Plantation projects using tree monocultures to sequester carbon being implemented in UGANDA by two Norwegian firms constitute a paradigmatic example of the rationale and the consequences of this kind of projects.

The Norwegian company Tree Farms established itself in Uganda in 1996, and has one afforestation project in progress. Additionally, the Norwegian Afforestation Group got the authorities' agreement on a project in November 1999. The former --which operates in the Bukaleba Reserve-- area has already started a project to set up between 80,000 and 100,000 hectares of plantations of pines and eucalyptus. Such scheme is very similar to that adopted by the Dutch foundation FACE in the Ecuadorian Andes and so are its consequences.

A recent research in the field performed by the Norwegian NGO NorWatch shows that both projects --and particularly the one of Tree Farms-- have been possible thanks to the bargain price of the land leased to the companies and to the corruption reigning at decision-makers' level in Uganda. Moreover, the Tree Farms project has already provoked the eviction of some 8,000 people from 13 villages from their lands --mainly farmers and fisherfolk-- now occupied by the company. Local peasants even have to pay for the agricultural use of their own lands under the "taungya" system, and the company exploits them since their weeding and managing of trees during these first years is not paid. Uganda's sovereignity is also under siege with this project, since during a period of 50 years, the country will not have the option to change land use, and, additionally Uganda will not be allowed to use these carbon sinks for its own carbon accounts.

The same forestry company Treefarms has announced a project to plant fast-growing pine and eucalyptus trees on 150 square kilometres of grassland plains in neighbouring TANZANIA. Taking into account this company's sad record in Uganda, it is feared that such scheme will have the same deleterious consequences on people --especially poor peasants-- and the environment. In a recent climate-related meeting in Bonn, the Tanzanian official representative pointed out the need to take into account not only forestry in itself but also the welfare of local communities. How can this view be reconciled with top-down carbon sink afforestation projects?

Given the economic crisis currently faced by many other African countries --particularly in the tropics-- their governments will be probably prone to accepting any deals which may result in hard currency investments, regardless of the negative social and environmental impacts they will entail. Plantation-related carbon sink initiatives may well be one of them. Although the advantages for industrialized countries are obvious --cheap sequestering of their carbon emissions-- it is equally clear that local people and their environment will suffer the consequences and reap no benefits. What Africa needs from industrialized countries is certainly not this type of "aid" and calling this a "Clean Development Mechanism" is --to say the least-- an insult to African people, because no development at all will be involved in such carbon deals. (Bulletin August, 2000)

Forestry companies worldwide are enthusiastically trying to implement the idea of establishing tree plantations in Southern countries under the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, allegedly as a way of sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate the effects of global warming ... and of making good profits at the same time. Even if presented as "environmentally friendly", the whole idea of plantations as carbon sinks is based on weak scientific arguments and does not constitute an effective way of reducing CO2 concentrations in the air. Additionally, it enhances the detrimental effects of the hegemonic tree monoculture scheme at the local and regional levels. (For a complete overview on this polemic issue see our briefing paper "The Carbon Shop: Planting new problems" in our Climate Change section at: http://www.wrm.org.uy).

Norway has also got on the bandwagon and has set its sights on Uganda. The Norwegian company Tree Farms established itself there in 1996, and has one afforestation project in progress. Additionally, the Norwegian Afforestation Group got the authorities' agreement on a project in November 1999. The former -which operates in the Bukaleba Reserve area under its subsidiary's name Busoga Forestry Company Ltd.- has already started a project to set up between 80,000 and 100,000 hectares of plantations of pines (P. caribaea, P. oocarpa and P. tecunumani) and eucalyptus (E. grandis). Such scheme is very similar to that adopted by the Dutch foundation FACE in the Ecuadorian and so are its consequences.

A recent research in the field performed by the Norwegian NGO NorWatch shows that both projects -and particularly the one of Tree Farms- have some very questionable aspects: both Norwegian companies have leased their land from the authorities for a bargain price, since on the one hand Ugandan authorities have virtually no capacity to assess what value the companies plan to generate, particularly through carbon trading, and on the other hand, corruption is present at the decision making level.

The Tree Farms project has provoked the eviction of some 8,000 people from 13 villages -mainly farmers and fisherfolk- from their lands, that the company is now occupying, condemning them to poverty due to the loss of their livelihoods, and creating a source of social and environmental conflicts. Moreover, under the "taungya" system, local dwellers are allowed to grow maize, beans, and other vegetables between the rows of planted trees during the first few years, but, surprising as it may seem, they have to pay for this land use and, additionally, they are being exploited by the company since their weeding and managing of trees during these first years is not paid.

By leasing out areas for "carbon plantations" during periods of 50 years, the country is giving away the option of changing land use in the future. The so called carbon-storing plantations have to remain as such for the foreseeable future, depriving the country's authorities of the choice of using the areas for other purposes in the peoples' interest. Additionally, Uganda will not be allowed to use these carbon sinks for its own carbon accounts when the country itself faces commitments, because the credits will already have been sold to Northern countries and companies in the rich countries.

As is usually happening, the carbon account in the Tree Farms' project is uncertain, since there is no way of establishing the net amount of CO2 that could be removed and stored by tree plantations during long periods. It is even possible that they become carbon sources instead of sinks. Additionally, plantations face risks posed by fires, political unrest, and upheavals, which are factors that make it hard to guarantee that the activities will be allowed to continue without obstacles. Not to mention the impact of tree monocultures on soils, water and biodiversity, including the ability of the understorey and surrounding vegetation to remove and store CO2.

It is unclear whether the Tree Farms project will survive, because of social conflicts and problems with profitability. A recent EU-financed study, covering among others the mentioned Tree Farms project, concluded that there would be a "loss-loss" situation both for forestry and the local people". NorWatch has got the view that the Tree Farms project is really a "loss-loss-loss" situation: forestry is ailing, local people are suffering, and Uganda is being "CO2lonized".

In relation to the Climate Change Convention process, the Conference of the Parties will discuss -when it meets in The Hague next November- whether carbon trading based on tree plantations in Southern countries should be approved as an option to emissions reduction. In the meantime Norway, that in 1997 made the commitment that its greenhouse gas emissions for the period 2008-2012 would decrease, has actually increased them. Norwegian authorities predict that this growth will continue until 2010. For Norway, planting trees in a Southern country such as Uganda is cheaper than implementing technologies that would lead to a decrease in its own emissions. Local Ugandan poor and the global environment will pay for the costs. (Bulletin June, 2000)

A project implemented in Uganda by Norwegian company Tree Farms to set up between 80,000 and 100,000 hectares of plantations of pines and eucalyptus to act as carbon sinks has been severely questioned because of its negative social and environmental consequences. It has been defined as a "loss-loss-loss" situation, where the profits for the company are doubtful, local peasant communities are losing their lands and working for miser salaries, and Uganda is losing its sovereignity in relation to the management of its territory and natural resources.

In a report published in July 2000, a project also managed by Tree Farms --this time in neighbouring Tanzania-- is analyzed ("Carbon Upsets. Norwegian "Carbon Plantations" in Tanzania" by Jorn Stave, NorWatch). So far Escarpment Forestry Company Ltd., subsidiary of Tree Farms, has planted 1,900 hectares of Pinus patula and Eucalyptus saligna at Sao Hill, Mufindi and Kilombero districts in the Tanzanian highlands. The company is in the process of acquiring larger areas. Additionally it is funding the activities of TAGGAT (Tanzania Greenhouse Gas Action Trust), a foundation that is working with the company in the development of simulation models for carbon fixation in tree biomass.

Even though this project differs in several aspects to that implemented by the same company in Uganda, the research concludes that this is another case of "CO2lonialism" provoking negative impacts on the environment, local communities and Tanzania as a country. Local biodiversity --including two orchids and one Aloe species endangered-- will be affected by tree monocultures. At the same time, the fate of carbon content of soils and roots of natural vegetation once plantations are set up is uncertain. Even though Tree Farms made consultations with local villagers before works began, it has used local work force for plantations hiring them by a salary well below the official recommended minimum wage. Moreover, there are still more than 100 workers with several months of pay outstanding. The sum the company is paying as annual rent to the Tanzanian government for land use (U$S 1.9 per hectare) is lower than the rent at Tree Farm's project in Uganda. Nevertheless, the Norwegians are pushing the authorities in order to reduce the rent by as mush as 50%. At the same time, Tanzania will lose control of the leased land during a period of 99 years.

The activities of Tree Farms in Tanzania can be considered as even worse than those in Uganda, since in this case the company is expected to make huge profits taking advantage of the very low negotiation power of local communities and the scarce institutional development of the Tanzanian state. Since the "carbon market" implies an absurd trade between agents with very different power, it is not surprising that the more powerful and richer gain while the more feeble and poorer loose. Definitely carbon sinks are not a solution for climate change, but an additional problem, both at the global and the local levels. (Bulletin September, 2000)

Gabon's main exports are oil and timber. Both activities contribute to climate change. While the exports of the former result in fossil fuel emissions abroad, the latter result in carbon emissions at home and abroad through the release of the carbon that was stored in the forest biomass. Does this mean that Gabon --as well as many other similar Southern countries-- should be blamed for climate change? Within the international context, it is very clear that the country is a victim of the rules of a game established by industrialized countries and for their benefit.

Gabon's forests are being mined by a number of transnational companies, including French, German, Malaysian and others --all countries that participate actively at both the Climate Change and the Biodiversity Conventions. Gabon is one of the less populated countries of Africa, which makes it clear that it is not "overpopulation" but overconsumption abroad which is to be blamed for the increasing rate of deforestation.

Gabon is one of the few countries in Central Africa where most of its forest still remains unlogged. However, as transnational loggers deplete other African forests, they turn their attention to the few remaining frontier forests and Gabon seems to be the ideal candidate for those activities. Log production has already increased from 1 million cubic metres in 1975 to almost 3 million by the late 1990s.

However, the current "development" model makes it necessary for Gabon to increase the production and export of both timber and oil. Within that framework, as long as overconsumption is not addressed, the country will continue exporting timber. In the same manner, as long as the world's economy continues being based on fossil fuel energy, Gabon will continue exporting increasing volumes of oil. As in the case of what's happening in most of the South, the country, its people and its forests will simply become poorer.

In that context, it is clear that Gabon's forests will not be saved by exchanging some money for "carbon permits" for industrialized countries to continue emitting the CO2 contained in Gabon's --and other exporters'-- oil. It is not Gabon which is responsible for climate change, but unless the rules of the game are changed, it will continue contributing to it and suffering the consequences. (Bulletin October, 2000)

Responding to a request of the U.S.-based independent electrical power producer Applied Energy Services Inc. (AES), in 1988 the World Resources Institute identified and evaluated forestry projects to compensate the carbon dioxide emissions of the company's new coal-fired powerplant in Connecticut, expected to emit about 14.1 million tonnes of carbon over its 40-year lifespan. According to the WRI, "There were a number of reasons for pursuing such a project in a developing country rather than in the United States", among which that "alternatives in the United States to avoid the release of carbon dioxide or sequester it at the source appeared to be considerably more expensive" reads the presentation of the project in WRI's web site.

In 1989, the WRI gave its support to a project located in GUATEMALA proposed by CARE to convert tree planted lots established since the mid-1970s into carbon sinks. The programme had been supported by the Guatemalan Directorate General of Forests (DIGEBOS) and the U.S. Peace Corps, with funding provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The plantation of about 12,000 hectares of so-called community woodlots with pine and eucalyptus for poles and lumber is an essential component of the project. Based on WRI's initial calculation, the CARE project would sequester an estimated 16.3 million metric tonnes s of carbon over 40 years. Even though presented under the guise of "community forest" promotion, the CARE project is essentially a plantation-based project through which --surprising as it may seem-- Guatemala would "help" the US to reduce its carbon emissions.

Also HONDURAS will probably soon become a carbon garbage dump. In September 1999 Canada reached a deal with the Honduran authorities to "buy" oxygen from Honduras within the framework of a "debt for nature" swap and the Clean Development Mechanism. CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) will "forgive" about US$ 680,000 of Honduras' U$S 11 million debt with Canada. In exchange, a so-called joint implementation office will be established in Honduras to promote tree plantations and monitor forest conservation programmes in that country. Canada will benefit by getting credit for "cutting" emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Minister for the Environment Xiomara Gomez was very enthusiastic with the idea since, according to her, this is a good opportunity to obtain resources from developed countries for forest protection. Honduras is also expecting that the U.S. and Germany will come to similar agreements on "oxygen sales". Unluckily the Honduran authorities have not shown the same enthusiasm in protecting the country's forests from illegal logging or combatting corruption at the forest administration level. (Bulletin August, 2000)

Last September Canada reached a controversial deal to "buy" oxygen from Honduras within the framework of a "debt for nature" swap and the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) will "forgive" about U$S 680,000 of Honduras' U$S 11 million debt with Canada. In exchange, a so-called joint implementation office will be established in Honduras to promote tree plantations and monitor forest conservation programmes in that country. Canada will benefit by getting credit for "cutting" emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

As in other similar cases since the idea of forests and tree plantations as carbon sinks was launched as a possible way of mitigating global warming, the powerful hand of industry is behind this project. In fact, this allows a major carbon dioxide-producing country -such as Canada- to be able to avoid implementing real measures to either reduce carbon emissions at source or to implement the conservation of its own forests. Such measures would for sure be resisted by the Canadian industry, which emits huge volumes of CO2 to the atmosphere, as well as by logging companies, responsible for deforestation in numerous regions of the Canadian territory. The disappearance of the boreal forests in Quebec during this century is a good (bad) example of the way in which they act.

In Honduras the idea was enthusiastically announced by the Minister for the Environment Xiomara Gomez, according to whom this is a good opportunity to obtain resources from developed countries for forest protection. Honduras is also expecting that the USA and Germany will come to similar agreements on "oxygen sales". Nevertheless, the Honduran authorities have not shown the same enthusiasm in protecting the country's forests from illegal logging or combating corruption at the forest administration level.

Attractive as they may seem, these kinds of projects do not contribute to an effective solution to the global warming problem. Apart from the fact that it is very doubtful that tree plantations really absorb and store carbon, the carbon offset market is an idea which Northern countries -the real responsible over climate change- have put forward to avoid real changes to the current unsustainable social and economic model. Honduras, with its pressing needs, has been selected to act as a garbage dump for northern carbon dioxide ... for peanuts. (Bulletin November, 1999)

As many other Southern countries, Costa Rica is facing the problem of the expansion of tree monocultures. Especially in the Huetar Norte Region, the establishment of industrial tree plantations has been a complete failure during the last 20 years. After having spent U$S 10 million in such programmes, nowadays more than 70% of those plantations are in a bad state and have produced far below the expected rate. At the same time the potential of the secondary forests and its rich biodiversity --which concerning trees comprise more than 150 species-- has been neglected.

In spite of the semantic efforts of plantation promoters to call them "planted forests" and to call the activity "reforestation", the fact is that plantations are not forests and that these plantations result in a number of social and environmental impacts. Industrial tree monocultures imply the occupation of vast territories and concentration in land tenure, and the displacement of small and medium peasants. In the case of Ston Forestal --a subsidiary of the giant Stone Container-- about 300 families had to leave their lands in southern Costa Rica, which were then occupied by gmelina tree monocultures. Additionally, these plantations conspire against the promotion of traditional knowledge in forest management and agriculture. The Melku indigenous people, in the northern region of the country, saw how 40,000 hectares in their region were occupied by tree monocultures with subsidies from the State, while they did not receive any support to recuperate the "mastate" (Poulsenia armata), a species which resulted almost extinct due to the pressure of logging, and which was the basis for local craftwork.

Social impacts have gone hand in hand with negative environmental impacts. Ston Forestry is facing legal prosecution for causing the dessication of wetlands, while gmelina monocultures in the Osa Peninsula are considered responsible of a potential negative effect on the population of parrots and guacamayos in the nearby Cordovado National Park. Oil palm plantations implemented by the firm Palma Tica are expanding in the wetlands of the southern area, in spite of the efforts of local environmental activists, who have even sued the company. Teak monocultures promote soil erosion through the concentration and quick release of large raindrops from their leaves. In the northern region it has been proved that eucalyptus monocultures reduce the flow of water into the aquifers.

In spite of the above, the Costa Rican government is strongly supporting the inclusion of tree plantations in the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. How many more impacts will people and the environment need to suffer to finally reach the obvious conclusion that plantations are not forests? (Bulletin October, 2000)

Asia has been the most affected region by the substitution of forests by tree monocultures, which has resulted in negative consequences both at the local and global levels. Indigenous peoples and local communities have a history of resistance to this type of forestry development. In spite of that, carbon forestry appears to be on the rise in this continent.

In INDIA, government officials have stated that more than 60 million hectares of "non-forest wastelands and open scrub forest lands" can be considered available for undertaking tree plantation activities. Even though Indian plantation promoters consider plantation as "a benefactor and friend to villagers and tribals", reality shows that monocultures --mainly based on eucalyptus-- have provoked severe environmental and social impacts, resulting in opposition movements from local affected communities. India was in fact one of the first countries to witness radical struggles against monoculture tree plantations.

In spite of that, the Asian Development Bank considers that there is a potential of more than 24 million hectares in this country to be transformed into carbon sink plantations. According to the Bank, 83 tonnes of carbon per hectare would have been captured at the end of 40 years. And that is all that seems to matter; the Bank does not appear to be concerned about the fact that a renewed push to the expansion of eucalyptus monocultures in India, would repeat the well known history of impacts and ensuing local struggles.

Also CHINA has become a target for carbon sink plantations, and the Japanese industry --one of the most important contributors to global warming through its greenhouse gas emissions-- is responsible for it. To skirt the responsibility of diminishing emissions at home, the powerful industrial lobby is trying to find a way out by planting trees in China.

In 1998 the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), proposed the project to Chinese President Jiang Zemin when he visited Japan. Under the guise of restoring forest resources destroyed by an extensive flood, and counting on financial support from JICA, corporations like Oji Paper, Sumitomo Forestry, Nippon Steel, Tokyo Electric Power., and Mitsubishi would occupy 100,000 hectares of Chinese territory with tree monocultures. According to its promoters, the project would "absorb" an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to 6-7% of the total emissions of Japan's paper industry in 1997. The companies hope this project will offset some of the 6% cut in emissions (from 1990 levels) Japan is required to achieve by 2010. And at the same time they aim at greening their low image in relation to the environment.

Officials from MALAYSIA have recently expressed that oil palm plantations could be considered better in "absorbing" carbon that other fast-growing species. This country is the most important palm-oil producer in the world and its palm plantations have generated large-scale impacts. As a result, oil palm has raised resistance from indigenous communities, whose lands have been invaded by this monoculture. What officials don't say is that huge areas of forests have been cleared to make way to those plantations, thereby resulting in a negative carbon balance: more carbon released by deforestation than that sequestered by the planted palm trees. Additionally, those forests that were destroyed were not only carbon reservoirs but especially the home and source of livelihoods for many people who lived there, many of whom were probably forced to find new means of subsistence by opening up new forest areas, resulting in further carbon releases.

In turn INDONESIA is undertaking a project to identify alternative technologies using sinks in the forestry sector. The project is supported by the U.S. Country Studies Program, which "provides financial and technical assistance to developing and transition countries for climate change studies". Given the past history of Indonesia, such elegant wording might mean that large-scale tree plantations --which have resulted in deforestation and dispossesion of indigenous peoples-- could be further promoted as carbon sinks.

Asia is a perfect example of a region where carbon sink plantations make no sense at all ... except for Northern countries willing to "sink" instead of cutting emissions. Only very narrow-minded climate technocrats are capable of not seeing that carbon sink plantations are at odds with other much more important issues such as food production, watershed and biodiversity conservation --to name but three-- which should be at the core of any decision affecting the use of natural resources. What for carbon-accounting technocrats matters is only the measuring of tonnes of carbon sequestered, regardless of the human and environmental cost of such exercise. In Asia it might prove to be a very difficult task. (Bulletin August, 2000)

In the imperial times Japan invaded China to expand its power in the Far East. Nowadays, when war time in that region is over, a new kind of invasion is up to affect the Chinese territory: that of tree plantations associated to the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol.

Twenty-five Japanese companies want to initiate a major afforestation programme in China, in a bid to secure greater quotas for emitting carbon dioxide. The Japanese industry is one of the most important contributors to global warming through its emissions of greenhouse gases –mainly carbon dioxide- to the atmosphere. Instead of trying to develop environmentally friendly technologies and collaborating to stop the consumerism that characterizes modern Japanese society, the powerful industrial lobby seems to have found a way out: the planting of extensive tree monocultures in foreign countries.

Takashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), proposed the project to Chinese President Jiang Zemin when he recently visited Japan. The project is presented under the guise of restoring forest resources destroyed by an extensive flood. The companies have already set up a task force to determine locations, scale and a schedule, and will ask the Japanese government to help fund the plan from official development assistance earmarked for "environmental" projects. By means of its international "cooperation" agency –JICA- Japan has been promoting the large-scale fast-growing species plantation model in several Southern countries.

Oji Paper Co. and Sumitomo Forestry Co. will provide technology. Ebara Corp., Nippon Steel Corp., Tokyo Electric Power Co., Obayashi Corp., Komatsu Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp. are the main participants in the group that will undertake the project.

The planned afforestation of 100,000 hectares would absorb an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to 6-7% of the total release by Japan's paper industry in fiscal 1997. The companies hope this project will offset some of the 6% cut in emissions (from 1990 levels) Japan is required to achieve by 2010. According to the involved firms it would be very difficult to achieve this target on a domestic basis alone.

Even without considering the negative environmental and social effects of large-scale tree plantations at the local and regional levels, their utility to diminish carbon dioxide in the air has got very weak scientific basis. From a political and social point of view, the solution to global warming cannot be left in the hands of the same agents that have contributed historically to it. Instead of facing the problem with a realistic approach –that would lead to the enhancement of sustainable forest management, the promotion of the growth of secondary forests and the respect to the communities and indigenous people that live in/on the forests- Northern governments and transnationals are now only trying to "green" their image, while acting under the principle: we emit, you sink. Meanwhile global warming continues to increase. (Bulletin February, 1999)