• Brazil: The struggle of the Green Desert Network
• Cambodia: Plantations and the death of the forests
• Chile: The infinite thirst of forestry companies
• Ecuador: Impacts of the Eucapacific Company on people and their environment
• Indonesia: The insatiable appetite of the pulp industry
• South Africa: Plantations - Green gold or green deserts?
• Uganda: FACE Foundation, carbon conflict and FSC certification

Brazil: The struggle of the Green Desert Network

The recent international meeting of the World Rainforest Movement to take stock of its activities and to reelaborate its strategies in the struggle against large-scale industrial tree monocultures, chose a symbolic place to be held - the State of Espírito Santo in Brazil.

It was in this State where in 1999 a network of resistance against eucalyptus plantations was born – Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde (Alert against the Green Desert Network). It was formed as from the actual struggle of communities impacted by the eucalyptus monoculture, together with a broad group of citizens, entities, social movements, pastoral groups and churches, willing to support this struggle and convinced about the fact that it is necessary to face the current model of development based on huge projects which concentrate income and lands, such as the one of eucalyptus based on the production of cellulose for export. This model that separates the human being from nature creates the so-called ‘green deserts’, huge plantations of fast-growing trees, but without fauna, flora or people.

The year of 2005 was productive for the Green Desert Network, with important mobilizations against the industrial tree plantations, mainly in the State of Espírito Santo, with the struggle for land of the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous people and of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST).

In the field visits that were part of the meeting’s agenda, the participants visited the Córrego do Ouro village, in the municipality of Aracruz, reconstructed within 11,009 hectares of indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani lands, autodemarcated by the indigenous people themselves in May of this year. Four Tupinikim families already live in the new village, without water or electricity and with scarce food, but with much hope, showing in practice the feasibility of the alternative for which they fight - to replace eucalyptus plantations by food crops and plantations of native trees and to develop conditions to live in freedom.

The indigenous leaders told how the eucalyptus monocultures in indigenous lands altered their culture, their traditions and livelihoods and destroyed the nature on which they depended to survive. These impacts forced them into an “Outgrower Scheme” agreement with Aracruz Celulose. The “Outgrower Scheme” is at global level the more recent strategy of companies of the sector to ‘integrate’ farmers to the agribusiness of eucalyptus and cellulose.

The Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous people continue to struggle for the official demarcation of their lands, not carried out by the Federal Government yet. They need the support of all of us in this arm wrestling with the largest world producer of eucalyptus cellulose.

In the second field visit, participants shared another experience of actual struggle, now in the camp of landless rural workers linked to the MST at Vila do Riacho, Aracruz. More than 100 families occupy since September an area of Aracruz Celulose of 8,500 hectares in the municipality of Aracruz. They are workers evicted from their lands by the agribusiness, who dream of returning to the rural area to produce their own food.

Only in this area, at least 400 families could be settled. It must be highlighted that at this moment, the federal and state governments are carrying out studies, as they have promised, to identify if this area is productive and how much of the so-called “Terras devolutas” (undocumented lands that by law belong to the State) are within the 8,500 hectares. “Terras devolutas” cannot be delivered to private companies, but they have to be used for social purposes, that is to say, for the agrarian reform.

The resistance of the MST provides hope to these families. They tell about the persecutions suffered for collecting remainders of eucalyptus in the plantations of the company. With these remainders the families produce charcoal to help support their children. With dignity and firmness, they talk about the importance of the organization to face the struggle against the model of development of the Brazilian rural areas - the one of agribusiness and large estates.

Organization is the way for communities impacted by the green desert to fight for their rights and to show to the society that on one side large industrial projects such as the one of Aracruz Celulose are perverse and without a future, but on the other side there are fair and feasible alternatives that may arise from the articulation and exchange of those people deprived from their lands - indigenous people, landless workers, peasants and quilombolas (slave descendants). The Alert against the Green Desert Network intends to be a space that makes it possible to exchange experiences and to strengthen the struggle of those who resist.

By Winfried Overbeek, FASE-ES, e-mail: winnie.fase@terra.com.br

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Cambodia: Plantations and the death of the forests

Proponents of industrial tree plantations argue that plantations are "reforestation", increasing the area of forest, providing jobs for local people, or reducing pressure on natural forests. The reality in Cambodia exposes these arguments for propaganda.

Cambodia's Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has handed out vast areas of land concessions, many to his business acquaintances and friends. While Cambodia's 2001 Land Law limits the size of land concessions to 10,000 hectares, many of the concessions are far in excess of this area.

In November 2004, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, Peter Leuprecht, released a report on land concessions from a human rights perspective. In the foreword, Leuprecht wrote: "The situation I met shocked me. The companies have been given rights over land that are very similar to ownership. Yet they have little or no regard for welfare; and they contribute little, if anything, to overall state revenue. I have concluded that the policies are wrong. They are not reducing poverty in Cambodia, and they are allowing the continued plundering of its natural resources."

Recent research commissioned by WRM in Koh Kong, Pursat and Kompong Chhnang provinces confirmed the problems.

The first that local communities knew about the 18,300 hectare acacia plantation planned for Bokum Sakor National Park was when a convoy of logging trucks, bulldozers and excavators rumbled into the park in March 2004. The company which owns the concession, Green Rich (now known as Green Elite) is owned by Freeland Universal Limited, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, with offices in Hong Kong. Asia Pulp and Paper Hong Kong offices are listed at the same address as Freeland Universal Limited.

Green Rich set up a logging camp inside Bokum Sakor in an area of mature melaleuca forest on the southern bank of the Prek Khai River. Workers started clearing the forest, building offices and houses and laying the foundations for a wood chip mill. Green Rich did not have the necessary approvals under the Forestry Law, the Law on Natural Resource Protection and the Sub-decree on Environmental Impact Assessments. The company logged several hundred hectares of melaleuca and mangrove forest - inside a National Park.

Conditions for workers were appalling. Green Rich hired logging sub-contractors from the northeast of Cambodia to bring workers and equipment to Bokum Sakor. The sub-contractors inflated the price of food and water for workers. Many found they had to keep borrowing money from the sub-contractors in order to survive. Several workers fled, swimming across the Prek Khai River at night or walking tens of kilometres through mangrove forest. Human rights workers and local police helped dozens of workers escape.

In May 2004, Mok Mareth, the Minister of Environment, issued an order to the management of Green Rich to cease all activities until it had submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment. Green Rich ignored the order and continued operations. Finally, in December 2004, the Ministry of Environment announced that it was taking legal action against Green Rich for US$1 million in damages and reparations. The lawsuit was dropped in late 2005 when the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries told the court that it had authorised the company to operate.

2004 also saw the start of Chinese company Wuzhishan's plantation operations in Pursat and Kompong Chhnang provinces. Pheapimex, Wuzhishan's Cambodian partner, was awarded a 300,000 hectare concession for a eucalyptus plantation in 1997, during a period of turmoil shortly after a coup, in which Hun Sen ousted his coalition partner Norodom Ranariddh. Green Rich also signed its concession agreement during the same period. Wuzhishan, Pheapimex and Green Rich all have close links to the Prime Minister or his entourage.

Pheapimex has concessions covering seven per cent of Cambodia and holds the rights to all but one of the gold deposits in the country. Pheapimex's record includes illegal logging, royalty and tax evasion and forcing local people into surrendering the forests on which they depend.

In 2000, when Pheapimex started to clear an area of community forest in Ansar Chambok Commune in Pursat Province, villagers successfully resisted by filing lawsuits challenging the government to uphold the law and by physically blocking the road to the forest. For three years Pheapimex carried out no further work on site.

In November 2004, however, hundreds of Wuzhishan workers arrived in Ansar Chambok. They started logging the forest, building roads into the forest and set up a tree nursery. Similar scenes took place in neighbouring Kompong Chhnang Province.

"I have eight children. If the forest goes and they take my land I will have nothing for them," a villager told researchers. Once again, villagers from Ansar Chambok attempted to stop the destruction of their community forest. They organised a watch of the machinery, to prevent the bulldozers from entering the concession area. One night someone threw a grenade into a group of sleeping villagers, injuring eight of them.

Local police accused villagers of throwing the grenade at themselves. The Prime Minister dismissed it as a publicity stunt: "The purpose of the grenade attack, in which some people were injured and nobody died, was just aimed to make their propaganda voices louder."

Resin tapping is one of villagers' most important sources of income. Wuzhishan has cut villagers' resin trees. "I am worried that I will lose everything. I have three hectares of land, but the village chief told me that they are all in the concession. I had 50 resin trees, but now only 20 are left. Thirty of my trees were cut in the last week," a resin collector told researchers.

Work has stopped once again, at least for the time-being. In March 2005, Wuzhishan dismissed its workers and removed heavy machinery from its sites in Pursat and Kompong Chhnang.

By Chris Lang, E-mail: http://chrislang.org

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Chile: The infinite thirst of forestry companies

Lumaco (which means “Moon water”) is a community of passage located in a large area of tree plantations and impoverished communities. Very little about it invites you to stay. Lumaco is part of the communes known in Chile as forestry communes. The community’s future vision set out in its 2000-2006 Plan for Communal Development states that it hopes for “a commune where poverty has been overcome, clean and orderly, fruitful and progressive, with development and unity, with expectations, with intercultural and diverse education, with a good quality of life for its Mapuche and non-Mapuche inhabitants.” We will take a brief look at its history.

Lumaco, located in the central southern part of the country was known as the “granary of Chile.” The degradation of decades of intensive agriculture, the economic transformation following the 1973 military coup that implemented the so-called “export model” no longer made agricultural activities socially or economically viable. It was an appropriate context to impose a new productive model. Macro-economic conditions in addition to government subsidies encouraged the development of the timber industry, based on monoculture tree plantations for export.

However, Lumaco, with an area of 111,500 hectares, has suffered important reductions in its population over the past thirty years. While in 1970 it had 16,184 inhabitants, by 2002 there were only 12,792 left, a fact which should be compared with the increase of 68% in the national population in general. Presently, 65 per cent of the population is rural and 70 percent are indigenous Mapuche people. There is a strong migratory process linked to the search for better living and working conditions.

Lumaco also shows high poverty rates, being one of the poorest communes in Chile. Thus 60 per cent of its population are under the poverty line and 33 per cent live in extreme poverty. Relevant social indicators show: 23.7% illiteracy, 26.3 per cent school drop-outs, and an infant mortality rate of 17.5 per thousand. This questions the so-called benefits of the forestry model prevailing in the country.

The expansion of plantations has been an explosive process. In 1988, 14 per cent of the area of the commune had plantations on it, while in the year 2002, this figure reached 52.5 per cent, all this to the detriment of soil for agricultural use and of the native forest. The transformation in ways of using land brought with it as a consequence drastic changes in life, culture and ecosystems.

If we analyze land distribution, we find serious problems of inequality. Fifty percent of the plots occupy 10 percent of the communal area where 80 per cent of the rural community live. In contrast, 10 per cent of the largest plots represent 55 per cent of the communal area. If we were to incorporate the analysis of the quality of the land, this inequality increases even further. Eighty-five per cent of the small properties are located on soils scantly suited to agriculture and that are highly fragile from an ecological standpoint.

As in other areas of intensive plantations, severe environmental impacts may be observed generated by this activity: destruction of the native forest (there is 13 per cent of the original area left) decrease in biodiversity; health problems in the surrounding communities; contamination of water from pesticides and pine pollen, and soil degradation among others. A critical aspect is the disappearance of sources of water in this sector. The rural communities are left with no water supply from the end of the spring until the beginning of autumn. The springs disappear, as do surface water courses, the level of the wells descends and finally the rural communities do not have sufficient water for their agriculture or their livestock or for that matter, for human consumption The Government and the Municipality, faced by this emergency situation, are obliged to allocate a large portion of public funds to distribute and supply water for basic consumption to the families neighbouring the plantations.

In the case of the indigenous community, the effects take on other dimensions, including territorial, cultural and spiritual dimensions, as the deterioration of the natural Mapuche world affects humans living in harmony with spiritual considerations. Structural changes in Mapuche culture change the balanced way of living and of solving problems. .

The loss of territorial space, exacerbated by the strong impacts and environmental degradation caused by the expansion of the plantations, have opened up a conflict between the Mapuche community, the forestry companies and the Government. The processes for land recovery by the Mapuche people as from 1997 have made apparent their precarious living conditions. They have also been an appropriate forum to highlight their historic political demands, both regarding territory and recognition as a people.

Response by the State has been to provide propitious legal and social conditions to enable the forestry companies to fulfil their production goals and continue their expansion. On the one hand, repression and criminalization, on the other, the specific solving of some problems causing the communities to rise and criticise the forestry model. The modification of decree law 701, rerouting subsidies formerly aimed at the large forestry companies towards small farmers and indigenous land owners, and the Origins Programme, of assistance aimed at the indigenous community and financed by the Inter-American Development Bank are a step in this direction. Additionally, local projects are promoted that de-naturalize public incentives and oblige former farmers to reconvert to forestry activities. Thus the strategy for expansion becomes more complex, operating through political and economic blackmail that leaves no alternatives. The obligation of thinking about its survival and future in the framework of the plantations is imposed on the population.

Presently the commune of Lumaco is living in conditions that are contrary to the expectations expressed by the community at the beginning of this article. However, in this area the Mapuche people have shown that cultural safeguarding can become a relevant strategy to face the forestry model, defending their right to think out the landscape and nature from their own criteria and to denounce the presence of forestry companies as an invasion of their territories and ways of life.

Prepared by Lucio Cuenca B. from the case study “Contexto económico y social de las plantaciones forestales en Chile: el caso de la comuna de Lumaco Región de la Araucanía”. WRM – OLCA, August 2005. E-mail: l.cuenca@olca.cl

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Ecuador: Impacts of the Eucapacific Company on people and their environment

In Ecuador three models of monoculture tree plantations coexist: the erroneously called “carbon sinks” belonging to the Dutch foundation FACE, the pine tree plantations in Andean communities promoted by organizations linked to the Church and the pulpwood plantation model. In this article we shall concentrate on this latter and more recent model.

In the Province of Esmeraldas, the Eucapacific Company (Eucalyptus Pacifico S.A.) is actively planting eucalyptus trees. It is a new company that was set up at the end of the year 2000 to carry out a major eucalyptus plantation project. The project involves four Japanese companies (Mitsubishi Paper Mills, Sumitomo Corporation, Electric Power Development and Environmental Engineering Service) and Waltz International and the idea is to plant thousands of hectares of Eucalyptus trees.

The objective is to produce pulp and paper from eucalyptus trees. The timber will be turned into wood chips in the port of Esmeraldas and later exported to Japan where they will be turned into pulp and paper.

Eighty per cent of the investment was provided by the Japanese government as a loan. The consortium obtained this loan from the Japanese Government under the reasoning that it is an “ecologically sustainable” project. According to them, the plantation of eucalyptus will fulfil the function of absorbing greenhouse gases generated by the Electric Power Development Company.

Eucapacific is being installed through an aggressive process of buying up land, initially from the owners of medium-sized plots of between 500 and 2000 hectares and later from smaller property owners. They are offered good prices for their lands and promised employment. In order to expand its control over the whole zone, Eucapacific put pressure on the peasants to sell the farms that were isolated in the middle of the Company’s properties. They did this by enclosing the land and placing security guards to prevent free circulation of the peasants along local public roads that the transnational company had already obstructed with its plantations.

There have been frequent cases in which the peasants have been obliged to accept ridiculous prices for their lands simply by preventing them from having access to their properties by the purchase of adjacent land. Thus, at the same time, the company makes the passage through their domains illegal. There are also other types of pressure exerted by Eucapacific. They include open boycott of peasant production, theft from their property, death of their animals and non-compliance with specific agreements. To this is added intimidation by death threats and harassment of the communities’ children, a situation that has been denounced in the community of Matambal.

Work promised to the local population is notoriously absent. During the 2003 planting “300 people from outside were employed.” Of these 300 people, today there are only 10 left. Help promised at the time of purchasing lands, in particular referring to the creation of sources of labour has been reduced to “zero so far.”

Furthermore, the company has found a way - through the mechanism of outsourcing - of freeing itself from labour responsibilities towards the workers.

Labour conditions are deplorable. Approximately 400 people work in a farm of 400 hectares, living in a single camp if the farm has access to roads. If not, they are distributed in 3 or more camps in the plantation areas. The camps with access to roads are usually large, separated into barracks for thirty or forty men, with three-story bunk beds. They are made out of poor quality timber with tin roofs and usually have no sanitary facilities. Those that do include six to ten barracks with septic tanks that are full after a week, causing a serious health problem: the faecal waters overflow, turning into breeding sites for mosquitoes transmitting typhoid fever and malaria.

The chemical inputs (weed-killers, insecticides, fertilizers) are located close to the dining areas and in the camps, exposing the workers to contamination. The camps scattered in the forest have plastic roofs and walls and measure no more than five metres by five where six people live. They have no basic services. The houses of the former owners of the farms are used and in populated areas, communal housing.

There is no drinking water in the work place, neither medical care of any type, no access to medication nor means of transport to the nearest health centre in the event of an emergency. Illness caused by intoxication from chemical products is frequent. Tree logging causes frequent work-related accidents that are not treated by the bosses under the slogan of “cure as you can.” Each plot sees two or three sick workers leaving per day. In Eucapacific people have died, such as in the camp of the contractor Tito Zambrano in the Quitito plot. A contractor called Ramón Zambrano also died.

There is no job continuity. Many people are hired for the initial phases of the plantation. This involves an average period of between three and four months, followed by mass dismissal of the workers. Remuneration for 22 days of continuous 8-hour per day work is between five and six dollars, with an average of 133 dollars, less than the minimum wage. The days of rest are not remunerated. Sick leave is not paid. The cost of food is deducted from the salary and the food itself is of very poor quality.

To the above are added other impacts from the plantations. Shortly after the plantation of the eucalyptus trees, their impact on water started becoming evident. The people say that “the rivers are drying up completely; there are no fish or anything.” To this is added contamination and now the water is dirty and contaminated by chemicals. This has led to diseases among the local population. At certain times the “river stinks,” because “they have poisoned the river and dead fish and shrimps stink.”

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that Eucapacific, in spite of having identified zones for the protection of biodiversity and the hydrographic basins in its properties, has installed plantations thus destroying the stated protection objectives.

Various water courses located in the Eucapacific plantations flow into the mangroves and the reproduction and survival of endemic species to the mangrove system are affected.

They spray weed-killer that, when it rains, ends up in the rivers and swamps due to leaching, killing the shrimps and all it finds in its way. It is also known that the spray tanks are washed in the rivers. There have been cases of poisoning, for example in Las Delicias (Quinindé), where the company purchased 40 hectares that it planted with eucalyptus trees. To avoid the ants eating the plants they sprayed bananas with the poison called NUBAN and placed them around the trees. Many domestic animals eat them and died.

Due to the use of agro-chemical products, cases of intoxication caused by bathing in the rivers Peninsula and Tortuga have been reported. An important point is that the population of Tortuga consumes the water from the river of the same name, where poisoned dead fish are always to be found. Banana plantations among others get infested due to lack of water because the eucalyptus trees dry out the springs and rivers.

On decreasing the flow of water, various crab species have almost disappeared. The people of Tortuga say “We have had two plagues, two enemies, the shrimp farms in those times and now the eucalyptus.”

The result of this model is there to be seen: in the plantation zone the people describe the situation by saying that “life there is dreadful. It is sad.” Those who did not sell their lands live in fear of threats, of loosing their means of survival (in particular game), migration to the cities, the closing down of routes used by their ancestors (and consequent “fencing in” in the plantations), and the lack of job opportunities.

By Ivonne Ramos, Acción Ecológica, e-mail: cbosques@accionecologica.org

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Indonesia: The insatiable appetite of the pulp industry

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) is one of the world's largest pulp and paper companies. The company is responsible for large-scale deforestation of Indonesia's forests. APP has also generated a number of not-yet-settled conflicts with local communities in Indonesia.

Forthcoming research by Rully Syumanda, Friends of the Earth Indonesia/WALHI's forest campaigner and Rivani Noor of the Community Alliance for Pulp Paper Advocacy (CAPPA) documents the company's grim record in Sumatra.

"We in Indonesia are facing so many battles about forest destruction, including tree plantations and the oil palm industry," said Syumanda at the start of his presentation. There are seven pulp mills, 65 paper mills and 10 pulp and paper mills in Indonesia. We are focussing on the biggest - APP's pulp and paper mill in Riau. "We face problems because of APP's plans to become the world's biggest pulp and paper exporter," said Syumanda. "The Indonesian government supports the growth of this industry."

Foresters working in APP argue that the company is rapidly developing plantations in order to supply its pulp mills without continuing to cut down old-growth forests. "APP is the golden boy of the Forest Department," said Syumanda, "because logging, plantations, pulp and paper dominate all."

But this industry is not serious about developing plantations. Plantations still supply only 30 per cent of the raw material needed. Destructive logging and/or illegal logging provides much of the rest. APP is converting forest to plantations. The company has used subsidies from the rehabilitation fund, which should have been used for recovering forest areas. Vast areas of APP's concessions overlap with community lands.

The main problem, Syumanda explained, is the over-capacity of the industry. The sheer scale of the industry means that land tenure conflicts cannot be resolved equitably. There is no protocol for solving the problems caused. But the government is not concerned about overcapacity. Instead it likes to keep the attention on illegal logging. "This has impacts," explained Syumanda. "Several peasants and farmers have been arrested for clearing their farmland for their own needs."

Any idea of restructuring the industry, including reducing its size, has been brushed aside by the need for fast money, at least partly to repay the company's huge debts. APP's debt, at almost US$14 billion, is the largest debt of any company in Southeast Asia.

Violence, human rights abuses, water and air pollution, forest fires and floods have become business as usual for the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia.

"Now we face the next challenge", said Syumanda. The government plans to develop another five million hectares of acacia pulp wood plantations. This is in addition to the two million hectares it plans to plant to oil palm in the middle of Borneo, and perhaps another eight million hectares of oil palm around the archipelago. "It's crazy," Syumanda concluded.

During the 1970s, the Indonesian government declared 140 million hectares of land as state forests, “thus asserting state control over forest resources traditionally managed by tens of thousands of local communities,” added Patrick Anderson, Policy Advisor at WALHI. As with industrial logging concessions, the government gives out concessions to the pulp and paper industry regardless of who lives there and who traditionally used the forest.

One of the few rules by which the pulp and paper industry operates in Indonesia is that you build the pulp mill first - the plantations follow. “So for at least the first ten years, while the plantations are planted and growing, the mill will use natural forests as raw material,” explained Anderson.

Indonesia has about 50 million indigenous people, with about 1,000 different languages. Although in theory indigenous land rights are recognised in Indonesia, the government does not follow its laws that recognize customary rights. Now that the plywood industry is in decline due to lack of big trees, the government is doing all it can to create an export economy in the pulp and paper sector.

Rivani Noor pointed out that on Sumatra there simply isn't enough forest left for the pulp industry to keep expanding. So APP has started pulp mills and plantation operations in China. But as with the mills in Sumatra, APP failed to secure raw material supplies before starting up its mills in China. As a result, woodchips from Sumatra's forests will be exported to supply APP's operations in China. APP also has a new concession in Kalimantan.

There are an additional three pulp mills proposed for Kalimantan. The South Korean Korindo Group has produced a feasibility study for a pulp and paper mill in Central Kalimantan. A group of Indian and Malaysian investors have filed a proposal with the Ministry of Forestry for a US$1.3 billion pulp and paper mill. If it goes ahead, the project would convert about 300,000 hectares of forest into plantations. Singapore-listed firm United Fibre Systems (UFS) is planning a project for South Kalimantan and is looking to secure European financial support. UFS is also in the process of taking over the existing Kiani Kertas mill in East Kalimantan, with Deutsche Bank acting as financial advisor to the company.

Not willing to limit its forest destruction to the island of Sumatra, the pulp and paper industry is busy planning its expansion into Kalimantan. If it does so, the results will be predictable and disastrous for people and forests.

By Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org

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South Africa: Plantations - Green gold or green deserts?

"Rural people are very knowledgeable, but they don't have degrees. Neither do they speak the 'right' language. This study helps me to empower the community. I see myself as a voice of the voiceless, committed to the struggle for the advancement of the dignity of our people," John Blessing Karumbidza said, opening his presentation in Vitória. Born in rural Zimbabwe, Karumbidza is a Junior Lecturer in Economic History at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. He was commissioned by Timberwatch to carry out research into the impacts of tree plantations on rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa.

Although the environmental impacts were not a specific part of the research, Karumbidza noted that "environmental considerations and impacts are over-arching issues, relevant to social, cultural and economic impacts. In typical rural community life in the area, it is difficult to separate social, cultural, economic and political issues from each other and the environment."

The South African plantation industry claims to be creating new jobs. When it sacks workers and hires subcontractors to do the work (at lower wages) it calls this "empowerment". It claims to be developing infrastructure, such as roads. It claims to be putting money in rural people's pockets and making a substantial contribution to the national economy. It claims to be preserving the environment.

Karumbidza's research uncovered a different story, of evictions, resettlement and dislocation. Communities who were evicted to make way for plantations received inadequate or no compensation. Their new settlements had insufficient land.

The Sabokwe community in Richards Bay is today completely surrounded by eucalyptus plantations. "A sea of nothingness", as one community member described the plantations. "We feel trapped being located so close to such huge plantations," a Sabokwe villager told Karumbidza.

"We cry because our children have no clothes and no shoes," another villager said. "Life has been difficult since the trees came."

Villagers are concerned that they do not have enough land. They cannot grow enough food to live off and young people are concerned that when they grow up, their fathers will not be able to pass on any land to them.

Mrs. Ziqubu, one of the senior women in Sabokwe, told Karumbidza about the problems they have with water: "The thing is that we compete for water with these plantations. They use up a lot of water. I remember when we got here in 1996 the stream close to our garden was running perennially because the eucalyptus trees were not here."

"The problem of water is as crucial as the access to land itself," she continued. "You may get land, but without water there is very little one can do with the land. So we are here in the middle of a desert created by the plantation industry."

Slovoville is a squatter camp near the town of KwaMbonambi. It is home to about 2,000 people who live in tiny houses built from timber off-cuts, black plastic, car tyres and anything people can lay their hands on. There is only one water stand pipe for the entire community.

The first people to settle in Slovoville did so in the 1980s, when pulp and paper corporations Mondi and Sappi went on a land buying frenzy. White farm owners sold their land, took the money and moved away. Black people who had worked on the farms were left with nowhere to go except to squatter camps like Slovoville. Since then other people have joined the settlement, including people from Mozambique who came to South Africa in search of work while others fled political violence in Zululand.

Both Mondi and Sappi shirk their responsibility toward the people living in Slovoville. After a fire raged through the settlement, neither company provided any help, not even timber poles to help rebuild the houses.

Timberwatch organised a meeting with representatives from communities and local NGOs in November 2005 to discuss Karumbidza's research. After presenting his findings, Karumbidza asked whether there were any benefits to communities from tree plantations. None of the people present could think of any benefits. "Plantations have caused starvation not benefits," said a villager. "There should be no plantations close to the community or close to the village," another added. They produced a list of problems caused by plantations, including the impact on water, the reduction of grazing and arable land, the impact on soils, the reduction of indigenous and fruit trees, the reduction of medicinal herbs and the fact that plantations provide a hiding place for criminals.

In the discussion that followed, a villager explained that even people who have worked for 20 years for the plantation companies have not benefited. "They cannot show you good things and assets they have from the salaries, from the contract they have made, there is nothing," she said. "We should do away with these plantations."

By Chris Lang, E-mail: http://chrislang.org

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Uganda: FACE Foundation, carbon conflict and FSC certification

In 1994, the FACE Foundation signed an agreement with the Ugandan authorities to plant trees on 25,000 hectares inside Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda. FACE is working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), which is responsible for the management of Uganda's National Parks.

The FACE Foundation (Forests Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions) was set up in 1990 by the Dutch electricity generating board with the aim of planting trees to absorb and store carbon, supposedly to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from a new power station to be built in the Netherlands.

The UWA-FACE project is planting a two to three kilometre wide strip of trees just inside the 211 kilometre-long boundary of the Mount Elgon National Park. The project was certified as well managed by the Forest Stewardship Council in March 2002, after assessments in December 1999 and January 2002 by SGS Qualifor. According to SGS's Public Summary Report of the assessment, when the assessors visited the Mount Elgon area a little over 7,000 hectares had been planted.

Fred Kizza, FACE's project coordinator, told Timothy Byakola of the Ugandan NGO Climate and Development Initiatives that the project has improved income and standards of living in the communities near the project area. SGS says the same thing: "The project has provided significant amounts of paid labour and training to the surrounding communities in an area where there are very few other sources of paid labour." But local council officials told Byakola that most of the jobs are only during the planting period and employ very few people. The project has taken away what little local communities had, they said. Byakola reports that forest materials required for cultural functions and firewood are hard to find. People have stopped preparing certain foods like beans that take a long time to cook. Villagers can no longer graze their goats and cows in the forest. As a result, areas near the forest are subject to overgrazing and vulnerable to soil erosion.

When Mount Elgon was declared a National Park in 1993, the people who lived within the boundaries of the National Park lost all their rights. The government evicted them from the Park, "without due compensation - something that is outrightly against the constitution of Uganda", Byakola pointed out.

SGS's Public Summary acknowledges that there were "disputes over park boundaries in some areas". However, according to SGS's assessors, "The encroachers have never had legal rights to farm the land and UWA are legally entitled to evict settlers from inside the boundary."

UWA park rangers receive para-military training in preparation for their duties. David Wakikona, Member of Parliament for Manjiya County told New Vision in June 2004, "The boundaries were made unilaterally, displacing over 10,000 people. The wildlife people who operate there are very militarised, and have killed over fifty people. People feel that the Government favours animals more than the people."

In July 2002, a team working on demarcating the boundary of the Park found two schools and two trading centres inside the Park. UWA's then-chief warden, James Okonya, told the Ugandan newspaper New Vision that the encroachers would be evicted.

SGS would approve. SGS's Public Summary acknowledges that in order for the UWA-FACE project to continue, more people will have to be evicted. SGS recommends that "more speed may be required to ensure the evictions are carried out successfully."

In the same month that FSC issued its certificate, March 2002, several hundred families were camped in a trading centre after UWA had evicted them from their homes and land in Mount Elgon National Park. Although they had lived on Mount Elgon for over 40 years, to UWA's armed park rangers they were squatters without land rights. Rangers destroyed houses and crops. The people evicted had to take shelter in neighbouring villages. New Vision reported that several families were living in mosques and caves. UWA evicted more than 500 families from the National Park, before being ordered to stop the evictions by the Minister of Trade, Tourism and Industry, Edward Rugumayo.

The Benet people (also known as Ndorobo) are indigenous to Mount Elgon. Having been evicted in 1983 and 1993, they decided to take the government to court to claim their land rights. In August 2003, the Uganda Land Alliance started proceedings against the Attorney General and the Uganda Wildlife Authority on behalf of the Benet. The Benet accused Uganda Wildlife Authority of constantly harassing them. The government meanwhile cut off all education and health service in the area and forbid the people from doing anything with the land.

In October 2005, Justice J.B Katutsi ruled that the Benet people "are historical and indigenous inhabitants of the said areas which were declared a Wildlife Protected Area or National Park." He ruled that the area should be de-gazetted and that the Benet should be allowed to live on their land and continue farming it.

SGS states in its Public Summary that "The project is not planting in areas where the boundary is under dispute and the project is not engaged in any significant disputes." But the Uganda Wildlife Authority is a part of the UWA-FACE project. It is simply not possible to separate the act of planting trees along the boundary of National Park from the management of the rest of the Park.

In February 2004, New Vision reported that police were holding 45 people "suspected of encroaching on Mount Elgon National Park and destroying 1,700 trees". The trees were planted in 1994 under the UWA-FACE Foundation project.

By Chris Lang, E-mail: http://chrislang.org

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