OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
Tree plantations, GM trees and agrofuels: A
call to CBD
The
main aim of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the
conservation and sustainable use of the world’s biological diversity.
It would thus seem obvious that anything that threatens biodiversity
should be adequately addressed by signatories to the convention.
Given
that the Convention’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical
and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) will be meeting in Paris at
the beginning of July, we believe this can be a good opportunity
for addressing the impacts of monoculture tree plantations, genetically
modified trees and agrofuel development on biodiversity.
Regarding
monoculture tree plantations, their expansion is heavily impacting
on plant and animal diversity, particularly –though not only-
in the biodiversity-rich tropics. In spite of that, official bodies
continue defining them as “forests”, thus providing them with
a positive image. We believe that the CBD should challenge –from
the broader biodiversity perspective- the use of the terms “forest
plantations” and “planted forests” in reference to monoculture
tree plantations. In this respect, SBSTTA could provide scientific
advice to the Conference of the Parties requesting it to clearly
separate forests from monoculture tree plantations and to include
the latter as a threat to biodiversity which needs to be adequately
studied and addressed.
As
respects to genetically modified (GM) trees the last Conference
of the Parties (COP8) took an important and positive step (Decision
VIII/19), recommending Parties “to take a precautionary approach
when addressing the issue of genetically modified trees”. In a
letter sent to the CBD secretariat in November 2006, a large number
of NGOs provided analysis and information on the threat posed
by GE trees and concluded that “GM trees have no role to play
in the conservation of global forest biological diversity and,
on the contrary, are likely to reduce forest biodiversity, with
attendant social consequences”, adding that the “high risks indicated
by the available though incomplete science show that the technology
could result in the extinction of forest plant and animal species
with severe negative impacts on biodiversity.” The letter urged
the CBD “to move forward from the current recommendation to Parties
to take a precautionary approach, to a mandatory decision declaring
an immediate ban on the release of GM trees.” This is another
issue where we believe that SBSTTA could play an important role,
recommending such ban.
In
reference to agrofuels, it is clear that agrofuel plantations
are being strongly promoted throughout the world and particularly
in the South. In most cases, such plantations will consist of
large-scale monocultures of different agricultural crops (sugar
cane, soya, corn and other), as well as tree and oil palm plantations.
All these monocultures –in most cases accompanied by heavy use
of agrochemicals- will impact on biodiversity. To make matters
worse, in the case of tree plantations, research is being carried
out to genetically modify trees for the production of ethanol.
Here again SBSSTA could provide the CBD with relevant information
about the impacts of agrofuel development on biodiversity.
All
the above constitute major threats to biodiversity which have
yet not received sufficient attention from the CBD. We therefore
hope that SBSTTA will address them at its upcoming meeting and
will provide the necessary scientific advice to the Conference
of the Parties.
index
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
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Brazil: Indigenous Amazon people forced into contact
In
May this year, a group of indigenous people who had remained in
voluntary isolation established contact with the outside world.
This happened in the north of the State of Para. The indigenous
people walked for 5 days for over 100 kilometres through the dense
Amazon forest, crossing the frontier from Mato Grosso until unexpectedly
appearing in an indigenous Kayapo village.
It
should be noted that this contact was not the result of a free
decision but because of loggers invading their territory, forcing
them to flee and make this long and difficult journey until they
reached this village.
They
are a group of 87 indigenous Metyktire people, a sub-group of
the Kayapo – who were initially contacted in 1950 but at the time
decided to re-enter the forest and chose to remain in voluntary
isolation until now.
According
to reports, the first contact was made by two men who made noises
at the back of one of the houses in the village and were seen
by two young men. After overcoming the initial mistrust resulting
from this unexpected encounter, the rest of the group gradually
entered the Kayapo village.
As
a precautionary measure, it has been decided that only members
of the village can have contact with the Metyktire, as a way of
preventing contagion from diseases that these people have no immunological
defences against. The village members are indigenous people of
the same ethnic group who made first contact with white people
in 1950. The leader of the village, -Megaron Txucarramãe- who
is also the FUNAI (National Indigenous Foundation of Brazil) representative
- is in charge of communicating with the new arrivals. According
to FUNAI, there is still no information as to whether there are
any injured or dead Metyktire members in the forest, or if they
have simply decided not to come out.
The
Metyktire were thought to have disappeared and nothing was known
about their whereabouts. They were received with much rejoicing
and singing and dancing by the Kayapo. There are still no pictures
available but their songs were recorded and played over the local
radio and can be listened to at
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2462). The reports
say that the Metyktire speak a much purer version of Mebengokré
(the Kayapó language), they are tall and strong, with long hair
and have a “botoque” (lip plate) on their
bottom lip.
According
to Gilberto Hazaña and Sydney Possuelo from the Centre for Indigenist
Work, the indigenous people in voluntary isolation are peoples
that “…throughout this time (500 years!), have sought isolated
regions or taken refuge there, or more rightly stated, have sought
regions that were not coveted by the commercial (or missionary)
cruelty of our ‘expansion frontiers’. In the Amazon,(mainly the
Brazilian Amazon, but also the Bolivian, Peruvian, Colombian,
Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Guyanese Amazon) we estimate that there
are still dozens of indigenous peoples living in almost the same
way as they did five, six, seven or one thousand years ago: dressed
in feathers or loincloths, surviving on hunting, fishing, gathering
and small scale agriculture, using stone axes and fire. They do
not have viral diseases and live in a fully abundant environment.
It is a fact that today most of the peoples in isolation in the
Amazon are subject to an extremely serious situation because of
the advance of predatory fronts (logging and mining) on the region’s
last virgin areas.”
This
recent contact of the Metyktire people provides a good opportunity
to reflect and think about the future of these peoples, setting
aside the folkloric and the sensationalist coverage made by most
of the media.
The
first point to reflect on is that they did not establish contact
of their own free will. On the contrary, the first versions reported
that they were escaping from loggers and that they had fled through
the dense forest for 5 days until they finally established contact
with their Kayapo relatives. This means that they could have been
shot dead by the loggers – as has often been the case – leaving
no traces behind them. Fortunately however, they were able to
escape.
At
the same time, many questions arise: what is the future of these
communities that are forced to make contact with an outside world
where commercialism is rife and where what is of most interest
in this story are the pictures of the indigenous people with their
bare bodies and lip plates? What will be the future of these communities
when they become members of a world – and a country – where racism
is prevalent and where most of the indigenous peoples live in
extreme poverty? What is the future of the dozens
of communities still living in the forest – particularly in Brazil
– whose territories are handed over to logging, mining and oil
companies in the name of the country’s “development and economic
growth?”
However,
perhaps the most important question: is what can we do to ensure
the rights of these peoples and to enable them to choose freely
either to live in isolation or not?
In
this respect, we consider that the first step is to make their
existence known and to understand and respect their decision to
live in isolation. To make people understand that they are not
ignorant peoples living in poverty, but peoples with their own
culture, adapted to making a sustainable use of the “fully abundant
environment” in which they live.
At
the same time, it is essential to get the governments to recognize
the territorial rights of these people – who were there before
the existence of the present national states – and to ensure that
they are respected, preventing entry into their territories of
loggers, miners and other agents of destruction.
These
peoples are not in a position to defend their ancestral territories
from the well-armed and unscrupulous external agents without the
support of outside society and will only have the choice between
contacts against their will, or disappearance. For this reason,
we appeal to all of you, and in particular to the peoples of the
Amazon countries, to step up efforts to protect the rights of
the indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
Article
based on information from: “Indio brabo”, article by Rodolfo Salm
published in Correio da Ciudadania,
http://www.correiocidadania.com.br/content/view/434/57/;
Survival Internacional,
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2462 ; WRM Bulletin
No. 87
http://www.wrm.org.uy/boletin/87/AM.html#Brasil
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Central African Indigenous Peoples:
Losing their health along with their forest
The
Indigenous hunter-gatherers of the central African forests, so-called
Pygmy peoples, consist of at least 15 distinct ethnolinguistic
groups including the Gyéli, Kola, Baka, Aka, Bongo, Efe, Mbuti,
western Twa, and eastern Twa living in ten central African countries:
Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic,
Gabon, Republic of the Congo (Congo), Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Their estimated total number
is from 300 000 to 500 000 people.
The
term Pygmy can have pejorative connotations, but is used here
as a term adopted by indigenous activists and support organisations
to encompass the different groups of central African forest hunter-gatherers
and former hunter-gatherers, and to distinguish them from other
ethnic groups who may also live in forests, but who are more reliant
on farming, and who are economically and politically dominant.
Pygmy
peoples’ health risks are changing as the central African forests
-which are the basis for their traditional social structure, culture,
and hunter-gatherer economy- are being destroyed or expropriated
by logging, farming, and conservation projects:
“…since we were expelled
from our lands, death is following us. We bury people nearly every
day. The village is becoming empty. We are heading towards extinction.
Now all the old people have died. Our culture is dying too…” Twa
man displaced from the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Traditionally-living
Pygmies live in small, mobile, egalitarian groups whose livelihood
strategies are based on hunting, gathering, small-scale farming,
and exchange of forest products with farming neighbours. They
regard themselves as belonging to the forest, intimately connected
through the spirits of their ancestors and of the forest. Pygmy
communities continue to maintain forest-based livelihoods where
possible, but many are spending more time in roadside settlements,
with closer contacts with neighbouring Bantu farming communities,
and more reliance on farming and wage labour.
In the Great Lakes
area of central Africa, extensive forest clearance has made most
Twa Pygmies landless, impoverished, and struggling to maintain
cultural identity.
Mortality rates in
Pygmy communities are high, as are fertility rates. Loss of a
forest-based life can be associated with increased mortality.
The crucial importance of land for survival is indicated by a
reported drop in mortality in children younger than 5 years from
59% to 18% when Twa families in Uganda were given land.
Where
forest dietary resources are depleted by destructive logging or
commercial poaching and Pygmy people do not have lands on which
to grow alternative foods, nutritional status decreases. Children
and pregnant women are especially vulnerable, the problem being
exacerbated by the breakdown of traditional food-sharing systems.
Loss
of forests also deprives Pygmy communities of their renowned traditional
herbal pharmacopoeia, which contains compounds active against
diseases including helminthiasis, guinea worm, jaundice, malaria,
diarrhoea, toothache, and cough.
As
Pygmy communities spend more time outside the forest in fixed
settlements, malaria increases and parasites accumulate because
of increased population density and poor sanitation.
Traditional
cultural mechanisms for dealing with tension and discord (such
as nocturnal singing ceremonies to restore harmony between the
group members and the forest) are eroded; alcohol abuse and domestic
violence against women increase.
In
much of rural central Africa, primary health services are absent,
function only in a rudimentary way, or have been destroyed during
conflict. Even where health care facilities exist, many Pygmy
people do not use them because they cannot pay for consultations
and medicines, do not have the documents and identity cards needed
to travel or obtain hospital treatment, or are subjected to humiliating
and discriminatory treatment.
Pygmy
peoples have shown themselves to be resilient; for centuries they
have been adapting to new situations while maintaining their cultural
distinctiveness, as long as they can still have access to forests.
Pygmy groups who are still able to lead a largely forest-based
life have better health in several respects than nearby farming
groups. Forests are also where they feel at ease, a vital component
of their sense of wellbeing, and mental and spiritual health.
By contrast, loss of forest lands and resources, and the consequent
sedenterisation, increases Pygmy communities’ risks of inadequate
nutrition, infectious diseases, parasites, and HIV/AIDS without
necessarily increasing their access to health care.
To
protect and improve Pygmy peoples’ health, governments, development
agencies, missionaries, and non-governmental
organisations must work to secure Pygmy peoples’ rights to their
customary lands and resources -to their forests.
Excerpted
and adapted from: “Health of Indigenous People in Africa”, Nyang’ori
Ohenjo, Ruth Willis, Dorothy Jackson, Clive Nettleton, Kenneth
Good, Benon Mugarura, Series of Social Determinants of Health,
http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/articles/lancet_ohenjo.pdf
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Ecuador: Uprising in demand of a country
free from large-scale mining
The
Ecuadorian communities affected by mining convened a Mining Uprising
to take place on 5 June, World Environmental Day. Different points
of resistance were established covering the national geography
in Imbabura, Quito, Chimborazo, Cañar, Azuay, El Oro, Zamora and
Morona. Although the protest was peaceful, law enforcement agents
repressed the communities protesting during the first days, particular
in Tarqui, Victoria del Portete, Molleturo and San Carlos-Balao,
causing the indignation of the population over the police’s brutal
and arbitrary treatment. Investigations and sanctions regarding
their responsibility are being demanded.
At
all events, the Uprising was a success as it mobilized thousands
of people affected by the mega mining projects in the most conflictive
locations of the country. This strengthened the decision of the
communities and organizations established as a National Coordination
Committee for the Defence of Life and Sovereignty, to continue
struggling until they attain the objectives set out in their plan
of action and to obtain the declaration of Ecuador as a “country
free of large-scale mining.” Furthermore, the efforts deployed
by the communities served to place the mining problem on the national
and international agenda.
One
of the greatest concerns of the communities resisting mining activities
in the country is the lack of political decision by the Government
to respect and ensure respect for the Constitution and the collective
interests of the Ecuadorian people vis-à-vis the terrible threat
hanging over the lives of the affected communities, with the omnipresence
of transnational mining companies and their imminent activities
in some of the cases. On taking up a stand against mining, the
communities are defending their rights, their water, their forests
and a healthy environment for future generations. For their part,
mining companies have relied on public law enforcement agents
or on their own security bodies and on a maze of the so-called
“community public relations officers” harassing and intimidating
community leaders, creating a permanent state of insecurity and
violence (see Bulletin No. 118).
In
the Amazon province of Zamora, the Yantzaza canton is totally
covered by mining concessions. This area with a rich and diverse
flora and fauna, unique in the world, still has dense forests
that have managed to survive the attacks of the depredatory rationale
prevailing since the times of the conquest. Zamora Chinchipe is
the cradle of originating peoples, generously hosting thousands
of families from Lojas and other provinces, displaced by deforestation
and the consequent droughts and other critical situations.
The farming culture they have developed in the fertile river basins
enables them to enjoy food self-sufficiency and provide healthy
food to other parts of the country. This province’s Network for
the Defence of Nature, Dignity and Life states: “We want the State
to establish policies that will help us to stay in our villages,
living in the country we always dreamed of, an ecological and
agricultural country and not a mining country.”
On
the western slopes of the Andes, the communities of the northeast
area of Intag, in the province of Imbabura, also defend a cloud
forest, the habitat of biodiversity unique in the world. Thanks
to an alternative organizational process, innovative in the country,
the communities from this area have developed diverse productive
activities consolidating the process against mining, which means
not only the displacement of families and communities to leave
the way clear to mining, but also the destruction of these valuable
forests.
The
National Coordination Committee also stated its “decision to put
pressure on the Government to make it decide to act in favour
of its people.” Mining activities have been experiencing difficulties
over the past few days following the resignation of the Minister
of Energy and Mines, Alberto Acosta. Mr. Acosta had appeared willing
to support the communities and had been considered as a possible
ally within the government in spite of the fact that he had never
taken any steps to withdraw any of the mining concessions, one
of the firm demands made by the affected communities. It is very
probable that the pressure from the various interest groups was
instrumental in the removal of Minister Acosta this week. He will
be running as candidate for the Constitutional Assembly.
With
or without an allied Minister, the anti-mining struggle continues,
convening all sectors of society to take an active part in the
Uprising that aims to continue at the end of June, to halt the
invasion of foreign transnational companies intending to plunder
minerals from the ground, leaving poverty, unemployment, environmental
and social pollution behind them. The National Coordinating Committee
is urging the government to “listen to the clamour of thousands
of families that are defending their lives and their national
dignity and to act urgently, annulling the concessions, immediately
suspending the activities of transnational mining companies throughout
the country and requiring them to abandon our communities.”
In
anticipation of the Constitutional Assembly, other measures proposed
by the resisting communities include, among others, declaring
the whole Amazon region and the springs and banks of rivers as
intangible ecological reserves, to remain untouched by private
commercial extracting and exploitation interests. That ground
and surface water cannot be subject to any type of privatization.
Nationalization of natural resources and their use according to
ecological, social, cultural and ancestral characteristics of
the peoples and communities. Immediate compensation for the psychological
and social damage caused to the communities by mining activities.
A regulatory framework to improve artisan mining practices, guarantees
for farmers regarding their possession of the surface and subsoil,
guaranteeing their activities over mining extraction, ensuring
that the communities will not be displaced.
By
Guadalupe Rodriguez, e-mail:
guadalupe@regenwald.org
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Indonesia: The forest assaulted by the
forestry industry
Indonesia
has the world’s third largest area of tropical forest, after Brazil
and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although only 1.3 per cent
of the world’s total forest area, Indonesia’s forests are home
to 10 per cent of the world’s flora species, 12 per cent of the
world’s mammals, 17 per cent of the world’s reptiles and amphibians,
and 17 per cent of the world’s birds. Indonesia is the second
country in the world in terms of wildlife richness. Indonesia’s
forests are also home to endangered species such as orangutan,
tigers, rhinos and Asian elephants.
Forests
are the second largest contributor to the Indonesian national
economy after oil. The State used revenue from the forests to
maintain its power during the 32 year New Order regime under the
former President Suharto. Forestry operations – in the form of
forest concessions (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan – HPHs), industrial
tree plantations (Hutan Tanaman Industri – HTIs) and other plantations
(such as oil palm and rubber) – were distributed among the ruler’s
families, friends and partners, among key military officers and
political elites as a reward for their loyalty. Those who controlled
the forests had considerable wealth and power.
For
forest-dependent village communities, forests have a completely
different meaning. Abusive and destructive forest management has
stripped forests and has greatly affected the rural poor. For
these people, forests embrace cultural values. Most rural communities
living outside the densely-populated islands of Java, Bali and
Madura practice a combination of subsistence and commercial agriculture
with gogo rice (upland, unirrigated rice), other annual crops
and tree crops. They also collect various forest products, such
as rattan, honey, resins, herbs, fruits, fish and wildlife, for
both commercial and domestic purposes. About seven million people
in Sumatra and Kalimantan rely for their livelihoods on their
rubber gardens, which cover a total area of about 2.5 million
hectares. In Sumatra, local communities manage about four million
hectares of forest using various agroforestry practices which
combine natural forest management and fruit gardens, without external
aid.
Forest
communities have a profound understanding of traditional forest
management, which they inherited from their ancestors. This traditional
forest management has been specifically acknowledged in the 1945
National Constitution.
As
most forest peoples have no written or official certificates of
ownership, the state under President Suharto ignored indigenous
rights and exercised control over Indonesia’s vast, profitable
forest lands. Suharto’s “New Order” regime included a development
agenda which was driven by logging the country’s forests. The
state claimed more than 90 per cent of the total forest land outside
Java. This so-called “state forest” was designated without either
due process or proper compensation for local communities. Mature
forests which had been managed sustainably by indigenous communities
for generations and which were rich in flora and fauna, were exploited
for timber and converted into vast plantations of monocultures
of exotic fast-growing trees.
The
rapid expansion and development of wood processing industries
exceeded the supply capacity of production forest areas and the
plantations. As a result, the loggers expanded ever deeper into
natural forests, logging in protected areas as well as state forest
still claimed by indigenous communities. The World Bank, which
has more recently produced critiques of illegal logging driven
by the over-development of the pulp industry, is itself partly
responsible for the problem. In the 1980s, the World Bank was
one of the agencies involved in promoting the expansion of the
pulp and paper industry. In 1984, for example, the World Bank
financed a study, carried out by Finnish forestry consulting firm
Jaakko Pöyry, aimed at “strengthening the structure of the Indonesian
pulp and paper industry”.
A
research from the Indonesian NGO WALHI indicates that at least
72 per cent of the country’s forests have been destroyed. In a
press release in 2004, WALHI pointed out that the deforestation
rate in Indonesia had reached 3.8 million hectares annually, the
highest rate of forest loss in the world. To put this rate of
forest destruction into perspective, this means that an area of
forest equivalent to six football pitches is destroyed in Indonesia
every minute. Based on this calculation, every minute the Government
of Indonesia loses US$1,300 in unpaid tax and customs (three times
the average annual income of an Indonesian family), while a few
conglomerates and elite business people pocket US$24,000 from
the theft of Indonesia’s forests.
The
impacts of this rapid deforestation have been widespread and various.
Impacts on the environment include the loss of unique biodiversity,
increasing occurrence of floods and drought, decreasing water
quality and quantity, and increasing occurrence of forest fires
that pollute the air and contribute to global climate change.
Although
more and more people have become aware of the environmental impacts,
they know little about and rarely discuss the impacts of illegal
logging on human rights. The over-capacity of the wood processing
industry and the inability of industrial tree plantations to supply
the demands of this industry have driven the destructive exploitation
of Indonesia’s forests, both legal and illegal. As in other sectors
that are illicitly profitable, criminal networks play an important
role as blackmailers and protectors of illegal operations, which
unhesitatingly use violence to put down opposition to their operations.
In Indonesia, the illegal sector and the use of violence are often
linked to governmental officials.
Ironically,
deforestation and the loss of local communities’ livelihoods are
driven by government policies which the government claimed were
designed to bring prosperity to the nation. Suharto’s development
concept, like the one adopted by many emerging industrialised
countries, was to accelerate the expansion of the economy through
natural resource exploitation. However, the goal of expansion
of the economy became less important and was eventually, replaced
by Suharto’s agenda to consolidate his power through political
patronage, where he handed out permits for exploitation of natural
resources. More than 62 million hectares of forest land were awarded
as forestry concessions (HPHs), without a proper tendering process,
to tycoons and state-owned forestry companies that had family
ties to Suharto’s family, or ties to the military. Although Suharto
fell in 1998, the nation still lives with his regime’s legacy
of bad forestry governance and law enforcement.
Excerpted
and adapted from “Social conflict and environmental disaster:
A report on Asia Pulp and Paper’s operations in Sumatra, Indonesia”,
by Rivani Noor and Rully Syumanda, August 2006,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Indonesia/Book8.pdf
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Laos: No Success Like Failure - Policy Versus
Reality In The Forestry Sector
Over
the past decade, tens of millions of dollars have been invested
by funding agencies to improve forest management in Laos with
the stated aim of aiding rural development and livelihood security.
Despite these investments – including multi-million dollar projects
backed by the World Bank, the Government of Finland and the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), among others
– mismanagement of Laos’ production forests remains the norm.
In
the latest edition of Watershed Magazine (Vol. 12 No. 1, July
2006-February 2007), Benjamin D. Hodgdon, a forester and social
ecologist with a decade of experience in Indochina, chronicles
the experience of an NGO-supported project recently discontinued
by the Lao government to highlight the serious problems plaguing
the country’s production forests.
His
article – No success like failure: Policy versus reality in the
Lao forestry sector – offers a rare glimpse into the real world
of logging in Laos, a reality that stands in stark contrast to
the forestry legislation signed by the government at the behest
of its major financial supporters.
The
article begins by presenting the rationale for community forestry
in the Lao context, as well as the development of the Lao version
of community forestry focused primarily on timber production,
called “participatory sustainable forest management” (PSFM). The
result of a decade-long policy process supported by the World
Bank and the Government of Finland, PSFM stipulates on paper that
villagers living in or adjacent to designated production forest
areas have the right to be involved in forest planning and management,
and that they are entitled to a significant percentage of the
profits from timber sales.
This
is the policy. But the reality is something quite different.
To
illustrate this point, Hodgdon tells the story of a WWF-supported
project that aimed to initiate PSFM in Xekong Province, a remote
and overwhelmingly indigenous province in the south of the country.
The project – implemented in a 10,000 hectare area called Phou
Theung – worked with provincial and central-level government forestry
agencies to involve seven villages (ethnic Krieng, Alak and Souay)
in forest planning and management in accordance with national
PSFM legislation.
Over
time, however, and especially as the logging season moved into
full swing, serious malfeasance on the part of the project’s government
partners emerged.
“Foresters
routinely left their work with the project or were reassigned
to work with companies that were illegally removing timber from
the project area” Hodgdon writes. Presented with evidence of such
malfeasance, provincial authorities pleaded ignorance or claimed
that they were the activities of “rogue” operations. In reality,
however, as the article shows, such illegal timber removals had
“the full knowledge and approval of government officials.”
As
a result of the project’s activities to improve forest management
and implement national law, powerful individuals in the Department
of Forestry and the Xekong provincial government colluded to discontinue
the project, citing the fact that “only the state” has the right
to make decisions about logging.
The
closing of the project, Hodgdon writes, illustrates how many in
the Lao government do not support PSFM, for both political and
economic reasons. Politically, the project represented a shift
away from the government in decision making power over valuable
timber resources, while economically it “translated as less money
flowing into the pockets of a connected few.”
The
article concludes by asserting that without fundamental changes
to political and legal institutions in Laos there is little hope
for PSFM to take hold. “In essence,” says Hodgdon, “democratizing
reforms such as the PSFM legislation require democratic institutions
in order to work.”
The
full article is available at
http://www.terraper.org/pic_water/Watershed%2012(1).pdf
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COMMUNITIES AND TREE
MONOCULTURES
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Brazil: Response to Veracel’s attempt to
obtain the FSC label for its plantations
The
certifying firm SGS has launched a consultation process for the
FSC certification of Veracel Celulose’s eucalyptus plantations.
This company is owned by the Swedish-Finnish company Stora Enso
and the Norwegian-Brazilian company Aracruz Celulose and its plantations
are established on 78,000 hectares of land in the extreme south
of the State of Bahia. The negative impacts of those plantations
are resulting in considerable local resistance (see Bulletin
No. 109). The main assessment will be made between 23 and
27 July 2007.
Here
below is an Open Letter aimed at preventing Veracel from obtaining
FSC certification, which reflects indignation over the attempt
at certifying a company that has caused, and continues to cause,
so much pain and suffering.
Open
Letter to women and men of goodwill
I
am going to talk about things that I consider to be very contradictory.
How does one understand certification of TREE PLANTATIONS?
Well, it is not as simple as it would seem. This does not involve
native trees from the ATLANTIC RAINFOREST biome where I was born
and raised. Where I lived through various cycles of destruction,
but nothing compares with this: monoculture eucalyptus plantations!
I saw the forest felled to give way to eucalyptus plantations!
I SAW IT. I saw rivers, streams and springs dry up! I saw a rural
worker, a country man who did not know how to read or write and
who had only learnt how to work the land, with his ten or eleven
children coming to the city in tears, fearing an uncertain fate.
Presently, the older children are selling drugs on street corners,
some of them have even been to prison, and the eldest was killed
by a police officer. A very dangerous bandit! Just imagine.
And the father in tears, repeating as if to convince himself that
he was not to blame – I didn’t teach my son to steal or to kill.
I taught him how to plant and to harvest, I taught him the crop
cycle, what to plant in each season. And he learnt, he was very
good at it, but the land was missing.
The
younger ones and the grandchildren, the children of the dead son,
have gone to the Recovery House SOS Life, to recover from serious
under-nutrition caused by the lack of food.
And
now I receive a text from the newspaper “Valor Econômico” under
the heading “Veracel is taking up arms against the factory’s opponents,”
that states: “The pulp mill industry is gathering statistical
information commissioned to independent institutions to show the
economic and social effects of their investments and to refute
criticism against their factories.”
Veracel,
a company with a pulp mill located at the extreme south of Bahia,
today disseminated a study indicating that it is already responsible
for 15 % of the agricultural GDP in the region. The mill, which
started operating in May 2005, answered for 60% of the total economic
growth of the region for the period 2003-2006.
"We
know that Veracel has a positive effect on Bahia and on the region,
but we do not know precisely how much,” stated the president of
the company, Renato Gueron.
He
explained that one of the reasons for preparing the study undertaken
by the Project Division of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV)
was to obtain concrete data to counteract the opinion of people
contrary to the pulp mills. “There are ideologically-motivated
non-governmental organizations and other groups lacking technical
arguments who are opposed to our type of activity,” alleged Gueron.
I
am part of the group that, according to the director of the company,
is ideologically-motivated and does not have any technical arguments.
So I suppose that what I see is not reality, it has not been scientifically
proven. In order to scientifically prove something I need a technician,
an academic to follow pre-established and manipulated standards
and rules, a person who has read hundreds and hundreds of books
and who states in a lengthy and incomprehensible report that what
I have seen and experienced is true!
But
this situation has been seen and experienced by men, women, teen-agers
and children in the worst way possible. Every day we feel in our
skin the noxious consequences of regional economic growth corresponding
to 60% between 2003 and 2006. What growth are they talking about,
and for whom? Probably they are talking about the profits distributed
between Aracruz and Stora Enso, Veracel’s partners. This is the
only truth: profits are technically verifiable. And what if later
on no-one is willing to prove that the people in this region are
living in poverty? How can it be proved? Poor people going hungry,
poor people assaulting and robbing, what is wrong with this? What
we have to do is to build prisons! Eunapolis should already have
its own prison!
Justice,
politicians, scientists, shareholders, they do not live here and
the few ones who do have private security and build high walls
to protect their houses and their families. They are honest
men, who hold the truth. And the truth is that the region
has grown economically and is responsible for 15% of the GDP.
Considering this, we will forget that to obtain this result, the
company cut down the Atlantic rainforest; that the company was
fined by IBAMA in 2005 for having prevented regeneration of 1200
hectares of forest in process of regeneration; that it was again
fined by IBAMA in 2007 for having dumped poison in springs; that
justice determined that the law should be enforced and the eucalyptus
plantations should be removed from the surroundings of National
Parks (Pau Brasil, Descobrimento and Monte Pascoal); that it is
being obliged by federal justice to pay labour rights that had
not been paid to the workers of the Veracel Institute. We will
also forget that this institute is a façade where children are
given new clothes and shoes to receive illustrious visitors from
Sweden and Finland and when the visitors depart, the officials
are obliged to remove the clothes and shoes, leaving the children
crying with no shoes and torn clothing. We will forget that the
company does not comply with the conditions set out in the environmental
permit granted by the Environmental Council of the State of Bahia,
for example providing timber for other purposes to avoid pressure
on what is left of the Atlantic rainforest, or not acquiring smallholding
areas without the endorsement of the Rural Workers Trade Union.
We will forget that in one single municipality, Eunapolis, between
1996 and 2000 almost 7000 families left rural areas because the
lands were sold to Veracel, that they destroyed a community (Maurília)
to build the mill and that the people of this community are now
living in the outskirts of cities, without jobs and in poverty.
That in the community neighbouring the Mill (Barrolândia) there
are people who are dying of starvation because they can no longer
obtain their livelihood from rural activities as they are surrounded
by eucalyptus trees; that in addition to hunger, people in this
community are dying of leprosy and tuberculosis. We will forget
the company’s lack of respect for the Brazilian legislation and
go ahead and CERTIFY IT.
The
objective of Veracel is to achieve FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)
certification. FSC is a non-governmental organization that was
established in 1993 in Canada. This certification verifies that
the entire productive process of a factory, from the production
of eucalyptus seeds to the manufacturing of paper, is carried
out in an environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and
economically viable way. However, the only thing we can verify
is that it is economically viable for foreign shareholders. Only
poverty, hunger and unemployment is left for the BRAZILIAN PEOPLE!
Uncontrolled
plantation of eucalyptus in the extreme South of Bahia has already
taken over almost all the productive land, traditional farms,
rural reference communities, farming towns, highways, streams,
hundred year-old settlements, in fact all the components of a
peoples’ culture.
All
this was conquered by the company through false promises and deceit.
The regional population was deceived by the economic power and
intellectual capacity of the company’s experts. Today the
peoples of the region are aware of the curse caused by Veracel
and periodically we find in the press statements made by grassroots
organizations, accusing the company of lack of respect and irresponsible
behaviour.
Granting
certification to a company such as Veracel is the same as saying
that the BRAZILIAN PEOPLE should not exist, that the BRAZILIAN
PEOPLE are condemned to die of hunger!
Eunapolis,
20 June 2007
By
Ivonete Gonçalves, Educational Teacher and Executive Coordinator
of CEPEDES - Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas para o Desenvolvimento
do Extremo Sul – Bahia. She was born and
bred in Eunapolis, a municipality impacted by monoculture eucalyptus
plantations and the Veracel Pulp mill.
index
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Ecuador: Public outcry demanding revision of the Agrarian
and Forestry Plan
Through
various programmes and state incentives, under the auspices of
international cooperation agencies, monoculture tree plantations
of fast growing species have been established in the three continental
regions of Ecuador and are rapidly becoming widespread, generally
destroying primary ecosystems.
Whether
it is the plantations for carbon sinks in the Paramo area, the
pine plantations in the Central Sierra, or the eucalyptus and
oil palm plantations in the tropical zone of the Province of Esmeraldas
in the Choco region, they all develop along the same lines: large-scale
monocultures for the great export market and for the benefit of
agro-business. Local economies, community ways of life and cultures,
their food sovereignty, water, soil, and the future, are all abandoned
on the way.
Facing
this situation, many of the affected communities met last month
and submitted the following:
“Open
letter to President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadorian People on
the National Forestation Plan and the National Agrarian Plan
Indigenous,
Afro-descendent and peasant organisations meeting in the city
of Quito on 24 May 2007 to analyse the national forestation and
agrarian plans wish to convey our concern to President Rafael
Correa.
We
are aware that it is your government’s priority to work in benefit
of traditionally excluded peoples such as the indigenous, Afro-descendent
and peasant peoples of this country. We have placed our hopes
on your government plans, because in the past State policies traditionally
benefited large landowners, large farmers and agro-exporters,
to the detriment of peasant economies and they continue to do
so.
However,
we have seen that the programme of the present Minister of Agriculture
follows the same line as before: the country continues to belong
to a handful of people. This programme benefits agro-business,
promotes monoculture tree plantations and attempts to strengthen
the technological package damaging natural resources, the soil,
the water, biodiversity and increasing inequality in rural areas
and peasant impoverishment processes. The production of monoculture
crops for biofuels is promoted, disregarding the demands for food
sovereignty and defence of the collective rights of Nationalities
and Peoples.
Furthermore,
the aim is an anti-ecological forestation with monoculture plantations
lacking prior studies of the impacts on peasant and rural ways
of life, but using an approach that considers monoculture tree
plantations for industry and export as the only strategy.
Ecuadorian
rural, peasant, Afro-descendent and indigenous organizations present
at this meeting – the fundamental subjects of State policies –
demand that Mr. Correa’s National Government insists on coherence
from the Minister of Agriculture with the proposal for recasting
Ecuador to the benefit of the poorest people in the country.
Ecuadorian
rural, peasant and indigenous organizations present at the Meeting,
demand:
1.
Overall Agrarian Reform, controlling and eliminating concentration
of land and enabling small farmers to access productive resources
with justice.
2.
Protection and promotion of national agro-food production, favouring
sustainable productive programmes, co-managed by the country’s
rural organizations.
3.
Defence of biodiversity, plant resources and ancestral knowledge,
and prevention of the promotion of monoculture plantations involving
agriculture and trees that affect them, and prevention of the
introduction of transgenic seeds and aggressive technological
packages.
4.
Inclusive policies for the farm sector, respecting the diversity
of peoples, nationalities and peasants, and the promotion of intercultural
relations, and acknowledgement of the contribution of women to
sovereign productive processes.
5.
That all agrarian and forestation policies should be prepared
with the participation of peasant, indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian
organizations, respecting their own ways of managing and guaranteeing
their control over the natural resources within their territories.
6.
Guaranteeing local and national food sovereignty, enabling resources
such as land and water to be used to satisfy the population’s
food needs over any other extractive activity (mining, oil or
timber) and that water be used for human consumption and not for
hydroelectric dams.
7.
State resources must be used to guarantee fulfilment of the above
demands and not to promote agro-business. Mechanisms of indebtedness
fostering unjust marketing of land should not be promoted.
We
appeal to you, Mr. President so that this 24 May, day on which
we celebrate the independence of Ecuador, can also be the day
on which the peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendent organizations
celebrate the end of the long neo-liberal night.
(Signatures
follow below)”.
Information sent by:
Acción Ecológica, email:
cbosques@accionecologica.org
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Indonesia: Common Vision towards a stop to
the expansion of pulpwood plantations
Members
of twenty-five Indonesian NGOs and community organisations met
in Riau, Sumatra, on 13th January 2007, to give voice to their
serious concerns about the impacts of the pulp and paper industry
and its fastwood plantations on people and forests.
Under
the program referred to as HTI (Hutan Tanaman Industri), “Industrial
Timber Plantation and Pulp Industry Development” launched by the
government in the early 1980s, more than 5 million hectares were
allocated for fast growing monoculture tree plantations (Acacia
mangium and Eucalyptus) to support the pulp, paper and rayon industry.
This massive expansion is underway to convert primary forest into
timber --as well as rubber and oil palm plantations.
Representatives
from the civil society organisations which have been discussing
the basic demands to be made to the pulp and paper industry and
the government, have submitted and signed a document which expresses
their strong feeling that the expansion of pulpwood plantations
“has surpassed the limits that the forests and humanity can bear”.
The
process leading to include the country within the global paper
market as a cheap provider of raw material has been sustained
by the strip-mining of nature as well as the suffering and dispossession
of forest people. As they put it in the document: “The use of
forests to meet demand for raw materials from the pulp and paper
industry in order to supply paper for international consumption
has a terrible history of expropriating and violating communities'
rights which has left its scars. We have seen how the workings
of the market, facilitated by various government policies, have
directly and indirectly brought about company practices that damage
peoples' livelihoods and the environment in general.”
The
negative impacts of the pulp and paper industry on the environment
and the surrounding communities deprives them of their livelihoods
and generates social conflicts and poverty. So, the claim is “to
save the remaining forests and protect local and indigenous peoples'
rights in all the areas affected by pulpwood plantations and pulp
and paper factories from unimaginable disaster.”
Among
concerned parties there is now “a shared vision on the reconstruction
and transformation needed in the development of Indonesia's pulp
and paper industry.”
They
have stated that: “A number of points have been arisen as we have
shared our experiences of organising advocacy and supporting affected
communities through serious discussions about the pulp and paper
industry. These have motivated us to take a stand together and
to press for policy changes in order to stop all damaging practices
and any further expansion of this industry. Over the next
few years, we intend to monitor closely all policy instruments
and to press for changes or revisions in these, working together
in our different ways.
Based
on these experiences, we have drawn up this Common Vision for
Changes in Indonesia's Pulp & Paper Industry which addresses
policies, the industry and social conditions.
AIMS
To
ensure that local and indigenous communities' rights and interests
are respected and ecological priorities are protected in fulfilling
demand for Indonesian paper.
OBJECTIVES
1.
To intervene in policy changes at local, national and international
level that promote the expansion of pulpwood plantations and the
pulp and paper industry in Indonesia.
2. To extend recognition of local
and indigenous communities' sustainable forest practices;
3. To close down pulp and paper factories
that cause environmental pollution and damage communities' interests;
to oppose the construction of new plants; and to stop the expansion
of pulpwood plantations.”
The ensuing action of the
civil society organizations is to hold a strategic follow-up
meeting later this year.
Article
based on “CSOs take a stand on pulp”, Down to Earth Nº 73, May
2007, e-mail: dte@gn.apc.org,
http://dte.gn.apc.org
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South Africa: Commercial timber plantations
as “take it or leave it” development option for rural areas
The
web page http://www.southafrica.info,
published for the International Marketing Council of South Africa,
included in March an article which stated that “South Africa has
identified the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces as key
for development in the forestry, wood and paper sector, with reforestation
a vital part of the strategy”. For those who don’t know the forestry
language, it is important to note that in South Africa the word
“reforestation” really means planting vast monocultures of alien
tree species on native grassland ecosystems. The article was accompanied
by a photo with the following text: “South Africa is looking to
the forestry, wood and paper sector to boost investment and employment
in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.”
After
all these years of experience with tree plantations and their
impacts on people and the environment, it seems amazing that the
industry can seriously talk about plantations as generating employment
and that the government can continue to promote them.
The
good thing about the article (available at
http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/investment/oppurtunities/forestry-010307.htm)
is that it generated an interesting debate. What follows is a
message sent by Sinegugu Zukulu, who works for the Endangered
Wildlife Trust, describing his own personal experience in Northern
Zululand.
Sinigugu
starts by explaining why he thinks that “people will welcome this
as a great move”: because “it is brought to them as an option
or no option. (Take it or leave it development option for rural
areas!).”
He
then explains why this has already proven to be a bad option:
“I
have had an opportunity to look at what forestry has done to Northern
Zululand. I once visited a Mlambo family that goes to my church
in Mtubatuba in about 1995/6, which was in the middle of Gum [eucalyptus]
plantations. All families had converted their land into either
sugarcane or Gum tree plantation. The result was that all the
springs and local streams were drying up. There were long queues
in what used to be a permanent spring. People had to wait for
water to come up. When I told them this was because of the gum
trees they had planted, they did not believe me. I also predicted
that the streams and spring would soon dry up.
Few
years down the line they phoned to tell me that my prediction
was correct. The grazing lands for cattle were gone, as gum trees
replaced all the grasslands. Water in streams that used to flow
freely and permanently in places such as Mtunzini were now stagnant
and some dried up.
People
had to rely on shops for grocery every month. These commercial
crops were not food crops. People who had no money to buy grocery
went starving. Maize crops surrounded by gum plantations turned
yellow, as gum tree roots were spreading all over the place sucking
up all water. They were scorched under high temperatures as they
were sheltered from cooling winds.
Is
this what they want us to be subjected to? Will people be educated
about all these side effects or environmental impacts? As it is,
we already have more than enough gums and Black wattle [acacia]
plantations. It looks like to me, it’s another quick fix solution
where no environmental impact assessment has been done to inform
the public about implications. What the government of our country
fails to do is to implement the wonderful constitution we have,
which guarantees us a right to a healthy and harmless environment,
and an environment protected for the benefit of future generations.
Environmental impact assessments (EIA) are useless unless people
have been educated so that they can engage the process. So educating
the public is the first step. Our governments take chances of
bringing wrong development since they know people are illiterate
in rural areas.
I
for one would not support this for my community. I would be happy
to support anything to reduce the number of gum plantations we
already have. This is another scheme to satisfy the greediness
of big timber companies such as SAPPI and MONDI. In this country
the number one culprits in the loss of biodiversity are timber
plantations. They are also the biggest funders in the field of
environmental education. I find it very strange that Environmental
Education Centres are funded by the same companies who cause the
problem. This puts environmental education practitioners in a
tight corner for they cannot say anything against the culprits
while educating the public. It is ridiculous.”
All
the above impacts are not Sinegugu’s inventions. Almost the same
impacts are well documented in every single country –from Latin
America to Asia- where such plantations have been established.
Until when will the pulp and paper sector prevail over people
and the environment? Until when will southern governments support
this destructive activity? Until when will they continue to lie
about employment?
Article
based on email sent by Sinegugu Zukulu, who authorized its use
by WRM
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Thailand: Advance Agro's greenwash
Advance
Agro is one of Thailand's largest pulp and paper companies, producing
427,000 tonnes of pulp and 470,000 tonnes of paper a year. The
company markets its "Double A" brand of photocopy paper
with a series of environmental claims. In May 2007, an Australian
company called Access Economics added to these claims with a report
titled "Environmental Benefits of Double A Paper".
The
report compares pulp and paper operations in several countries
by putting a price on the environmental impacts of pulp production
and concludes that the environmental costs of Double A paper are
less than any of the other paper mills examined. Since the report
was commissioned by Advance Agro and Mango Communications (an
Australian public relations company hired by Advance Agro since
November 2006) we shouldn't be too surprised. However, it is revealing
to look at how Advance Agro's consultants reached their conclusion.
First,
Access Economics ignores Advance Agro's track record. "No
native forests are damaged in Double A's operations," claims
the report. But forests were destroyed in order to establish plantations
for Advance Agro's operations. Advance Agro is part of the Soon
Hua Seng group. In 1990, one hundred employees of Suan Kitti (a
subsidiary of Soon Hua Seng) were arrested for illegally logging
forest on 1,600 hectares of Forest Reserve land in Chachoengsao
province in preparation for establishing plantations to feed Double
A's pulp mills. Suan Kitti Reforestation was also charged with
illegally logging in a 4,800 hectares area
in Prachinburi province. Soon Hua Seng group's pulp mill was to
be called the "Suan Kitti pulp mill", but after this
scandal, the company changed the name to Advance Agro.
"The
Access Economics report is based on Double A's current production
policies and farmed tree processes," Thirawit Leetavorn,
regional senior executive vice-president at Advance Agro, told
WRM by e-mail.
Second,
Access Economics fudges the pollution data. According to a footnote
to a table in an appendix to the report, no data was available
about Advance Agro's wastewater discharges. So Access Economics
uses a figure produced from the average of two Finnish mills,
"on the grounds that the Thai plant producing Double A paper
uses Finnish technology".
As
such information is a crucial part of any analysis of environmental
impacts of pulp and paper production, I asked Thirawit Leetavorn
to explain why Advance Agro did not provide this information.
His answer, in full, was "no".
Absorbable
Organic Halides (AOX) are a group of chemical compounds produced
when chlorine reacts with wood during the bleaching process of
pulp manufacture. According to Access Economics, Double A's AOX
discharge is 2.00 kilogrammes per air dried tonne of pulp produced
-the highest of any of the mills considered (more than double
the figure given as the average in the US, for example). This
fact is not mentioned anywhere in the report.
I
asked Thirawit Leetavorn for records of measurements of pollutants
in Double A's wastewater for the past 12 months. He declined to
provide the records, but assured me that "Double A ensures
the measurement of the elements contained in the wastewater comply
with the highest environmental standards."
Third,
Access Economics tries to make Advance Agro's plantations disappear.
According to Access Economics, Advance Agro sources its wood from
"farmed eucalyptus trees grown by farmers along the edges
of rice plantations". The company claims to have contracts
with one million farmers. Thirawit Leetavorn sent me some nice
photographs of eucalyptus trees planted along the edges of rice
fields. "No, we do not have industrial tree plantations,"
he wrote in answer to my question about what area of plantations
the company has.
Four
years ago WRM visited Thailand. We talked to villagers living
near the plantations and heard how villagers had sold their land
to the company. We heard how the company had established eucalyptus
plantations right up to villagers' rice fields. And we
saw large areas of eucalyptus plantations.
There
are three more pieces of evidence which suggest that Advance Agro's
plantations have not gone away. Access Economics mentions that
"Treated wastewater [is] used to irrigate tree plantations."
In a December 2006 article, about Advance
Agro, Pulp and Paper International reports that "Fiber comes
from five year-old cash crop plantation trees." And one of
Advance Agro's websites states: "In the production of Double
A Paper, we use raw materials from our own plantations."
Advance
Agro is currently planning to build a new 500,000 tonnes a year
pulp mill and a 500,000 tonnes a year paper mill. Finnish consulting
firm Pöyry completed a feasibility study in 2006. Advance Agro
has submitted an environmental impact assessment to the Thai authorities
and is in negotiations with Mitsubishi (Japan), Voith (Germany)
and Metso (Finland) about the supply of machinery. Access Economic's
report is a marketing tool aimed at expanding Double A's sales
in Australia in anticipation of the new pulp and paper capacity
expansion. The report is greenwash.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
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A meeting in Europe with bankers about pulp mills and finance
The
entrance to the bank has nothing to do with human scale. Built
of steel and glass, the building towers over visitors like a spotlessly
cleaned, giant machine. A machine for swallowing people and making
money, perhaps.
I
visited the bank headquarters last week as part of a meeting organised
by the German NGO Urgewald to discuss banks' financing of the
pulp industry. Up on the 50th floor, where the meeting took place,
the view is spectacular. The sun was shining, glistening off the
river as it curves through the city. It didn't feel like being
in the belly of the capitalist beast. About a dozen bankers, from
seven major banks, turned up to listen to presentations from six
NGOs. (The meeting took place under the "Chatham House Rule",
which means that I can use the information from the meeting, but
I can't tell you who said what, or who else was at the meeting.)
Before
the meeting, I'd calculated that the pulp industry has plans to
build about 25 million tonnes of new capacity over the next five
years. The vast majority is planned for Brazil, Uruguay, Russia,
China, Australia and Indonesia. Even allowing for more closures
of pulp mills in the North, this is a dramatic increase in capacity.
Over the past decade, the industry has expanded at about one million
tones a year. It is now planning to expand at five times this
rate. During the meeting it became clear that my figure of 25
million tonnes was an underestimate. Three new pulp mills are
planned in Russia and one in Malaysia, none of which I'd included
in my calculations.
The
pulp industry's boom and bust cycle is directly linked to the
industry's overcapacity. The industry expands when the price of
pulp is high. When all the new capacity comes on stream the price
collapses. It's happened before (repeatedly) and it looks like
it's about to happen again.
During
the meeting, the bankers heard about the promises given 20 years
ago in Indonesia. The pulp industry would bring prosperity. It
would provide jobs and it would save the forests, by providing
an economic use for wood. The reality is that the industry has
brought pollution, few jobs, social conflicts, land rights conflicts
and destruction of vast areas of forests. Even where plantations
have been established they have replaced forests. Today, pulp
companies in Sumatra are clearcutting peat swamp forest and draining
the swamps to establish plantations. In the process they are releasing
large amounts of carbon stored in the peat to the atmosphere.
The
pulp industry's reliance on wood as a raw material means that
large areas of industrial tree plantations are required to feed
today's million tonnes-a-year pulp mills. This inevitably leads
to land rights conflicts, because such large tracts of land are
not simply lying around unused. Land rights conflicts in Brazil
are increasing, and the Movement of Landless Peasants (MST) has
repeatedly targeted the pulp industry's eucalyptus plantations
in its land occupations.
The
bankers heard about the impact of industrial tree plantations
on water. How wells dry up, ground water levels fall, seasonal
streams become permanently dry, swamp areas dry out, water sources
for washing and drinking water dry out, and how it becomes impossible
to grow staple crops such as rice in fields that are surrounded
by plantations.
The
bankers also heard suggestions for how they could draw up standards
in order to avoid investing in the worst pulp and plantation projects.
They heard about a mapping project which delineates old-growth
forests. They heard about the range of mechanisms under international
law that could be applied in cases of human rights abuses linked
to pulp mills, for example. They heard how several commercial
banks in the US, the Netherlands and the UK have drawn up forest
policies, partly as an attempt to avoid getting involved in destructive
projects such as those of APP and APRIL in Indonesia. ABN Amro
is working on applying its forest policy to all bank activities
and not just project financing – which is crucial in the pulp
sector, because most pulp mills are financed through bonds, shares,
equity and general corporate loans.
The
banks told us they don't have enough capacity to develop their
own forest policies. Even carrying out due diligence, it seems,
is difficult. Some of the banks said that if a project is covered
by the German credit insurer Euler Hermes, they'd invest without
too much further analysis. This is extremely worrying news to
the NGOs who have campaigned for years to get Euler Hermes to
develop meaningful standards to exclude socially and environmentally
destructive projects. In 2004, Euler Hermes provided export credit
insurance for APP China despite the problems APP has caused in
Indonesia. Greenpeace China has documented how APP China has illegally
logged forest in Yunnan and established tree plantations inside
protected areas in Hainan.
We
pointed out the problems with relying on Euler Hermes. Well, there's
the World Bank's forest policy replied the banks. Or there's the
OECD's common approaches for export credit agencies. Or the Equator
Principles. Anything, it seems, rather than the banks admitting
that they must look critically at their involvement in the massive
problems caused by the pulp industry and its industrial tree plantations.
Coming from banks that employ tens of thousands of people and
generate billions of Euros profit each year, this is a little
difficult to take.
By
Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
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AGROFUELS
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Agro-fuels: A turn of the screw in power concentration
With
much song and dance, Agro-fuels have quickly found a place on
the agendas of the governments of the North…and of the South.
They promise energy independence, business, a solution to global
warming, business, more foreign currency, business!!!
They
also give rise to new political and regional positioning. During
a controversial trip through Latin America, the United States
was seeking to strengthen a partnership with Brazil regarding
ethanol. Cuba has stated its rejection of agro-fuels, together
with Venezuela and Bolivia. Others look, listen and remain silent…but
have agro-fuels on their agendas and the enabling legal frameworks
are being established.
The
possibility of using rice husks, used cooking oil, grass or hay
may conjure up a picture of good use and recycling of resources.
However, if we apply a macro vision, agro-fuel fever comes in
a very different package: intensification of industrial agriculture
(together with the well-known model of monoculture crops – from
food crops to trees – on a large-scale) and conversion of vast
stretches of farm land into plantations for energy, no doubt in
the countries of the South. Summing up, a turn of the screw
by colonization. And another step forward in accumulating power.
The
case of cellulosic ethanol provides an ideal scenario for this
concentration of power.
Current
research on obtaining ethanol from the cellulose of woody species
(also known as “Treethanol”) follows two main lines of work:
*
enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose; and
*
thermo-chemical cellulose conversion
The
first option is still at the laboratory stage and genetic engineering
work is being done to obtain, on the one hand transgenic enzymes
and, on the other, trees that grow faster, producing less lignin
or more easily degradable cellulose. Synthetic biology (a combination
of genetic engineering and nanotechnology) is working on the creation
of totally new organisms, in this case, enzymes. Genencor (US),
Novozymes (Denmark), and Diversa, are working to find cheaper
and more efficient enzymes. These techniques and research strengthen
the monoculture model, in detriment to species diversity, considering
that it would be more costly to research the multiple enzymes
necessary to degrade cellulose from different species of trees.
In
the attempt to lower the cost of enzymes (transgenic or synthetic
ones) to obtain cellulosic ethanol, millions of dollars are at
stake. Among the major investors is the US Department of
Energy, which granted a four-year 385 million-dollar subsidy to
six projects aimed at producing cellulosic ethanol. The US Department
of Agriculture is also funding numerous projects at various universities
throughout the country.
Cellulosic
ethanol has become a new commodity attracting powerful groups
from various sectors that are constructing an intricate labyrinth
of interconnections, mergers, partnerships. Biotechnology companies
such as Diversa Corp, Genencor (US), Novozymes Inc. (Denmark),
share interests with automobile manufacturers such as Ascoma (US),
or Volkswagen, and with oil companies such as Chevron and BP.
In their research they are supported by research centres such
as Craig Venter (US), Scion and AgResearch (New Zealand), and
the Swedish SweTree Technologies. For its part, ArborGen –involving
the paper companies International Paper and Mead Westvaco and
the biotechnology company Genesis— is assessing the feasibility
of marketing bio-fuels made from cellulose.
The
other line of research to obtain cellulosic ethanol through thermo-chemical
conversion carried out in bio-refineries, opens the door to another
series of partnerships. The pulp and paper companies are going
into partnership with chemical companies, as it would seem that
it is relatively simple to convert pulp mills into thermo-chemical
or integrated bio-refineries to process cellulosic ethanol. The
pulp mill could gasify biomass to create synthetic gas (syngas)
and then convert it into a series of fuels and chemical materials.
For the pulp and paper companies this is just another opportunity
for trade as it opens up another market and they could then choose
the best bidder.
Thus,
the biomass gasification model has created convergence of interests
between the pulp and paper industry and the chemical industry.
Partnerships have already been established such as that of the
forestry company Weyerhaeuser with the Chevron oil company.
This
is perhaps one of the most alarming aspects of agro-fuels: that
of joining powerful actors from different sectors that previously
had not collaborated so closely and thus enabling
them to take a qualitative jump forward in the concentration of
world power.
However,
it also generates another process in the opposite direction. Resistance
to this advance of agro-fuel, with the greater usurpation it involves,
has given rise to greater synergy between social organizations
and movements that previously had perhaps carried
out parallel struggles. Peasant communities, with
their models of bio-diverse agriculture under threat, indigenous
forest communities endangered by the destruction of their habitat
with the advance of energy crop plantations; those defending water
and soil, alert to the expansion of an agriculture that takes
away water and soil; those who struggle for human rights, because
the progress of power groups is made at the expense of the peoples’
rights.
All
these movements are converging around resistance to this new attack
and are gathering forces to denounce what it generates: an irresponsible,
merciless, inhuman production, trading, and consumption model.
In this process, other values, other principles, other models,
another world is taking shape.
By
Raquel Núñez, WRM e-mail: raquelnu@wrm.org.uy
index
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Eucalyptus plantations as biomass fuel: substituting evil
for wrong
More
and more the rush to use biomass as an alternative source of energy
allegedly to reduce CO2 emissions is concealing the unsustainable
consumption pattern that underlies global warming and climate
change.
Reduccionist
approaches focus on solutions which create even greater harm.
That is the case of a major European project which has enthusiastically
identified industrial-scale eucalyptus plantations as an answer
for so said less polluting steel manufacturing processes.
Led
by the main European steelmakers, the European Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking
(ULCOS) project involves the French Agricultural Research Centre
for International Development (CIRAD) and its central theme is
to replace fossil fuels with biomass, notably from monoculture
tree plantations in the tropics.
Apart
from developing more efficient processes for converting biomass
into charcoal, the project addresses the biomass availability
from eucalyptus plantations, and CIRAD conducts research on the
availability of such woody biomass. It has identified “good candidates”
for biomass production --which means where to establish industrial-scale
eucalyptus plantations.
The
‘candidates’ chosen to host such plantations are: Brazil, which
CIRAD considers could have 46 million hectares available in 2050,
and several central African countries -- Congo (South), the Democratic
Republic of Congo (West), Angola (North and East), Zambia (West),
Tanzania (West and South), Mozambique (North) and the Central
African Republic (West and Centre)-- with 46 million hectares.
This
amounts to increase the area of monoculture tree plantations,
with the ensuing severe impacts on soil, water, biodiversity and
livelihoods. Even worse, the establishment of such large-scale
plantations would destroy existing ecosystems –as is already happening-
such as grasslands, forests, peat lands, wetlands, which provide
livelihoods to local populations. Such destruction implies
the release of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, which challenge
the basis of those kinds of projects.
Replacing
the major problem of burning huge amounts of fossil fuels with
further problems like the encroachment of highly diverse ecosystems
and the depletion of soil and water by fast growing eucalyptus
will only make matters worse. Meanwhile, the climate keeps changing.
Article
based on information from “Ultra low carbon steelmaking process”,
http://www.engineerlive.com/features/17481/ultra-low-carbon-steelmaking-process.thtml
index
CARBON TRADE
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Proposed changes to CDM rules will give incentive
to clear forest and provide subsidy for plantations industry
To
the disappointment of some and the relief of others, tree plantation
projects, particularly those involving large-scale monocultures,
have been struggling to access a new subsidy offered by the Kyoto
Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism: in
the three years since the rules for afforestation and reforestation
projects were adopted, and after twelve rounds of baseline methodology
submissions, only one plantation, in China, has been registered
as a CDM project.
This
is set to change with a recent recommendation from the CDM Working
Group responsible for such tree planting projects. The changes
put forward by the Working Group (1) will make substantive areas
used for controversial large-scale plantation management eligible
as CDM projects. The proposed changes also introduce the perverse
incentive to clear land that was actually forested after 1990:
a proposed CDM project would pass the new
land eligibility criteria if it took place on land that may not
have been forest on 31 December 1989 but where a secondary forest
has developed since. Nothing in the proposed new rules would prevent
the clearing of the secondary forest that had developed since
31 December 1989 and then a plantation company could establish
thereafter a monoculture tree plantation that is credited under
the CDM. In addition to risking negative social and environmental
impacts and providing a subsidy to the plantations industry, allowing
for such practise would also not result in emission reductions,
since in the absence of the project the secondary forest would
have continued to exist.
In
addition to providing an incentive to clear areas that have developed
into forests since 31 December 1989, the proposed changes to the
CDM rules would also make replanting after regular rotational
timber harvest eligible as a CDM project. If the new rules are
approved by the CDM Executive Board it would be possible for a
plantations company to carry out regular harvesting operations,
pass the new CDM land eligibility procedures and be able to increase
profit margins by selling CDM carbon credits for re-establishment
of the plantation after such a regular harvest. The text requires
that the company demonstrate that “the land was not intentionally
converted to non-forest land for the purpose of implementing an
A/R CDM project activity”, but this requirement would certainly
be possible to fulfil.
How
would this work?
A
plantations company carries out a regular rotational harvest of
its plantations. It then puts forward a proposal to the CDM arguing
that without additional funding it would not be able to replant
(as V&M Florestal and Plantar did in their proposals to the
CDM in 2003-2005). The plantation company’s argument would persuade
the CDM experts that replanting of the plantation would not deliver
sufficiently attractive economic returns and would only be replanted
if extra CDM finance was made available. The CDM project – the
establishment of a monoculture plantation – would likely be considered
additional, and the CDM would provide extra funding to plantation
companies for the very activities they are doing anyway: re-establishing
plantations after regular rotational harvesting.
There
is no shortage of land that was cleared before 1990, where community-based
forest restoration would provide both environmental and social
benefits. Judging from the list of proposed CDM tree planting
projects, this is not where the interest of most CDM project proponents’
lies. The large majority of proposals involve establishing commercial,
large-scale timber plantations. The proposed new rules – if adopted
in their current form by the Executive Board – will open up large
areas of land currently not eligible for the CDM plantations subsidy.
Such a CDM subsidy from the sale of carbon credits may increase
the economic return of plantations in locations where other land
uses might make much more economic, social and environmental sense
and where land use conflicts between local communities and plantation
companies are frequently a reality. The 2003 CIFOR report "Fastwood"
concluded that "[t]he sooner subsidies to commercial plantations
are phased out, or at least dramatically reduced, the better."
It would be ironic if the CDM, not least in light of its objective
to promote sustainable development, were to provide the very kind
of subsidy the CIFOR report, numerous WRM publications and others
have shown to cause a raft of negative social and environmental
impacts.
(1)
Available at http://cdm.unfccc.int/public_inputs/EB31_ARWG_Land_egibility/index.html
By
Jutta Kill, FERN, e-mail: jutta@fern.org
index
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Brazil: Third V&M’s go under CDM for their
tree plantations
Registered
on last January 22, the “Project 0143 : UTE Barreiro S.A. Renewable
Electricity Generation Project” of Vallourec & Mannesmann
(V&M), the world's largest manufacturer of seamless hot-rolled
steel tubes, is the third try of the company to get funds under
the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) scheme. The registered project
will provide V&M with 67954 carbon credits it can sell to
companies in the North who prefer buying such carbon credits to
reducing emissions at home.
The
project alleges to be “a renewable energy project” which consists
of the construction and operation of a thermoelectric plant fired
by blast furnace gas and wood tar to generate part of the electricity
required by V&M Barreiro’s Integrated Steel Plant (Usina Siderúrgica
Integrada de Barreiro), thus displacing electricity generation
from a more fossil-intensive grid and reducing greenhouse gas
emissions in the process.
According
to the Project Design Document (PDD) “wood tar is collected during
the carbonisation process where charcoal is produced from wood
obtained through sustainably managed forestry activities”
(emphasis added). This refers to wood extracted from the same
eucalyptus tree plantations located in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where
V&M company guards shot peasant Antônio Joaquim dos Santos
in February 2007 (see WRM Bulletin
Nº 116).
As
a result of the ensuing denunciations about the killing,, and
because V&M’s plantations were FSC certified, an audit was
carried out by the FSC accredited certifier, SGS. The company
preempted a potential loss of the certificate by announcing its
“decision to voluntarily withdraw from FSC after 8 years of very
close relationship” on the grounds that it did not agree with
the way in which the certifying body (SGS) had carried out its
audit (see WRM Bulletin Nº 116).
Those
“sustainably managed” eucalyptus plantations have also been intrusive
because they have encroached on lands previously occupied by peasants
and are now undermining the struggles of the local people to recover
their lands. They have also generated disputes with the small
farmers regarding the use of agrochemicals, the blocking of roads
or the alteration of and access to water resources.
In
spite of all this, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), one of the main validators
of CDM projects, had approved the controversial V&M Fuel Switching
project, which was another CDM project of the company where it
asked for carbon credits in order to keep using charcoal for their
steel plants. V&M argued that without those carbon credits
it would be unable to maintain the plantations. V&M and DNV
had claimed that V&M plantations were managed sustainably
and used the FSC certificate as evidence.
The
fuel switch methodology was rejected by the Executive Board of
the Clean Development Mechanism, pointing to “doubts” about the
scenario presented by V&M: that without additional carbon
money a switch to coal under current trends in the Brazilian pig
iron industry would be unavoidable. The Panel expressed concerns
about the “immaterial nature of the project activity and the moral
hazard related to the fact that [it] consists of continuing current
practice.” (See WRM Bulletin Nº
92)
The
CDM however accepted V&M’s ‘renewable’ energy project, and
its project documents make no mention anywhere that the plantations
were at risk should there be no extra carbon money available.
This contradiction between the two project documents aside, the
‘renewable’ energy project that has been registered as CDM project
now has another problem: V&M does not possess an FSC certificate
anymore hence its “sustainability claims” and claims about “renewable”
energy production are not backed up by anything anymore and the
previous justification has been cancelled. As a result the CDM
should de-register the project immediately.
All
this may be a good example of how impossible it is to really verify
the claims made about additionality of CDM projects, the poor
checking of any sustainable development claims in the CDM process
as well as a perfect example of how polluting companies use the
CDM to gain extra carbon credit money for their business.
By
Jutta Kill, FERN / SinksWatch Initiative, e-mail:
jutta@fern.org, www.fern.org,
www.sinkswatch.org; and
Raquel Núñez, WRM, e-mail:
raquelnu@wrm.org.uy, http://www.wrm.org.uy/
index
