OUR VIEWPOINT
- International
Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations
In
2004, the Brazilian Network campaigning against the spread of
tree plantations came up with the idea of instituting an International
Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations on 21 September, which
is National Tree Day in that country. The idea was supported by
organizations from all over the world, who since then carry out
a number of special activities on this day.
It
is important to stress that this is certainly not a day aimed
at opposing tree planting in general, but an activity focusing
on one type of plantation in particular: large scale tree monocultures.
The
need for such opposition is increasingly clear. While governments
and many international institutions continue promoting what they
term as “forest plantations” or “planted forests”, local communities
continue to oppose what they describe as “green deserts”, “green
cancer”, “selfish trees”, “planted soldiers”, or “dead forests”.
Such
differences in wording reflect the gap between those who promote
these plantations as something positive –forests- and those who
oppose them because of their negative social and environmental
impacts, described under the above terms.
Knowledge
gained during the past decades, of the fact that plantations are
established at the expense of local peoples’ livelihoods and environment,
has now reached such a level of certainty that it can no longer
be ignored. In country after country, monoculture tree plantations
have resulted in net loss of employment, forced or “voluntary”
evictions, appropriation of large areas of land by national and
transnational corporations, depletion and pollution of water resources,
biodiversity loss, soil impoverishment, destruction of local ecosystems
–forests or grasslands- and in many cases in human rights abuses
including repression, imprisonment and even death.
Increasing
consumer awareness on the impacts of the production of wood-related
products –ranging from paper to furniture- led to the creation
of certification systems, whereby consumers would be able to receive
assurances that their purchases were not resulting in impacts
on forests and forest-dependent peoples.
Those
certification systems were promoted by different national, regional
and international actors and led to the creation of a number of
labels: Canadian Standards Association Standard (CSA), Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest
Certification Schemes (PEFC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative
(SFI), The Australian Forestry Standard (AFS), Sistema Brazileiro
de Certificação Florestal (CERFLOR), Certificación Forestal en
Chile (CERTFOR), Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC).
However,
all of them failed to see what was obvious to local communities
living in the vicinity of plantations: that large scale tree monocultures
are intrinsically uncertifiable.
Over
the past years, WRM has concentrated its critique on the certification
of plantations by the FSC. This may have led to the wrong impression
that the other labels were better. If this has been the case,
we apologise. The only reason for concentrating on the FSC was
because the participation of social and environmental NGOs provided
this system with some credibility. The other labels –promoted
by governments and corporations- simply have no credibility at
all (see articles below on PEFC, CERFLOR and CERTFOR).
However,
having better or worse certification schemes is not the issue.
What is needed is not certification but legislation –and compliance
with it. The situation is so serious that it cannot be left in
the hands of voluntary schemes and consultants to decide whether
plantations deserve a label or not: their impacts are such that
none of them do.
Legislation
must ensure, in the first place, that governments immediately
cease to provide plantation companies with any type of subsidies
or support.
Secondly,
governments must ban further plantations in areas where there
is evidence of their negative social and environmental impacts.
Third,
governments must carry out independent and participatory research
to evaluate the impacts of existing plantations and compensate
local peoples for the damages suffered, including devolution of
land in cases where it was taken away from them.
Fourth,
governments must apply the precautionary principle and prevent
the implementation of plantations which might have social and
environmental impacts.
The
above are only some of the many actions that governments must
implement to begin to redress the problems created by their plantation-promotion
policies. People from each country or region should decide which
ones are applicable and which others need to be added.
September
21st could be a celebration to living organisms that most people
see as environmental symbols –trees- but the way in which they
are being used for generating profits to some, makes it a necessity
to commemorate this third International Day Against Monoculture
Tree Plantations. We hope that the need for this Day will no longer
be necessary in the very near future.
index
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
- Brazil:
International campaign against rural violence
in the Amazon
A
team comprising Alvaro Santos, Emiliano Camacho and the author
travelled from Montevideo, Uruguay to the state of Para in the
Brazilian Amazon in the framework of a national and international
campaign on “An end to violence in rural areas!” “Cut out this
scourge from the root!” promoted by the Latin American Secretariat
of the International Union of Food workers (Rel-UITA) and the
Brazilian National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG),
against rural violence in that country. The purpose was to film
a documentary video gathering testimonials regarding some of the
dozens of cases of rural leaders that have either been murdered
or threatened with death.
These
people are struggling in the front line where “grileiros” burn
thousands and thousands of hectares of forest to appropriate the
land, with no papers – and in the event they do have papers, they
are always false – exploiting it during the few years soil fertility
lasts, until irremediably it turns into a desert. The association
between wealthy adventurers, retired or serving military personnel
who have founded their own feudal dynasties (starting in the sixties
during the years of dictatorship) and those exporting precious
wood, razing to the ground almost 40 per cent of the best Brazilian
Amazon timber -and still advancing- and the cattle-ranchers and
soya bean growers that cover vast tracts of bootlegged land, are
such a powerful factor that, save for a few honourable exceptions,
they are able to demolish Justice, the Police and the local political
system.
The
40-minute video prepared on this occasion* tells three of these
stories to help understand how this social and environmental massacre
carried out in the Amazon turns into a drama of survival on a
personal, individual level. To get an idea of the magnitude of
the disaster, it is enough to mention a few facts:
-
During the period of the Brazilian military dictatorship alone
(1964-1985), 10 million hectares of Amazon forest were given over
to settlements. Most of this land was distributed among high ranking
military officials.
-
Since then, over 1,550 murders have taken place, associated with
disputes over land between powerful landowners and landless peasants
or rural worker leaders. Between 1985 and 2004 alone, 560 murders
were denounced relating to this cause.
-
Of these, the police investigated a mere 30 per cent, only 6 per
cent led to legal proceedings and in only 3 per cent of the cases
were the merits of the cause determined, the suspects nearly always
being absolved due to “lack of evidence.” In short, cases in which
a conviction was made were less than one per cent and the intellectual
authors of the murders were practically never tried.
-
Because of this inefficiency on the part of the legal and police
system, 300 murder cases have already been prescribed as unenforceable.
-
In 2003, 35 thousand families were recorded as having been evicted
from their plots of land, in 2004 this figure was 37 thousand
and in 2005 the figure dropped to “only” 26 thousand families.
However, partial figures for the current year lead us to suppose
that there will be an increase in the number of families evicted
from rural areas in relation to the previous year.
-
The Brazilians call people who have become landowners by “stealing”
fiscal land “grileiros.” Very often this involves thousands of
hectares. These grileiros open up a gap in the forest, where large
trucks can enter and leave. Then they log all the timber with
a high market value and burn the rest. Satellite photos show the
hundreds of fires taking place every day, where high spirals of
smoke rise from the whole of the Amazon forest, from Bolivia to
Venezuela.
-
After burning this “useless forest” the grileiros fake title deeds
with the complicity of corrupt local authorities and fence in
their new “acquisition.” With this procedure there are landowners
who have managed to accumulate over 200 thousand hectares. First
of all they bring in cattle to “tame” the forest soil, and then
they plant transgenic soya bean, with massive use of the herbicide
glyphosate for weed control.
-
In the city of Santarem, in the heart of the forest and on the
River Amazon, the transnational corporation Cargill has built,
without any type of permit, its own port and the largest soya
bean deposits in the world, where it stores the soya beans grown
in these illegal farms.
-
According to official and conservative estimates, some 100 million
hectares have been “griladas” in the whole of Brazil, some 90
per cent alone located in the Amazon. This area is as large as
the whole of Central America and Mexico put together.
-
Proposals for agrarian reform made by civil society set out a
rational use of the forest: out of the total amount of land allocated
to a community or to a farming family, the owners are authorized
to cultivate 20 per cent and acquire a commitment to conserve
the other 80 per cent where they can only carry out sustainable
extractive activities. Land ownership is associated with
fulfilling this commitment.
-
In the opinion of trade unions and local peasant associations,
the present government has made notorious efforts to change the
situation. For example, over the past few years, 17,325 people
who were subject to slave labour in ranches distant from populated
centres were freed. In 2005 federal resources to resolve
and prevent these conflicts were increased fourfold. Laws protecting
important areas of the Amazon were adopted (that will have to
be enforced), but the aspirations and needs of the communities
concerned have still to be fulfilled. A law was adopted
for the protection of Quilombola communities**. Among other initiatives
and actions, a programme for geo-referencing the “hot frontier”
of the Amazon forest corresponding to the areas most attacked
by grileiros and logging companies has started to be implemented,
under the responsibility of the Brazilian army.
-
In spite of this, the pace of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
remains at approximately 2 million hectares
per year and changes agreed on in the capital often take years
in reaching the concrete locations where communities and rural
workers suffer from the consequences of the landowners’ - the
powerful ones - impunity and absolutism.
Rel-UITA
and CONTAG’s national and international campaign is already showing
positive results such as the visit by European trade union delegations
and parliamentarians to the Brazilian government and to the area
of Para with the aim of appraising in situ the complaint. The
presence of Federal Police in the zone and strengthening of economic
and human resources for the Public Ministry in the region have
raised hope for change. However, the experience accumulated over
so many years of struggle prevents any social organization from
dropping its guard and they all are active and alert.
By
Carlos Amorín, Rel-UITA. The complete version of this article
-in Spanish- can be accessed at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/Para.html
*“En
la frontera del miedo. Historias de vida y muerte” (At the frontier
of fear. Stories of life and death,” Direction and script: Carlos
Amorín and Alvaro Santos; Cameras: Emiliano Camacho, Alvaro Santos,
César Ramos; Edition: Fabián Arocena; Made by: Osmedia (www.osmedia.com.uy);
Production: Rel-UITA (www.rel-uita.org),
CONTAG (www.contag.org.br).
For information on the video:
uita@rel-uita.org
**
Quilombos: Communities of descendents of African runaway slaves
index
- Congo
Basin: International funding to support oligarchic logging
African
logging concessions are usually seen as units of forest management.
However they are better seen as a kind of currency in a larger
system of power politics and exploitation.
The
international community has played a key role in establishing
and perpetuating the politics of ‘logging-patrimony’. Probably
the most important way in which northern countries promote oligarchic
logging is by providing political, military, economic and diplomatic
support for the oligarchic regimes it is designed to serve. Often,
such support is unofficial, private or covert. International financial
institutions (IFI) provide additional support by providing lending
devoid of forestry-reform conditionality, by providing ineffective
or misguided forestry-reform and project lending, and by providing
private-sector forestry-related investments.
Despite
the known problems with the forest sector in Cameroon, international
funding has continued to pour into the country: during the 1990s,
at least $75 million in foreign assistance was given for forestry
and conservation projects.
During
the mid 1990s, Britain’s Overseas Development Administration (and
then DFID) attempted to implement a programme to ‘operationalise’
the provisions of Cameroon’s 1994 Forest Law relating to the establishment
of community forests. This required, firstly, establishing a clear
set of rules for the allocation of community forests – which had
never been undertaken by the Cameroonian government – and secondly
to establish a unit within the Forest Department to administer
the community forests. Community forests, as defined in Cameroon’s
law, are of extremely limited size (maximum 5,000 hectares) and
duration (15 years renewable for a further 15). Further, they
can only be established in the limited areas of ‘non-permanent’
forest, thus excluding them from areas designated as forestry
concessions (UFAs). However, subsequent to the passing of the
1994 Forest Law, these non-permanent forest areas were becoming
increasingly important to the political machinery as a means of
allocating short-term, ‘cut-and-run’ logging rights, or ‘ventes
de coupes’. The forest administration thus worked actively to
oppose the implementation of community forests.
This
illustrates that the institutions that now administer the ‘forest
sector’ in parts of Africa are not only primarily articulated
around industrial logging but also, because this logging is linked
to the vested interests of senior political figures, directly
opposed to any use of forest resources – such as community forests
– that might hold developmental benefits but that would potentially
jeopardise the absolute discretion that those political figures
have had in using forests as a means of political patronage.
Given
the importance of logging concessions as the ‘grease in the cogs’
of political patronage, graft and corruption in all Congo Basin
countries --and elsewhere: in Ivory Coast, Togo, Guinea, etc.--,
it is hardly surprising that internationally funded projects to
provide ‘technical assistance’ to improve the ‘performance’ of
African forestry concessions have proved to be such spectacular
failures.
Excerpted
from: “The political ecology of the African logging concession
system and the complicity of international donors”, Simon Counsell
and Arnaud Labrousse, sent by Simon Counsell, Rainforest Foundation,
email: simonc@rainforestuk.com
index
- Laos:
FSC certified timber is illegal
When
a forestry operation is certified under the Forest Stewardship
Council system, it should mean we can all relax in the knowledge
that the forests are reasonably well managed. Unfortunately, it
seems, this is not the case. SmartWood, an FSC accredited certifier,
recently certified forestry operations in Laos which are producing
timber that is illegal under the Lao Forestry Law.
The
FSC certification is the result of more than a decade of aid projects
and millions of dollars of aid money. Between 1996 and 2000, a
project funded by the World Bank and the Finnish government set
up a series of Village Forestry Associations in Savannahkhet and
Khammouane provinces in Laos. The project, part of the Forest
Management and Conservation Programme (FOMACOP), aimed to develop
a model of “village forestry”, through which villagers would log
the forests and receive a share of the money from the timber.
The
first attempt to determine whether “village forestry” could be
FSC certified came in 1999. But Lao government officials were
unhappy about any outside monitoring of forestry operations. Rumours
spread that government officials were worried about losing a lucrative
source of income: bribes from the logging industry. FOMACOP collapsed
in 2000, shortly after the failed certification attempt.
The
World Bank and the Finnish government subsequently set up another
project, this time called the Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development
Project (SUFORD). In May 2003, SmartWood assessed the forest management.
In January 2006, after a series of conditions were met to SmartWood’s
satisfaction, SmartWood issued an FSC certificate for 39,000 hectares
of forest managed by six villages in Savannahkhet province. A
month earlier, SmartWood issued a certificate for about 10,000
hectares of village forestry in Khammouane province.
WWF
supported the certification together with the Tropical Forest
Trust, an organisation set up in 1999 to expand the area of FSC
certified forest in the tropics. “FSC certification of these forests
is a giant step forward for sustainable forestry and conservation
in the region,” said Roland Eve, WWF’s Country Director in Laos.
But
a leaked consultant’s report from the World Bank- and Finland-financed
SUFORD project tells a different story. The report documents the
findings of a visit by a team from the Lao Forestry Department
and a consultant to the SUFORD project, Tomas Jonsson. The team
visited Thapanthong district in Savannahkhet province between
March and May 2006.
The
team found that the certified logging operations are not carried
out in accordance with management plans. “Documents were scattered
and parts were missing” and “only partially understood” by local
forestry staff, loggers and villagers, according to Jonsson’s
report.
The
team found that the villagers and local forestry staff were “next
to unable to use the tree maps”. The maps were found to be inaccurate.
In the forest, trees to be logged were not adequately marked.
Unmarked trees had been logged. Some marked trees were left standing.
Resin trees used by villagers had been cut. Some large, good quality
logs were left in the felling area. Skid trails were not as marked
on the maps. Hardly surprising, as the logging crew didn’t have
copies of the maps. Neither did they have safety equipment or
protective gear. Logging crews lived under a tarpaulin, in a logging
camp with no washing facilities or toilets.
More
trees were logged than in the management plans because the province
issued logging quotas “over and above the harvestable volumes
as per approved logging plans.” Several areas had been logged
which were not yet supposed to be harvested according to the management
plans. The team also found signs that villagers were felling and
processing sawnwood within the certified area.
The
team concluded that logging is not controlled by the management
plans but is driven by the demand from an ever increasing number
of local sawmills. Logging plans are interpreted “as giving the
right to cut a certain volume instead of specifically permitting
the selected and marked trees to be removed,” according to Jonsson’s
report.
With FSC certification it should be possible
to trace wood back to the specific location that it came from in
the forest, through a system of marking and tracking the timber.
“In all inspected locations (forest, landing, mill),” the team found
that “no tree or log was marked as per requirement.” Logs that were
marked did not have the appropriate number and were often marked
with chalk. “Tracing and chain of custody of trees/logs is therefore
impossible,” Jonsson wrote in his report.
The control team also found evidence of
illegal logging logging in areas where management plans were non-existent
or not yet approved. Without adequate timber marking, there is no
way of knowing whether timber from these or any other illegal operations
is being passed off as FSC certified timber.
But
SmartWood knows all this. SmartWood’s assessors issued a condition
which states that “By the end of Year 1, all logs must contain
clear and lasting marks (e.g. paint or chops) to identify the
village, strip, and log number.”
It
is illegal under the Lao Forestry Law to move logs that are not
appropriately marked. Before SmartWood’s condition is met, therefore,
FSC certified timber from Savannahkhet is illegal under Lao law.
By
Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org,
www.chrislang.blogspot.com
index
-
Nicaragua: Mining in the Southeast Biosphere Reserve
Nicaragua
has been aware of the effects of mining for a long time now. The
many gold mining and other metal mineral works have left an aftermath
of environmental degradation, impacts on water resources with,
inter alia, high cyanide, lead and arsenic levels and irreparable
damage to the health of thousands of workers who have also suffered
violation of their labour rights.
In
spite of the fact that some Nicaraguan municipalities that had
supported development on the basis of extractive activities now
have the highest poverty rates – according to the poverty map
prepared by the Nicaraguan Statistics and Census Institute (INEC)
– the Government of Nicaragua is showing increasing interest in
continuing to grant mining concessions all over the country.
The Humboldt Centre has recorded that in December 2005, a total
of 1,401,539 hectares were granted for metallic and non-metallic
prospecting, in a country that has a total terrestrial area of
12,142,800 hectares.
Recently,
the Municipal Government of Nueva Guinea, granted Minerales de
Nicaragua S.A. (MINESA) a permit to prospect and exploit an open
cast mine. Members of the Municipal Development Committee (CDM)
of the Municipal Environmental Commission (CAM) and of Organized
Civil Society (OCS) lodged a complaint with the Administrative
Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). In March 2004,
MINESA had requested the General Natural Resources Office of the
Ministry of Promotion, Industry and Trade (MIFIC) to grant it
a mining concession for a 25 year period, of a 23,000 hectare
parcel of land known as San Antonio.
The
site is located in the Municipality of Nueva Guinea, part of the
Southeast Nicaragua Biosphere Reserve, covering an extension of
18,340 Km2 and harbouring high biodiversity of flora and fauna.
“The soil of Nueva Guinea is clayey and acid. As it is in the
humid tropics, leaf decay and organic elements together with humidity
favour a productive fertile layer. However, the development of
mining is detrimental to the environment, converting it into dry
tropical lands,” explained Luis Umaña, OCS representative. Mining
works will completely change the type of vegetation, biodiversity,
flora and fauna, in addition to affecting soil productivity and
causing displacement of the population and other economic activities
which generate greater income.
Umaña
explained that with this type of action the Municipal Government
of Nueva Guinea will encourage the social and environmental degradation
of the area, affecting over 120,000 inhabitants. As it is a region
with constant rainfall, there is serious danger of scattered cyanide
being absorbed by the soil and contaminating the groundwater.
The
OCS complained that legal provisions had not been complied with
regarding prior consultation with the local inhabitants in view
of mining concessions. Law 475 on Citizen Participation requesting
the government to consult with the citizenship has been violated.
For this reason we are asking for more information in order to
give an opinion regarding the viability, benefits or damages that
this activity may give rise to in the Municipality of Nueva Guinea,”
stated Umaña.
The
OCS member urged the mayor of the Municipality and his government
to respect articles 60 and 102 of Nicaragua’s Political Constitution,
which guarantee citizens’ rights to inhabit a healthy environment
and set out the State’s obligation to preserve and care for the
environment and natural resources.
Article
based on information from: “Reserva de la biosfera del Sur Este
de Nicaragua en Peligro por concesión Minera”, Aldo Palacios,
distributed by the Network of Environmental Journalists, Case:
Expansion of Mining concessions and activities in Central American
Territories, Humboldt Centre.
http://www.humboldt.org.ni/descargas/denuncias_veredictos/veredicto%20Caso%20
Centroam%E9rica%20mineria.pdf
index
COMMUNITIES
AND TREE MONOCULTURES
- Brazil and Uruguay:
Stora Enso’s promises and the harsh reality
For
some months now, declarations have been circulating in Southern
Brazil and in Uruguay, both by members of the Swedish-Finnish
company Stora Enso and by Government authorities of these countries
regarding the advantages for the local population of the installation
of the company’s pulp mills in the region.
The
president for Latin America of Stora Enso, Nils Grafström, as
well as other high-ranking executives of the Swedish-Finnish company
visit towns in both countries with the sole aim of announcing
wealth, development and environmental preservation. Something
very similar is taking place at this same time in other Latin
American, African and Asian countries, such as China, where Swedish
and Finnish corporate representatives increasingly affirm the
social, economic and environmental benefits of projects to install
thousands of hectares of plantations and new pulp mills.
However,
the facts show that once installed in the countries of the South,
the situation is really very different from what the companies
had promised.
The
experience of the Veracel pulp mill - joint property of Stora
Enso and Aracruz and operated by the former – in the Brazilian
State of Bahia is a clear example of unsustainablility. This is
confirmed in a letter we received, signed by an important group
of “men, women and young people, rural and urban workers, indigenous
people, environmentalists, scientists, professors, students, in
which they denounce the situation of degradation and poverty of
the Southern Region of the State of Bahia, promoted by the pulp
company Veracel, a joint venture of Stora Enso”.
This
situation is the result of the negative social and environmental
impacts caused both by the vast monoculture tree plantations that
the company has been establishing in the region for many years
now to make available the necessary raw material, and by the pulp
mill itself that started operating in 2005, with an annual production
of 900,000 tons of pulp for export.
This
letter states that “Over the past years, Veracel has generated
a track record of environmental degradation, concentration of
land, eviction of thousands of workers from the rural areas to
the outskirts of cities, causing significant social and environmental
disruptions”.
Regarding
the generation of jobs, the letter affirms that “Not satisfied
with the large number of lands purchased in the Southern Region
of Bahia for the plantation of eucalyptus, Veracel Celulose now
moves forward to the south of the State ignoring the social impacts
this entails. Only in the municipality of Mascote, the company
purchased several estates. Approximately, 400 workers lost
their employment. Many of these workers moved to the outskirts
of nearby cities”.
As
is also happening in the case in Uruguay and many other countries,
the signatories of the letter complain that: “In one of the properties
of the Santa Rita group (made up by 4 ranches) purchased by Veracel
… the houses, corrals and plantations have already been destroyed
to eliminate the signs that human beings once lived there, who
depended on that land”.
Additionally
and as is already happening in other regions, the plantations
have negative impacts on water and in this respect, the letter
states that: “Throughout the region, the
extensive plantation of eucalyptus has resulted in the disappearance
of several rivers and streams”.
When
Stora Enso was installed in Bahía, it did so on the basis of the
same promises of employment, development and wealth that it is
now making in other countries. For instance, according to the
Uruguayan press, “the information handled so far by Stora Enso”
is that during its operational phase it will generate “some 3,000
direct and indirect jobs.” In Bahia not
only did those promises prove to be false, but the company also
generated rural migration, unemployment and poverty.
We
ask ourselves how long these companies will be able to continue
repeating their lies with impunity.
The
letter referred to in this article is available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/LetterStoraEnso.html
index
-
Cambodia: Impacts of pine tree plantations in the Mondolkiri
province
Establishment
of monocultures of fast-growing trees to produce so-called fast-wood
has accelerated in Cambodia following the country’s transition
to a market-oriented economy in the early 1990s. Proposed and
established plantations under the development paradigm of ‘economic
concessions’ include fast-woods acacia, pine and eucalyptus. The
majority of these economic concessions violates Cambodian law
and there is little evidence that they create the proposed benefits
and income for the state.
Between
September 2004 and March 2005, the Environment Forum Core Team
(EFCT), a group of volunteer environmental activists conducted
field-based research on four economic concessions in Cambodia.
The EFCT is part of a network of environmentally orientated NGOs
established by the NGO Forum on Cambodia in 1995. Using qualitative
and quantitative methods, the EFCT looked at the likely benefits
and disadvantages of economic concessions on local people’s livelihoods
(see full report at
http://www.ngoforum.org.kh/Land/Docs/Plantation
/EFCT%20Plantations%20Report%20FINAL.pdf).
Among
the investigated cases is the fast-growing tree plantation of
the Wuzhishan LS Group in the Mondolkiri province. Wuzhishan was
established as a company in May 2004; in August 2004 the company
received permission to establish a 199,999 hectare pine tree plantation
in Sen Monorom and Ou Reang districts of Mondolkiri province.
The concession boundary also overlaps in part with the ‘Seima
Biodiversity Conservation Area’.
In
planning the concession, there was no consultation with the local
communities, and extremely limited communication with the local
authorities. There is no official publicly available map indicating
the extent of the granted concession. In September 2004, Wuzhishan
began operations in earnest, liberally applying the herbicide
glyphosate to areas of the concession’s grasslands, burning the
dead vegetation, and commencing the planting of 250,000 pine seedlings.
In preparing the land for the concession, Wuzhishan has indiscriminately
cleared not only grassland used by the local Phnong population
for cattle grazing, but also spirit forests and ancestral burial
grounds which are essential elements of the Phnong culture. The
use of the herbicide was widely criticized by the communities:
it is believed to have contaminated water resources, to have affected
human health, and to have been responsible for the death of cattle.
Large
protests erupted on 16 June 2005, when between 650 and 800 mostly
Phnong people affected by the plantation protested in front of
the company’s office in Sen Monorom town. This led the Council
of Ministers to issue a Notification on 17 June 2005, ordering
Wuzhishan to suspend planting immediately in all areas of the
concession. An inter-ministerial committee was set up to resolve
the problem.
Despite
this, in late June, communities protested the apparent lack of
progress and the company’s continued planting, blockading roads
in the concession-affected communes. The affected communities
were subsequently reported to be subject to numerous threats and
intimidation tactics. The blockades lasted for around a week before
the company broke it with trucks full of workers wielding hoes,
knives and sticks.
The
results of the investigation show that almost all households interviewed
(98%) were engaged in agriculture and animal raising as their
primary occupation. 65% said that the company’s activities had
affected these agricultural activities, owing mainly to loss of
farmland and effects from the spraying of the herbicide glyphosate.
Many woman villagers reportedly do not now go out to farm because
they are afraid company workers will rape them.
Interviewees
reported a significant decrease in the availability of timber,
which was mainly blamed on Wuzhishan having cleared the forest.
The abundance of wildlife was also noted to have decreased as
well as loss of habitat resulting from Wuzhishan’s activities.
At
the time of writing the report, the precise extent of loss of
assets for villagers was unknown, because the precise boundary
of the plantation in the vicinity of villages remained under negotiation.
Despite this, 57% of interviewees said that they would lose some
of their farmland. Large areas of grassland away from the village
centers, presently used by villagers for cattle grazing, are being
lost. Natural forest and fruit trees (growing both in forests
and on open grasslands) that are vital to non-timber forest product
collection are being felled, and tracks used by the Phnong are
being obstructed. Furthermore, animals, fruit and crops are being
stolen by the company workers. Important cultural sites, namely,
spirit forests and burial grounds, have also been destroyed. Legal
recognition of land ownership is complicated by the communal ownership
systems practiced by the indigenous Phnong people.
In
total, 21% of the households interviewed said that they had members
working on the plantation. Each worker worked for eight hours
per day, and was paid between US$30 and US$42.50 per month, with
several workers also receiving 25kg of rice per month. UNCOHCHR
(UN Cambodia Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights)
have described working conditions on the plantation as harsh.
Interviewed villagers identified that: when sick they cannot ask
for personal leave; they have to work hard; they do not get enough
salary; they were worried by the alleged case of rape among the
workers; there was pressure on them to work hard; and the workers
stole sheep, dogs and cows from the villagers to eat. More recent
reports (August 2005) indicate that most employees on the plantation
are now migrant workers, and not local indigenous Phnong people.
The
Wuzhishan concession has had serious negative impacts on the local,
mainly indigenous Phnong, people’s livelihoods, provoking serious
protests and necessitating central-level government to intervene
in negotiations for a solution. A lack of consultation with the
local population during the initial stages of the concession’s
development has led to serious mistrust towards the company and
a general feeling that local people’s concerns are not being adequately
addressed. Similarly, local government departments and the local
authorities were not consulted and have been left on the sidelines
in the decision-making process. Asked how they felt about the
company, 11% of the households interviewed said they did like
it because they could get work but 88% said they did not like
it.
Since
the report has been published, affected community people have
tried to continue the dialogue with the government. In October
2005, officials from the Ministry of Environment conducted an
environmental and social impact assessment in less than two days.
The assessment -that has so far not been publicized- found no
environmental impact and blamed the social impact on unreasonable
demands of the villagers. The position that local communities
were too demanding and uneducated to understand ‘development’
has since been reiterated in several meetings of community representatives
and government officials. Recently, commune councilors from the
affected area in Mondulkiri province have been taken on study
tours to the capital and ‘further developed’ provinces to learn
from the example. Civil society organizations were not informed
and have been systematically excluded from supporting the communities.
Indigenous Phnong villagers are afraid that the government will
demarcate their community land without paying any respect to their
traditional rights; rights that are clearly recognized under Cambodian
law. Until now the situation remains unresolved.
Excerpted
and adapted from: “Fast-wood Plantations, Economic Concessions
and Local Livelihoods in Cambodia”, Environment Forum Core Team
(EFCT),
http://www.ngoforum.org.kh/Land/Docs/Plantation/EFC
T%20Plantations%20Report%20FINAL.pdf; Information
updated by the NGO Forum on Cambodia.
index
.
- India:
Will new National Forest Policy open the door to GM trees?
The
study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) “Preliminary Review of Biotechnology in Forestry Including
Genetic Modification” (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/ae574e/ae574e00.pdf),
released in December 2004, summarized the state of biotechnology
in forestry generally with a specific look at genetic modification
of trees. In their findings they report 225 outdoor field trials
of GM trees worldwide in 16 countries. Unfortunately they do not
differentiate which field trials are current and which occurred
in the past, painting a somewhat skewed picture. Of the 225 field
trials, they list 150 in the United States. The remainders are
listed mostly in Europe: France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal,
Finland and Sweden, as well as in Canada and Australia. Field
tests in the South are listed in India, South Africa, Indonesia,
Chile and Brazil. China is the only country known to have developed
commercial plantations of GM trees, with well over one million
trees planted throughout ten provinces.
India
was referred in the study to have carried out one field trial
of GM forest tree. Presently, a new National Forest Policy is
being debated behind closed doors which, according to a report
from the Indian Financial Express, “is expected to give a thrust
to genetically modified (GM) trees for boosting the paper industry
as well as improving the quality of by-products of wood.”
Genetically
modified trees have the potential to radically and permanently
change the world’s forests. As with GM crops, a major issue is
gene escape, but the effects are more far-reaching due to the
central role played by trees in the ecosystem.
After
some inquiries, Ecologist Asia staff were unable to discover details
of the proposed National Forest Policy. The Indian subsidiary
of Monsanto says it is not working with GM trees in India at this
time. In response to a query by email, Monsanto India representative
Susan Joseph said from their Mumbai office that “Monsanto’s India
business consists of developing high-quality herbicides, hybrid
seeds (corn and sunflower) and biotech traits (Bt cotton).” However,
when asked about Monsanto’s likely course of action if the new
Indian Forest Policy promotes GM trees, she did not respond.
Anne
Peterman of the US-based based Global Justice Ecology Project,
which is coordinating an international campaign against GM trees,
said in response to this, that “Trees are being engineered to
resist Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. If Roundup-Ready trees are
proposed for India, this is a connection to Monsanto, even though
they may not be directly involved in the R&D. They will definitely
profit from these trees through the increased sales of their toxic
Roundup herbicide.” If, as suggested by the Indian Financial Express,
the purpose of GM trees deployment in India
is to boost the paper industry, then it is likely that one trait
that will be genetically modified is the amount of lignin in the
trees. Reducing the amount of lignin, which provides rigidity
and strength to plant cell walls, is potentially a money-saver
for the pulp and paper industry, which has to remove less lignin
during processing of wood fibre.
However,
as pointed out by Prof. Joe Cummins of the UK-based Institute
of Science in Society (ISIS) in a paper on lignin reduction, “the
advantages of reduced lignin are offset by the disadvantage of
plants with reduced lignin, which are more readily attacked by
predators such as insects, fungi and bacteria.”
Weak
lignin-reduced GM trees are likely to require additional genetically
engineered traits, such as Bt insect resistance and herbicide
tolerance. It is then only a matter of time before the traits
escape into the wild ecosystem, as has already happened with GM
crops of various kinds.
International
agencies such as the FAO also are playing a key role in the issue
of GM trees. In response to a question by email, Pierre Sigaud
of FAO said that “FAO takes no stand for or against GM trees.”
In a statement on biotechnology on its website, FAO says that
it supports “a cautious case-by-case approach to address legitimate
concerns for the biosafety of each product or process prior to
its release.” However, with the FAO’s involvement in China’s GM
trees programme, it seems clear that this represents a de facto
stance in favour of industrial plantations of GM trees. There
was no reply to an email asking for further clarification of the
FAO’s position.
Species
that could be commercialised in India include GM eucalyptus, which
has been called the “selfish tree” because of the large amount
of water it uses, with an accompanying effect on India’s vulnerable
water tables. Glyphosate spraying, for example with Monsanto’s
Roundup, would also lead to inevitable contamination of drinking
water and health problems for local people, such as cancer and
miscarriages. Denmark has already banned glyphosate for this reason.
India’s
new National Forest Policy is being shaped against this background,
possibly with pressure from companies that stand to profit from
GM trees. As India’s already-stressed forests struggle into the
21st century, with the human communities, native ecosystems, and
especially water supplies that are dependent upon them, it is
time to ask for transparency in this process.
Article
based on information from: “The International Status of Genetically
Modified Trees”, 2005, Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology
Project,
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/index.php?name=getrees&ID=339;
“Preliminary Review of Biotechnology in Forestry Including Genetic
Modification”, FAO, December 2004,
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/ae574e/ae574e00.pdf; “GM
trees bloom in rush to feed growing paper industry”, BV Mahlakshmi,
2005,
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=97000
; “Frankentrees Threaten India’s Forests”, Philip Carter, email:
pcarter@web.ca,
http://www.writingfortheplanet.com/images/GE_Trees.pdf#search=%22Frankentrees%2
0Threaten%20India%E2%
index
-
Indonesia: World Bank/WWF experts look for new ways to subsidise
plantations
Wherever
industrial tree plantations are planted in the South, governments
provide a range of subsidies to investors. In Indonesia, the government
has handed out billions of dollars for plantation development.
The plantation and pulp sectors have also received generous aid
support. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank funded
studies in the 1980s. A range of export credit agencies helped
finance the construction of pulp mills.
During
the 1980s, while vast areas of Indonesia's forests were being
destroyed by logging companies, the Indonesian government set
up a "Reforestation Fund" financed by royalties collected
from logging companies. Once the logging companies had carried
out their reforestation obligations they could reclaim the money
from the Reforestation Fund. Of course most logging companies
carried out no reforestation and simply wrote off the payments
to the Reforestation Fund. As a result, the amount of money in
the fund grew rapidly.
In
the 1990s, the government changed the Reforestation Fund to allow
direct financing of industrial tree plantations. But most of the
money went to Suharto's family and business cronies. The NGO Down
To Earth notes that Suharto used money from the fund for the State
Aircraft Company and the Southeast Asian Games. Between 1993 and
1998, more than US$5 billion was lost from the fund. Many Reforestation
Fund loans that did go to industrial tree plantation companies
became bad debts. Two years ago, the Forestry Department rescheduled
Reforestation Fund loans. As a result, 14 plantations companies
closed because they could not repay the debt.
Companies
drew up proposals requesting funding for industrial tree plantations,
but the areas planted were far smaller than claimed. Between 1990
and 1997 almost US$1 billion was distributed from the fund, which
should have paid for five million hectares of plantations. Less
than one-fifth of this area was actually planted.
Earlier
this year, the World Bank/WWF Forest Alliance started a project
with the Ministry of Forestry aimed at developing "financial
mechanisms that can help to expand and accelerate plantation development".
In an "activity concept note" dated February 2006, the
Alliance states that the area of plantations in Indonesia needs
to be "at least doubled", in order to secure the future
of the country's wood processing industry (which is dominated
by the pulp and paper industry). The total capacity of Indonesia's
pulp mills is almost 6 million tons a year. According to the Centre
for International Forestry Research, about 70 per cent of the
wood consumed in these pulp mills is mixed tropical hardwood from
what's left of Indonesia's forests.
Where
plantations have been established, it has been at huge environmental
and social cost. For example, in Riau province, 75 per cent of
Asia Pulp and Paper's land is peat swamp. The only way of establishing
plantations is by clearing the forest and draining the land.
An
obvious answer would be to address the structural problem of massive
over capacity in the pulp sector in Indonesia. Plantations are
not even profitable. According to the World Bank/WWF Alliance,
"returns to plantations are believed insufficient to attract
commercial investment." But the World Bank/WWF Alliance is
determined to rescue the pulp industry by finding new subsidies
for more plantations.
The
World Bank/WWF Alliance proposal is a bean-feast for consultants.
According to the February 2006 "activity concept note",
the Alliance was to hire "expert consultants" and pay
them an average of more than US$2,000 a week.
These
experts were to develop a strategy and a plan. They were to look
for financial institutions or mechanisms to create incentives
for plantations. They were to develop interim results and hold
workshops. They were to engage stakeholders. They were to develop
criteria and indicators, identify opportunities and barriers and
analyse future trends and likely market developments.
The
experts were to determine "conditions and interventions that
will help to improve plantation financing based on the principle
of 'The right tree in the right place for the right reasons, meaning
the right end markets.'"
The
experts were to "examine approaches for identifying beneficiaries
and financial mechanisms that will enable resources to reach the
right target groups, engaging in the right activities (environmental,
social and financial viable) for the right reasons (informed and
market responsive) with the right financing."
The
experts were to "focus on establishing institutional means
to ensure the right funds going to the right projects based on
the right information and right returns on investment in the right
time frame."
The
experts were to be such experts that they could do all this without
the inconvenience of talking to any communities affected by industrial
tree plantations. The World Bank/WWF Alliance "activity concept
note" states that "This feasibility study should draw
on and synthesize previous studies and analyses, rather than primary
data collection."
With
this project to subsidise the pulp industry the World Bank/WWF
Alliance shows where its loyalties lie: with the pulp industry
and against the people.
By
Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org,
www.chrislang.blogspot.com
index
- 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%20
de%20Reforestaci%C3%B3n%20per%C3%BA%22; información provided
by Carlos Dávila Obregón, e-mail: carlosfelipedaob@yahoo.es
index
- South Africa: Differentiated
impacts of tree plantations on women
The
history of the plantation industry in South Africa can be compared
with the development of plantations elsewhere in the South: in
Brazil, Aracruz Cellulose was developed under a military dictatorship;
Indonesia’s pulp boom was planned and put into operation during
the Suharto regime; Cambodia, Thailand and Chile provide other
examples of how state oppression has benefitted pulp/plantations
companies.
In
South Africa, the initial phase affected state-controlled land,
from where communities were removed and relocated to other tribal
areas by government decree. The 1980s witnessed a wave of new
plantations led by timber companies with Sappi and Mondi taking
the lead. This development took place mainly on land previously
owned by white farmers. Thanks to artificially low input costs,
especially wages and land acquisition, as well as generous subsidisation
by the government at that time, the local timber industry has
grown into a major exporter of wood and wood derived products.
However,
the lives and standards of living of local communities have not
been improved by the plantation industry. The so-called empowerment
deals and contracting opportunities to the communities were not
widely distributed, thus becoming a source of differentiation
and social division. Furthermore, the encroachment of industrial
timber plantations has led to environmental impacts --including
the irreversible destruction of grasslands, reduction in streamflow
and water quality--, which in typical rural community life is
difficult to separate from social, cultural, economic and political
issues.
Further
down this adverse scenario women suffer the differentiated impacts
of various activities in the industrial timber plantations sector
affecting them. A number of factors result in greater pressure
on women from timber plantations. These factors should be read
in the context of the culturally and historically defined division
of labour among women and men in a patriarchal society, complicated
by colonial economic policies. Rural family life is patriarchal
and the status of the male head is unchallenged. It is usually
the male head who will make the important decisions in the family.
The role of women in these economies is complicated by the lack
of mainstreaming of female involvement and participation in broader
issues. They are largely considered as reproductive rather than
productive.
Women
are affected by the timber industry through involvement as workers,
as growers, or because they reside close to or inside plantations.
Those that work are affected by differential wages or the ability
(or lack of it) to access skilled or better paying jobs. Timber
growers are affected by their ability to command access to adequate
land to ensure profitability, as well as retaining or independently
deciding how to use the proceeds from the sale of the wood. Theoretically,
and very often in practice, tree growing offers an economic option
to rural women who have no other opportunity, provided they have
access to some suitable land. However, many woodlots are contractually
owned by men, but actually worked by women. Depending on how the
contractual arrangements work out, the labour aspects have the
potential to boost men’s cash income although women do the work.
This money seldom benefits the women and children who did the
work as men often consider them already paid by virtue of staying
in their homestead.
Problems
related to living near or inside plantations have to do with safety.
Plantations close to people’s homes have increased safety and
security concerns; women get raped and thieves dump their loot
in the plantations: “As parents with girl children we worry a
lot about the plantations. There are always strange men wandering
around aimlessly and many sexual offenses have been reported.
So they [girl children] cannot go to fetch water or firewood anymore.
Besides, the plantations are used by thieves and robbers to hide
and to store their loot. When the police discover these things
they come and harass us by searching our houses apartheid style.
We are not safe here with these plantations”, said a local woman.
Women’s
time is shared amongst a multiplicity of activities, for which
production responsibilities (food, the availability of water and
energy for home use) compete with the reproduction responsibilities
(childbirth, caring for and raising children). The advent of industrial
timber planting activities in these rural communities complicates
the nutrition and caring role of women. “From a woman’s point
of view my biggest problem is that of food. We were not used to
buying food from the shops because where we come from we had fields
for beans and mealies. There would even be fields for the following
year’s crops. You would rotate the fields comfortably because
there was enough land. We would buy machines and grind our own
corn. We would never buy mealie meal. These are some of the things
that remind us of where we are coming from.”
The
timber industry has been fairly labeled as the ‘chief water thief’.
The question of water and timber plantations is a very important
one in a country like South Africa, where water is scarce and
also very important for rural communities which were allocated
land in the areas they were because the land was not good enough
for European agriculture and settlement. In KwaZulu-Natal province,
thirsty timber plantations are often situated high up in the water
catchments, short-changing downstream water users. In rural community
areas the loss of surface water has severely negative implications
for people’s ability to survive. Plantations cause small springs,
streams and ponds to disappear, and this forces people to move
into ecologically sensitive marginal areas to find water for their
livestock and vegetable gardening. Also, when water becomes scarce
it is women who have to walk longer distances to fetch water.
It is women who have to wake up much earlier to get water for
the household.
A
senior woman in Sabokwe, Mrs Ziqubu, argued:
“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. This piece of land
from here to the road up there was grassland. The company feared
that we would plant our crops and build our houses on that land
so they quickly planted it to trees. Since then, water has become
scarcer. The stream is drying up. The land, which we had to drain
because it was swampy, has become very dry. We used to dig very
small wells to water the reclaimed land. Now we have to dig deeper
and we get the water from far away. Water for drinking has also
equally become scarce. We also have to fetch water for our cattle,
chickens and goats, besides the water for domestic consumption.
This makes the work for women even harder. We have a co-operative
garden run by women from this community which we fenced with assistance
from the Department of Agriculture, yet we face big problems with
watering it. We fetch water in buckets on our heads – and the
women’s garden project involves very old women. This is not a
way to live and do business. The problem of water is as crucial
as the access to land itself. 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.
To think that they do not even assist with drilling of boreholes,
construction of windmills or other such water technology. This
is why I said earlier that we are left to pay for the costs of
these unconsidered impacts of the industry.”
Excerpted
and adapted from: A Study of the Social and Economic Impacts of
Industrial Tree Plantations in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South
Africa, John Blessing Karumbidza, WRM, December 2005
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/SouthAfrica/book.pdf
index
PLANTATION CERTIFICATION
AT ITS WORSE
- PEFC:
Endorsement of non-credible certification schemes in the South
The
PEFC was set up between 1998 and 1999 by the national forestry
interest groups – mainly associations of small-forest owners in
several European countries as the Pan European Forest Certification
Scheme. It changed to its current name after having endorsed other
non-European schemes. The scheme is governed by the PEFC Council,
which consists of representatives of national certification schemes
and are the PEFC’s members. The PEFC is not a single certification
scheme with a single standard, but a programme for the endorsement
of national certification schemes.
As
with other certification schemes, although the PEFC was supposed
to certify forest management, it has also included tree plantations
as being certifiable “forests”.
A
number of characteristics of PEFC make it the perfect label for
unsustainable plantations in the South, as can be seen in the
two articles below on certification in Chile and Brazil.
