clean Development Mechanisms, the Kyoto Protocol promotes such plantations. The result is that the North will continue emitting CO2 to the atmosphere, while vast areas of the South will be used as a deposit for their carbon garbage. Estimates of the are of fast-growing tree plantations required to aborb global emissions of CO2 range from 150 to 300 million hectares. The negative environmental and social impacts of this invasion can be enormous.

Plantations are not a solution for global warming, but an additional problem. As a matter of fact, tree plantations are one of the main causes of forest destruction in the tropics, eliminating the enormous carbon reservoirs that mature forests are. In the 1980s, 75% of the new tree plantations in Southern countries in the tropics were made by replacing closed natural forest that had existed there ten years earlier. In the temperate regions, plantations will substitute grasslands that also act as natural carbon reservoirs. Additionally, the scientific basis of the whole idea is very weak. The efficiency of plantations as carbon sinks is under question because it depends very much on the species used and on the local climatic conditions; because it is not clear for how long they are supposed to stay as carbon sinks; and because it depends on what happens with carbon emissions when they are cut down and their wood is transformed into different types of wood products which will decay in relatively short periods of time (particularly so in the case of paper).

A real solution for global warming would imply -among other additional measures- that industrialized countries effectively diminish their emissions and that, at the same time, primary forests and grassland ecosystems are maintained as natural carbon reservoirs, while secondary forest regrowth is enhanced to act as real carbon sinks. That should be the role of the CCC. If it continues concentrating on sinks and not on sources, then it will be the CCC itself that will sink. (Bulletin July, 1999)

In 1997, the negotiators of the Kyoto Protocol came up with an ingeniously-named project: the "Clean Development Mechanism." For the lay person, the message was that the governments of the world had finally agreed to create a mechanism that would allow development atmospherically non-polluting. But what this wording hides is anything but clean.

This mechanism is in fact a licence to pollute. In Kyoto, industrialized countries committed themselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they simultaneously invented a way out of those same commitments. The mechanism is simple: instead of cutting emissions at source, they would "compensate for" emissions by implementing projects in other countries. Some of the possible projects involve forests, tree plantations and soils that would allegedly act as "carbon sinks". A U.S. senior official candidly told Reuters: "If you remove a ton of carbon from the atmosphere through carbon sinks then that is the same as avoiding a ton of emissions through fossil fuels" and added that "by counting how much carbon is absorbed through forests and farmland, the pressure would be greatly reduced on U.S. companies to cut emissions and other gases." And that's the objective of the CDM: to reduce pressures to cut emissions, particularly in the North.

However, what the earth needs is precisely the opposite. The transfer of carbon from fossil fuels to the atmosphere cannot go on indefinitely. Some 4,000 billion tonnes of carbon in fossil fuels are still under the earth's surface, which is more than ten times the amount of carbon stored in forests. Adding as little as few hundred billion tons of this to the air would likely result in a climatic disaster. What's thus needed first and foremost is to prevent the extraction and use of those fossil fuels by replacing them with clean, renewable and low impact energy sources and energy efficiency measures. Such would be the meaning --at least from a climate perspective-- of a Clean Development Mechanism.

Climate negotiators have perverted the meaning of those words to create a CDM which is in fact only a Carbon Dealers' Market, through which some will economically benefit at the expense of the world's climate. Still, some government delegates --particularly from countries more likely to be gravely affected by climate change-- are trying to bring some reason to the debate. Mr. Espen Ronneberg, of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, in July 27, 1998, presented a position paper of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) on the Clean Development Mechanism. In his presentation, he said: "It is not in our interest to create new loopholes for certain industrialized countries to export out their domestic obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ...The unscrupulous industrialized countries who are seeking to promote such projects need to be reminded of their obligations under the Convention itself as well as under the Kyoto Protocol --to reduce their own emissions of greenhouse gases-- the primary focus of which should be domestic action."

It is important to highlight that the CDM has not yet been approved and two battles need to be fought to prevent sinks from being included in it: the September meeting of the Convention's Subsidiary Bodies and the November meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The "unscrupulous industrialized countries" must not be allowed to negotiate the world's atmosphere with equally unscrupulous Southern governments willing to sell it for a handful of dollars. (Bulletin August, 2000)

A truly Clean Development Mechanism

While climate change experts are trying to find "economically-viable" (meaning cheap) ways out of the climate mess created by Western-style economic development, indigenous peoples and local communities in many countries are in fact implementing a truly Clean Development Mechanism: they are banning oil and gas exploitation in their territories.

There is no discussion regarding the major role that fossil fuels have on climate change. It follows that humanity needs to switch its prevailing energy system --highly dependent on fossil fuels-- to another one based on clean, renewable and low impact energy sources. Local peoples preventing oil extraction are not only paving the way for such transition, but are at the same time keeping the carbon contained in fossil fuels safely stored under the earth's crust. They are not inventing ways to solve the effects of fossil fuel consumption; they are directly attacking the root cause of the problem: the extraction of oil and gas.

These peoples are benefiting humanity, but instead of receiving money for the service they are providing, what they usually receive is repression. They may be branded as enemies of the Motherland, or as subversives or simply as terrorists. Many have been murdered, imprisoned, tortured. They are not acceptable within the "carbon market" elite in spite of being the ones that truly act to prevent climate change. Every barrel of oil which is not extracted is a positive contribution to climate change and millions of barrels are still under the earth as a result of their struggle. What follows are a few examples of what some of these peoples have achieved so far.

In Colombia, the U'wa indigenous peoples have so far prevented oil extraction from their territory by Occidental Petroleum. They are currently preventing the exploitation of the Samore Block, with an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of oil.

In Ecuador, the Cofan people closed down the Dureno well in Amazonia, containing some 1,265,370 barrels of oil.

In Venezuela, the Warao people managed to get British petroleum out of their territory, containing an estimated 820 million barrels of oil.

Also in Ecuador, the Huaorani people managed to halt for a number of years the implementation of the ITTI (Ishpingo, Tambacocha, Tiputini, Imuya) project within the Yasuní National Park, with an estimated 265 million barrels of oil and part of the territory has been now declared intangible and therefore closed to oil extraction activities.

In Nigeria, the Ijaw people closed down the existing oil wells in their area, in an operation carried out by the Ijaw youth in January 1999, which they named "Climate Change". A tentative estimate of the oil and gas thereby prevented from being extracted is difficult, but can be estimated at some 6 billion barrels.

There are many more examples of struggles, some of which have at least managed to delay oil or gas exploitation --such as the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, the Yadana pipeline, the Peruvian Camisea gas project-- while others are struggling against the combined forces of governments and oil corporations to defend their territories against oil exploitation.

Are not all those struggles an example of a truly Clean Development Mechanism? Should there not be a mechanism to compensate countries for not extracting oil and gas? Should not local communities preventing oil exploration be compensated for keeping fossil fuels safely stored in perpetuity? Should not the Convention on Climate Change support a moratorium on new oil and gas exploration? These are all questions which many climate negotiators will try to avoid, precisely because they target the main issue: fossil fuel extraction. Many will try to concentrate on how to mitigate the effects, but will not be willing to address the true cause of climate change. They must not be allowed to get away with that. (Bulletin August, 2000)

One of the main aims of some industrialized-country negotiators at the Convention on Climate Change is to have plantations accepted as carbon sinks within the so-called Clean Development Mechanism. The reasoning seems quite straightforward: while trees are growing, they take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fix the carbon in their wood. They thus act as "carbon sinks" and therefore help to counter climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So what's the problem then? The answer is: plenty of things.

The first problem is that tree plantations are not aimed at supplementing measures adopted to reduce the use of fossil fuels. On the contrary, their aim is to allow industrialized countries to meet their reduction commitments without actually reducing them to the extent agreed upon. If, for instance, a country has made a commitment to reduce fossil fuel emissions from 100 to 90 units, then instead of reducing by 10 it could reduce by only 5 and plant trees to absorb the remaining 5.

Secondly, a widespread trade in tree plantation "offsets" would block or undercut necessary and urgent measures such as energy conservation, consumption reduction, more equitable resource use, and equitable development and sharing of clean, renewable and low impact sources of energy.

The above shows that "carbon sink" plantations are not a solution to the real problem, which is the continued use of carbon reservoirs --coal, oil and natural gas-- that is at the root of the current climatic crisis. At the same time, plantations are a problem in themselves for many reasons:

- Large-scale tree plantations are already a threat to communities and ecosystems the world over. If the Conference of the Parties were to accept carbon sink plantations as part of the Clean Development Mechanism, it would mean that millions of hectares of new plantation land would have to be taken over in any attempt to counteract even a small fraction of industrial emissions. Experience with large-scale tree plantations indicates that such "offset" projects would usurp needed agricultural lands, replace valuable native ecosystems, deplete water resources, worsen inequity in land ownership, increase poverty, lead to evictions of local peoples, and undermine local stewardship practices needed for forest conservation.

- Large-scale tree plantations are commonly a direct cause of deforestation. This means that before they become a "carbon sink" they in fact cause "carbon leakage" (to use the climate negotiators' obscure language). That is, carbon that was safely stored in forests is released through deforestation. The carbon balance is thus negative, because most forests store much more carbon per hectare than any plantation.

- Large-scale tree plantations are also commonly an indirect cause of deforestation. People displaced by plantations are usually forced to enter other forest areas and to open them up in order to meet their subsistence needs. These constitute further "leakages."

- Large-scale tree plantations destroy animal and plant diversity and should therefore not be promoted by governments who subscribe to the Convention on Biological Diversity --the same countries, by and large, as those who subscribe to the Convention on Climate Change.

Apart from all the above, there are scientific uncertainties both regarding the capacity of plantations to act as carbon sinks and the capacity of technocrats to adequately measure the carbon sequestered as a result of a plantation. In order for a plantation "offset" project to be tradable for a given amount of industrial emissions, a single determinate number would need to be calculated to represent the amount of carbon sequestered or stored as a result of the project over and above what would have been sequestered or stored in its absence. Such a determinate calculation is in fact impossible.

In sum, "carbon sink" tree plantations cannot be realistically considered a solution to anything, but rather are an additional problem. All efforts must be made to avoid their being countenanced at the upcoming Conference of the Parties. These sinks must be sunk. (Bulletin August, 2000)

Deforestation contributes to climate change through the release of carbon in the forest biomass. Forest conservation and rehabilitation activities thus need to be promoted both to conserve carbon --in the case of primary forests-- and to absorb it --in the case of secondary forests allowed to regrow.

But should forests be included in the Clean Development Mechanism or not? It's a difficult question for NGOs, IPOs and forest communities, but one that will need to be answered at the upcoming negotiations at the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change. Our aim here is not to give a clearcut yes or no answer, but to share our viewpoints on the matter.

For a forest community or an environmental organization working to protect a specific forest, the inclusion of forests in the CDM could mean receiving very much needed funding to ensure forest conservation, as well as political and legal support from the local and/or national government. The forest would be conserved and the local community would at the same time be able to improve its standard of living. This could be portrayed as a "win-win" situation.

There are however some problems resulting from the global character of the carbon trade. Anyone willing to pay for a "carbon forest" service will be continuing carbon dioxide emissions elsewhere. They will also be supporting the extraction of fossil fuels elsewhere. In both cases there will be affected communities. Among them might be a community in another country living near the polluting industry buying the carbon credits from the forest community. Or there might be an indigenous community --in a third country-- affected by oil extraction in its territory. For these two communities affected at "long distance" by the carbon project, carbon forestry projects could well be a "lose-lose" proposition.

If we accept that any carbon-forest deal should be approved only with the consent of all affected local people, this example suggests that before making a decision, the local community involved in the carbon project would need to identify and consult all the other affected communities. Depending on their response, it could accept or reject the carbon deal.

It follows that CDM-related forest conservation would be an extremenly complicated operation, since there would be very few "simple" situations such as the one described in the above example. Countless communities would need to be identified and consulted in most potential projects. Additionally, what would happen if one affected community opposed a project while the other communities involved approved it? Wouldn't this generate problems and divisions among affected peoples?

At the same time, it needs to be stressed that although "carbon money" may be perceived as a possible solution to save specific forest areas, it is clearly not the solution to the much broader issue of deforestation and forest degradation occurring throughout the South. Such problem cannot be only seen as a "climate" issue, but as also affecting soils, water, flora, wildlife and local peoples' livelihoods. Negotiators at the Convention on Climate Change need to be reminded about the commitments their governments have already made, particularly within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Proposals for Action of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. If implemented, these commitments would ensure not only money transfers from the North, but more importantly, the establishment of adequate frameworks --at both the national and international levels-- to address the direct and underlying causes of deforestation.

NGO and IPO participants at the upcoming Conference of the Parties confront the task of ensuring that the Clean Development Mechanism will serve to promote socially equitable and environmentally sustainable development and that the climate debate is linked to the rest of the social and environmental commitments already agreed upon by governments. (Bulletin August, 2000)

CDM schemes based on carbon sinks in the forestry sector, trumpeted as the panacea for climate change mitigation, are instead socially and environmentally dangerous. Nevertheless, the discussions going on at the official levels ignore those fundamental points. Undoubtedly some have much to gain from this marketing of nature. Who are the influential actors behind the scene at the carbon market? What follows is a brief description of some of the more relevant.

- Industry

Big corporations are both influencing decision-makers and taking direct actions in the newly created carbon market. Suddenly industry has discovered how profitable trees can be, and carbon sink tree plantation projects in the South are mushrooming. For example, in January 1999 the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations proposed to Chinese President Jiang Zemin that a group of Japanese companies carry out a plantation programme in that country in order to secure larger quotas for emitting carbon dioxide under the CDM. Also last year, the Confederation of British Industry tried to launch a carbon-trading system in order to stall or reduce the UK government's planned energy tax.

From the very beginning of the Climate Change Convention process, the powerful oil industry lobby operating at the US Senate induced this country's delegates to the climate negotiations to avoid any commitment even to tiny reductions in CO2 emissions. After the Kyoto Protocol, such companies instructed US and other industrial country delegates to favour trading in carbon "offsets", including carbon credits from tree plantations. In countries located in different regions of the world, such as Costa Rica, Uganda and Australia, oil, coal and gas companies have signed agreements to install carbon sequestration projects through plantations --the same kind of companies whose activities provoke severe environmental and social impacts to the detriment of local communities.

Being fossil fuel-based transport one of the causes of global warming, car companies are also trying to revamp their image. Mazda has announced that the company will plant five trees for every unit of the new Demio model sold in Britain in order to "compensate" for the car's first year of carbon dioxide emissions. Avis Europe plans to plant one tree for every car in its rental fleet, while the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile has arranged for 30,000 trees to be planted in Chiapas, Mexico, on lands inhabited by Mayan communities, to "offset" the carbon emitted annually by Formula One car racing.

- Multilateral agencies

From 1997 on, the World Bank has been dealing with climate change issues. The Bank is using funding from utility companies and Nordic governments to develop the so called Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF), whose purpose is to facilitate "global markets for greenhouse gas investments" and which features a portfolio of projects in the South. During a meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies of the Convention on Climate Change that took place in Bonn last June, a World Bank official, in front of a largely business audience, made clear that the PCF was designed to make emission cuts cheaper for the North, and much of his presentation was focused on how little Northern corporations would have to pay in order to avoid reducing pollution at source if they signed up for the PCF. An important task of the PCF is to build confidence between sellers and buyers of the so called climate "products." Companies like British Petroleum and Mitsubishi, as well as several Nordic firms, have shown their interest in this initiative. When the PCF was created, it was thought to be entirely devoted to energy related projects, but now there has been a change and a 10% of these funds will go to carbon sink forestry projects. In spite of the negative social and environmental impacts of monoculture tree plantations, the Bank insists on promoting them, now under the guise of carbon sinks. The Bank is also involved in the design of a CDM to subsidize trade in the resulting "carbon credits" by providing a carbon bank or carbon stock exchange.

United Nations offices are also involved in the new carbon market. The Global Environment Fund (GEF), whose implementing agencies are UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank, is facilitating the PCF by creating low-cost sinks. It is difficult to understand how carbon sink tree monocultures will contribute to biodiversity conservation --which is one of the GEF's main areas or concern. In turn, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is contributing with tax monies to establish an International Emissions Trading Association, formed by a group of about 60 transnational companies and environmental organizations which will help figure out how to make the carbon market dynamic.

- Governments

At the political level the action of some Northern governments --in collusion with corporate interests aiming to skirt their responsibility in the generation of global warming-- represents the backbone of the whole process.

Because of its high per capita emissions of carbon dioxide, its refusal to accept even the restricted limitations established by the Convention on Climate Change at Kyoto, and the direct and indirect influence that it exerts on other governments, the US is one of the main actors in this process. Last July, the US Senate approved the "International Carbon Sequestration Incentive Act", according to which, "eligible US companies could choose to receive an investment tax credit or access to low-interest loans and insurance options on carbon sequestration investments in other countries". The action of the US government seems to be at odds with its own country's public opinion, given that a recent pool has revealed that most US citizens are in favour of a reduction of greenhouse gases from industrial sources at home instead of additional means such as carbon sinks.

Another enthusiastic promoter of carbon sinks in the forestry sector is Canada. The Canadian International Development Agency has agreed to forgive a small part of Honduras' debt with Canada if this country establishes an office under the Kyoto Protocol to promote tree plantations and monitor forest conservation. This would allow Canada to receive carbon credits without the need of domestic reductions.

The position of Australia is also to be mentioned. Included in the Annex I countries of the Kyoto Protocol and being very influential in the Oceania region, Australia hopes that its participation in the carbon market will spur economic growth at home. An agriculture minister in New South Wales has recently mentioned the benefits from a "dynamic new industry" which would create jobs out of a million hectares of new plantations, some of them paid for with money from Japanese utilities.

Even though the European governments have adopted a more cautious position on the issue, some of them are pushing for forestry projects under the CDM. Dutch plantations in the Ecuadorian Andes and Norwegian plantations in Uganda show that even countries that try to appear as friendly towards the environment in the international political scenario have grabbed the opportunity to do good business in the carbon market.

To compensate its emissions, Japan is planning to resort to afforestation projects in other countries, for example in neighbouring China. The Japanese government is trying to inflate the amount of carbon absorption credited to this country under "human-induced activities" by including the carbon absorbed by new plantations. This position is not surprising: the Japanese cooperation agency JICA has been one of the major promoters of the tree monoculture scheme, and the country's economic growth has been based on a huge ecological footprint through the exploitation of other nations' resources and the deposit of its industrial garbage.

Carbon sinks through plantations are also being promoted by some Southern governments, which look at them as an immediate source of money coming from foreign investors. Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Guatemala and others are calling for carbon sink plantations to be included in the CDM. This means that they gladly accept a function of carbon garbage dumps for their territories and that they are willing to turn a blind eye on the negative social and environmental impacts of monoculture tree plantations.

- Consultancy firms

The carbon market have opened up opportunities to build up institutions, salaried positions and prestige for an increasing number of professionals who are willing to research, certify, and administer carbon-"offset" plantations --and who accordingly have a growing stake in "believing" in their efficacy.

Consultancies such as SGS Forestry, Margules Poyry and Econergy International Corporation can gain lucrative contracts to monitor and justify carbon forestry projects. Carbon credits certified by SGS are already being offered on the Chicago Board of Trade. Some consultants even shuttle between serving United Nations organizations, lobbying the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and their own profit-making carbon-"offset" ventures. Mark Trexler, for example --whose firm Trexler & Associates stands to make fortunes from brokering carbon deals-- was present at COP's fourth meeting in Buenos Aires in November 1998, and is also a review editor of one chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry. Involved in that report were also staff from carbon-related consultancies such as Winrock International, Ecosecurities Ltd, SGS Forestry and the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management. The report, perhaps unsurprisingly, gave a "scientific" stamp of approval to the idea that carbon accounting between tree plantations and industrial emissions is possible.

- Forestry companies, professionals and researchers

The carbon market is an excellent opportunity for forestry companies not only to increase their business but also to try to green their image. If tree monocultures are included in the CDM, it is feared that more forest areas in tropical countries will be substituted by plantations, while grasslands ecosystems in temperate regions --which contain soils that are effective carbon reservoirs--will be destroyed by them.

Many professional foresters see the carbon-offset plantation boom as a way of making their profession important to the eye of public opinion with regard to the mitigation of climate change. Additionally --and perhaps more importantly-- increased plantation areas will provide them with well paid job opportunities in the establishment and management of tree plantations, as well as in research in both the forestry and the biotechnology fields to produce more fast-growing "carbon sequestering" trees.

- Others

Many others actors play a role to directly or indirectly promote and benefit from the carbon market in this new scenario. Trading firms, brokers, banks, academics, bureaucrats and professional consultants are among the potential and actual beneficiaries of this market-oriented approach. (Bulletin August, 2000)

The external debt is a heavy burden for Southern countries especially for the poorest ones and for the poorest sectors within them. Governments implement IMF/World Bank-promoted structural adjustment programmes in their economies to ensure punctual debt servicing, which divert funds that could otherwise have been devoted to satisfying basic needs of their population, such as food, education, housing and health.

However, many are now posing the question: who owes who? In fact, Northern countries have historically based their prosperity on the exploitation of territories, resources and people in the South, and on the invasion and occupation of indigenous peoples' territories throughout the world. A group of German geographers has accurately described this as "the economy of robbery". The appropriation of the atmosphere by Northern countries to use it as a garbage dump for carbon dioxide is but another chapter in this long and unfair story. Even though the atmosphere is a common good of humanity and every person on Earth has the same right to use it, differences are nowadays dismal. On a per capita basis, the US currently uses twelve times what it should be entitled to, and the UK nearly six times its share. But at the same time Bangladesh --one of the most vulnerable countries to sea level rise and other climate alterations-- is ten times below its quota, Sudan 15 times, Tanzania 22 times, and so on.

According to Christian Aid, "the human economy is emitting approximately 7 billion metric tonnes of carbon per year (1996) and reductions in the order of at least 60% are necessary to achieve a carbon balance, i.e. to 2,800 million. If we assume that the developed (OECD) countries contain around 20% of the world’s population then their sustainable quota should be 560 million tonnes. However, they are presently responsible for around 50% of all carbon emissions, i.e. 3,500 million tonnes, a deficit of approximately 2,940 million tonnes." (Who owes who? Climate change, debt, equity and survival, 1999)

It is clear then that industrialised countries have greatly overused their carbon emissions quota, generating a Carbon Debt which is much larger than the conventional debt of the highly indebted poor countries.

If Southern country governments are really interested --as they should be-- in defending their peoples' interests, they should change the current market-oriented discussions going on under the Climate Change process. The issues of justice and ecological rights at the global level should be the priority. Only then economic instruments could be used to negotiate in positive terms. Instead of happily getting on the bandwagon of getting some money from false "solutions" such as tree monoculture carbon sink plantations, Southern country governments should collectively demand the payment of the Carbon Debt generated by the North. Justice should be the starting point of all negotiations. (Bulletin August, 2000)

In WRM bulletin 35 we exposed the conflict of interest among some of the experts who produced the IPCC special report on land use, land use change and forestry last June ("Sinks that stink"), resulting from their direct involvement in companies which would economically benefit from the inclusion of sinks in the Kyoto Protocol. One of the named experts --Richard Tipper-- replies in the current issue of Multinational Monitor magazine that "you could say all scientists have vested interests when they participate in such a panel because they're interested in advancement or research money" and adds: "if you disagree with somebody then you should be able to make a coherent argument, not just slag people off."

We believe that most scientists would disagree with Mr. Tipper's view about participation in expert panels. We also believe that people with vested interests should not accept appointments to expert panels whose findings might economically benefit them. Nor should they be invited to participate in them.

Regarding Mr. Tipper's reference about "slagging people off", it is important to remember that the World Rainforest Movement has been disseminating not one but a number of "coherent arguments" against plantations as carbon sinks for more than a year -- all of which Mr. Tipper seems to ignore (see all relevant WRM materials in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy ). Perhaps he feels we are not sufficiently "scientific" for our arguments to be taken into account. However, it will be difficult for him to say the same about the scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria.

IIASA carried out a detailed study of Russia's biosphere,which contains a fifth of the world's forests. The full report, announced on 25 August in a news release under the suggestive heading "Is the Kyoto Protocol Workable?" puts in question the whole idea of using carbon sinks as a means of "compensating" for CO2 emissions. Anatoly Shvidenko, one of the scientists involved in the study, stated that under the Kyoto Protocol, Russia is likely to be able to claim credit for improving its biosphere's ability to soak up carbon, but that the uncertainties involved in calculating such credits are huge and "greatly exceed likely changes in industrial emissions." In plain English, that means that including trees in the Kyoto Protocol is a recipe for confusion and cheating.

Sten Nilsson, also from IIASA, concluded that "the scientific uncertainties in measuring carbon movements into and out of ecosystems are just too great," and that "by opening up the whole of the biosphere to actions under the Kyoto Protocol, governments have made it completely unverifiable." IIASA's Michael Obersteiner summarized the whole issue by saying that the Protocol "really is a cheat's charter."

Asked to comment on the IIASA report, A US analyst of the Kyoto Protocol, David Victor, working at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, concurred with its findings. "Their analysis is fundamentally correct. It is essentially impossible to verify compliance if the targets include forests," Victor said.

After analysing the IIASA report and other relevant information and viewpoints, "New Scientist" journalist Fred Pearce reaches the conclusion that "the message from the IIASA seems clear. Science is not yet up to policing a system of greenhouse gas targets that includes the biosphere. Until it is, the only viable Kyoto Protocol is one that relies solely on slashing the world's use of fossil fuels." With which we totally agree. (Bulletin September, 2000)