Pulpwood
Plantations: All roads lead to Rome
Whenever the expression “planted forests”
is used, the concept can be traced back to the Rome-based Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The more the concept is challenged
by local peoples and NGOs struggling against plantations, the
more the FAO builds up support to maintain it.
The reason is simple: the FAO has chosen
to be at the service of northern corporations that benefit from
tree plantations –particularly from the pulp and paper sector.
Presenting monoculture tree plantations under the guise of “planted
forests”, has proved to be a good marketing tool which serves
to hide the social and environmental disaster that large-scale,
fast wood, monoculture tree plantations imply.
But the role of the FAO does not stop
at the definition level. It has been actively promoting the establishment
of such plantations since the 1950s and continues doing so. Between
1990-1995 it even supported research in China on genetically engineered
trees, that later resulted in the massive and uncontrolled planting
of GE poplars in that country.
The latest case is the FAO-led process
that resulted in the adoption of the “Voluntary Guidelines for
Responsible Management of Planted Forests”, which are now in their
implementation stage at country level.
What is the aim of these guidelines?
Even before reading the guidelines themselves, it is clear that
they are aimed at supporting plantation expansion for the pulp
industry. For instance:
- The report’s cover photo is that of
a “Planted forests landscape, Bahia, Brazil, courtesy Veracel
Company, Brazil”. The negative social and environmental impacts
of precisely Veracel’s plantations have been very well documented
and local people are campaigning against them. By placing the
picture in the report the FAO is providing support to these and
similar destructive plantations that are being challenged in the
South.
- The acknowledgements. The report says
that “FAO wishes to acknowledge its major partners in preparing
the early concepts and drafts”. The partners mentioned from private-sector
associations are all linked to the pulp and paper industry: “International
Council for Forest and Paper Associations, Brazilian Paper and
Pulp Association/Sociedade Brasileira de Silvicultura, American
Forest and Paper Association, Confederation of European Paper
Industries, Portuguese Paper Industry Association, Japanese Paper
Association/Japanese Overseas Plantation Centre for Pulpwood,
Corporación Nacional de la Madera – Chile, Swedish Federation
of Forest Owner’s Associations and New Zealand Private Forest
Owners Association.” Why should these corporate associations support
this FAO-led process if it were not that they plan to benefit
from the resulting guidelines?
- The absences. Not one single Southern
organization is mentioned in the “acknowledgement”. Given that
the main critics of plantations are based in Africa, Asia and
Latin America, this means that the FAO chose to exclude critical
voices that would have certainly opposed guidelines for the promotion
of “fast wood” plantations –which are the ones needed by the pulp
industry.
- The bibliography: Not one single document
critical to plantations is mentioned. In the case of WRM, the
FAO chose to ignore, not only the countless articles disseminated
over the last 10 years –based on local peoples’ testimonies of
impacts- but also our published research findings on plantations
in Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Laos, South Africa,
Swaziland, Thailand, Uganda, and Uruguay. Turning a blind eye
on this and other documented evidence about plantations’ impacts
proves the FAO’s role in supporting plantation-related corporate
interests.
The following quote from the guidelines
is also very illustrating:
“Governments should create the enabling
conditions to encourage corporate, medium- and small-scale investors
to make long-term investments in planted forests and to yield
a favourable return on investment” and “facilitate an environment
of stable economic, legal and institutional conditions to encourage
long-term investment …”
This is not new. Many southern governments
have already created those “enabling conditions” –following recommendations
from FAO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Latin American Development
Bank, bilateral agencies such as JICA, GTZ and others- which have
resulted in “favourable returns” to pulp and paper corporations
and in very painful “returns” to local peoples and their environments.
The pulp industry is at present migrating
to the South and planning to dramatically increase its production
capacity over the next five years by more than 25 million tonnes.
This means that it will need extensive areas of fast-growth plantations
to feed its pulp mills. Within this context, the “Voluntary Guidelines
for Responsible Management of Planted Forests” will assist them
in putting governments at their service and in weakening opposition
to their expansion.
It is therefore necessary to be aware
about this new threat and to oppose the implementation of these
guidelines at country level. The FAO should be reminded that its
mandate is not to promote tree plantations but –according to its
web page- to “lead international efforts to defeat hunger”.
Given that the theme chosen this year
for the FAO-created World Food Day –16 October- is “The Right
to Food”, it appears to be necessary to remind the Food and Agriculture
Organization that pulpwood plantations can not ensure “that every
girl, boy, woman and man enjoys adequate food on a permanent basis”,
though they will certainly aim at ensuring that every pulp mill
enjoys adequate wood supply on a permanent basis.
Unfortunately, when looking at the promotion
of pulpwood plantations, all roads continue leading to Rome.
(*) The full FAO report is available
at
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/j9256e/j9256e00.pdf
