Peru:
The pillagers of yesterday and today, from deforestation to plantations
In our previous issue (WRM bulletin
109) we made reference to the promotion of oil palm plantations,
denouncing their negative impacts on the Amazon forest and on
displaced peasants.
The wave of plantations continues, with
other types of alien trees. In July of this year the National
Reforestation Plan was submitted, promoting plantations for commercial
and industrial purposes. Adopted in January 2006, the plan set
out an average annual rate of plantation of 104,500 hectares from
now until the year 2024.
In a country where over eight million
hectares of forests have been pillaged, it seems extremely ironic
to propose such a reforestation plan as a remedy, and by the very
same authors of the pillaging!
In fact, the National Reforestation
Plan was put into operation by official bodies – the National
Institute for Natural Resources (Instituto Nacional de Recursos
Naturales, INRENA) and the Ministry of Economy and Finance – jointly
with industrialists and logging companies. In a proposal similar
to those applied in other countries of the region, the idea is
to channel private investment through tax incentives. In this
case the Plan has established an approximate amount of 853 million
dollars that include foreign debt swapping for plantations. It
defines that the payment of incentives for each type of plantation
and the promotion of private investment shall be done through
“the development of a capital market that will be able to offer
credit lines, with sufficiently ample periods of grace (harvest)
and promotional interest rates.” The forest group Fondebosque
announces it in this way: “Private Forestation Investments. The
Great Opportunity” (http://www.fondebosque.org.pe/boletin/Boletin25.htm).
International financial institutions
are lining up to facilitate this business. The World Bank, the
Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) and FAO are among some of the possible
sources of international technical and financial cooperation.
Within the possible funding mechanisms, the Andean Development
Corporation (CAF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
would take responsibility for indebtedness, while the Italian-Peruvian
Fund and the German Financing Corporation would be responsible
for debt swapping.
There are practically no restrictions
on this business as the tree plantations for commercial and industrial
purposes of alien species – eucalyptus and pine – can be installed
almost anywhere in the national territory. They may be located
in agricultural lands, forests or grasslands and even in the lands
of Andean peasant communities. The plan states that it is these
communities that “have the most land suited to the establishment
of this kind of plantations.” We have seen the damage done
in other countries and denounced it profusely (see in our website:
“The problem of tree plantations” at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/about.html)
Furthermore, the forestry sector has
recently managed to get Congress to adopt a new law, framed in
the National Reforestation Plan, whereby deforested lands belonging
to public domain may be given in concession to private investors
to implement forestation and reforestation projects. This
law has already been promulgated by the Executive and only requires
ruling.
Yesterday’s depredators who became rich
at the expense of the destruction of Peruvian forests will now
become – according to official discourse – “forestation agents”
or “reforestation agents” and will receive sizeable resources
from the State. However, in spite of the change in name, they
will continue to be the same depredators, destroying soil, water,
flora and fauna with their monoculture tree plantations and sinking
the local inhabitants into poverty.
Article based on information from: Plan
Nacional de Reforestación,
http://www.inrena.gob.pe/iffs/pnr/proyecto_pnr-v151205v1.pdf#search=%22Plan%20Nacional%20de%20Reforestaci%C3%B3n%20per%C3%BA%22;
información provided by Carlos Dávila Obregón, e-mail: carlosfelipedaob@yahoo.es
