Swaziland:
Woodmark and SAPPI ignore the lessons from a neighbouring
farmer
Peter George is a farmer. Or, to be
more accurate, he used to be a farmer. He bought Elangeni Farm
in the cool highveld of Swaziland in the mid-1970s. He grew vegetables
along with some eucalyptus and acacia trees. He drove twice a
day to the local market to sell his cabbages. He had a few sheep,
chickens, two cows and a half-blind sheep dog. After a few years
he started a small fish farm, selling to local restaurants and
hotels. He built his own house, got married and started a family.
When he bought the farm, there was plenty
of water from the streams flowing down the slopes next to the
farm. In the mid-1980s, the Usutu Pulp Company started planting
the hills with pine plantations. George was forced to stop farming
when the streams on his farm dried up. In 1988, the South African
pulp and paper company SAPPI took a majority share in the Usutu
pulp mill and the associated plantations.
By 1990, the water supply “had slowed
to nothing and the house supply was well down," he explains.
At first he thought that it might be caused by a drought. "But
when the streams didn't flow even in the rainy season, there had
to be a good reason," he says.
In November 2007, I was part of a WRM
team that visited Swaziland. Together with colleagues from Friends
of the Earth, who were in Swaziland for their annual meeting,
we visited SAPPI's stinking, polluting Usutu pulp mill. The water
in the stream flowing past the mill was jet black from the pulp
mill's effluent.. "Sometimes the water is so hot you can't
put your hand in it," says Thuli Makama of Yonge Nawe (Friends
of the Earth Swaziland).
Peter George invited us to visit his
farm the following day. When we arrived, workers were busy cutting
down eucalyptus plantations on his land that had burned earlier
in the year. Since the streams dried up, eucalyptus is one of
the few crops he can grow. SAPPI's plantations near George's farm
were black from fire - SAPPI lost about seven per cent of its
plantations in Swaziland to fires this year.
We drove around the farm and George
showed us where the Usutu Pulp Company had planted pines trees
right through the streams which had supplied his farm with water.
SAPPI started clearcutting the plantations in 2002 and since then
the streams have started flowing again, although it took 18 months
for one of the streams to recover. SAPPI has not replanted right
up to the streams, but neither had it kept 30 metre-wide strips
along the streams, which are required under Swaziland's regulations.
In one place the trees were little more than 10 metres from a
stream.
He pointed out the remains of a wall
to us, all that is left of a homestead, now completely surrounded
by the rows of SAPPI's pine trees. The hills "had been pastures
and plough-lands for the local people as long as anyone could
remember", George says.
In 1994, George told us, he wrote to
SAPPI complaining about the lack of water on his farm. Seven months
later, SAPPI replied, promising that they would look into the
problem. SAPPI told George that the research would take two years.
He's still waiting for the results of the research.
By 2004, he had started a legal process
against SAPPI. George points out that it isn't just his land that
dried out. "Other people's streams had dried out and it was
not always drought that was to blame," he says.
In June 2006, the Soil Association's
Woodmark certified SAPPI's Swaziland plantations as well managed
under the Forest Stewardship Council system. Peter George met
Woodmark's assessment team in March 2006. Woodmark's public summary
of the assessment acknowledges that the meeting took place but
gives few details. The public summary mentions that streams dried
up but adds that they are now "back to normal". It fails
to mention that for 12 years there was hardly any water on the
farm. "The issue regarding the reduction of water flow caused
by the planting of trees and the subsequent claim is 'sub judice'
and is therefore [sic] under judicial consideration," comment
Woodmark's assessors in the public summary.
Under the sub judice (from the Latin,
"under judgement") rule in British law it can be an
offence to publicly discuss current or upcoming court cases. The
rule is intended to protect the right of defendants to a fair
trail, but in this case Woodmark is hiding behind the sub judice
rule to prevent legitimate debate.
Woodmark seems to want Peter George
to just go away. When Woodmark's assessors revisited Swaziland
in 2007 for their annual audit of SAPPI's plantations, they did
not invite Peter George to their stakeholder meeting. Neither
did they visit his farm.
George wrote to Woodmark in August 2007
pointing out that "SAPPI holds no planting permit for the
blocks in question nor did they apply for one." George has
a letter from SAPPI stating that the company has no planting permit
for Block X - the land above Elangeni Farm. "In my opinion",
George wrote to Woodmark, "SAPPI ought not to receive certification
until this matter is settled. If such certification has been awarded,
I will take steps to challenge it." Woodmark has not replied
to George's letters.
The problems Peter George faces on his
farm in Swaziland are not unique. WRM has reported many examples
from the global South of streams and water supplies drying up
after industrial tree plantations have been established. Instead
of ignoring Peter George, Woodmark's "experts" should
have the humility to realise they have a lot to learn from him.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
