OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
A Tale of Two Conventions
Once
upon a time … the governments of the world got together and agreed
that the Earth was facing severe environmental problems and that
something needed to be done about it. The historic event was named
the Earth Summit and it took place in 1992 in the tropical scenario
of Rio de Janeiro.
Everyone
was feeling very enthusiastic because governments had committed
themselves to a new type of development -which they defined as
“sustainable”- which would prevent the negative environmental
impacts of the until then prevailing development model.
People
became even more hopeful about the future when they were told
that from then on governments would ensure that all types of production
would be socially equitable and environmentally friendly.
As
proof of the seriousness of governments’ commitments, a Convention
for the protection of biodiversity (CBD) was agreed upon and so
was another one for the prevention of climate change (UNFCCC).
However,
both conventions where soon highjacked by the ogre present in
most tales. Even worse, this particular story had a large number
of extremely nasty ogres who were only interested in devouring
all the Earth’s resources. The only sustainability they were interested
in was that of the flow of money into their pockets.
As
we all know, this is –unfortunately- a true tale about the takeover
of the two conventions by transnational corporations. As a result,
instead of protecting biodiversity, the CBD has opened up spaces
for corporate control over the Earth’s biological wealth –including
genetic manipulation of life forms. Instead of working to prevent
climate change, the UNFCCC has helped to create a useless –in
terms of climate- but extremely profitable carbon market for the
benefit of the same corporations that are destroying the climate.
These
corporations have been so successful that 16 years after the two
conventions were approved, biodiversity continues to disappear
in forests, grasslands and wetlands, while climate change continues
to increase. Even worse, the two conventions have become useful
tools for corporate profits in industries such as biotechnology,
agribusiness, hydroenergy, nuclear power and others, while enabling
the worse biodiversity and climate criminals –headed by the oil
industry- to continue business as usual.
For
making the two conventions comply with their original mandate
-to conserve biodiversity and to avert climate change- it is therefore
necessary to remove the highjackers’ influence from both processes
and to build pressure from organized civil society demanding governments
to change course.
The
story is still unraveling. The two conventions will meet this
year: the CBD in May and the UNFCCC in December. A happy ending
is still possible, but the outcome will depend on civil society’s
capacity to counter corporate influence and to put peoples’ needs
on the conventions’ agendas.
index
FOCUS
ON BIODIVERSITY
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An appeal to COP
9: Biodiversity with and for people
Today the world –
the people’s world – is helplessly witnessing a global crisis
due to a steep rise
in the price of foodstuffs which, as all disasters, affects the
more vulnerable sectors, the more dependent economies, the more
impoverished countries, more seriously.
Many
factors leading to this crisis have been pinpointed: the increase
in the price of fertilizers (caused by the rise in oil prices),
serious droughts in key regions, increased demand by countries
with economies in expansion
– such as India and China. But above all,
because more
farmland is increasingly being turned over to the production of
agrofuels. In fact, out of the world production of grain, less
than half is allocated to human consumption; the difference goes
to animal feed and increasingly, to the production of fuel.
The
dominant global economy is dismantling national food systems and
causing food crops to stop being at the service of people, just
like nature as a whole. In a pathetic parody of King Midas, the
predominant neoliberal and globalizing model converts everything
it touches into goods, business, speculation and profit-making.
In order to achieve this, they have deviated the diverse features
of nature, patronizing all possible types of monocultures:
farm crops, trees, and those of the mind. They have had various
tools to help them: the industrial and exporting agricultural
model of the “Green Revolution” started in the sixties and free
trade through “recipes” and policies imposed by the World Bank,
the IMF, the World Trade Organization and more recently, the Bilateral
Free Trade Agreements.
Technocratic
spheres, where the destiny of people is usually defined, also
reproduce the model and loose total contact with the true situation.
One example is the FAO, with its definition of industrial monoculture
tree plantations as “forests” – taken up by the Convention on
Biological Diversity – completely ignoring the ecosystem concept.
However, local populations that have suffered from the negative
impacts of plantations, have a clear perception of the difference
reflected in the diverse definitions given in the various parts
of the world, according to the experience they have had with these
plantations.
In
a country such as Thailand, where agriculture is of vital importance
for the peasant population, they define eucalyptus trees as the
“selfish tree” because not only do they prevent crops from developing
under them, but also appropriate the water needed for the rice
crops.
In
Chile the vast pine plantations were installed in Mapuche territory
during the Pinochet dictatorship. It is not surprising that they
should be defined as “planted military” because they are green,
stand in line and advance!
In
the Cauca Valley in Colombia, the local people call pine plantations
“forests of silence.” This is due to the fact that the plantations
are lacking any form of life beyond that of the trees. Silence
is thus total.
In
Brazil, people call eucalyptus plantations “Green deserts” as
they do in South Africa. However in the latter country this definition
has been challenged with the argument that in a few square metres
of desert there is more life than in an entire eucalyptus plantation!
Furthermore,
also in South Africa there are people who prefer to define plantations
as “green cancer,” an expression that reflects the uncontainable
progress of the plantations, that advance destroying water, soil,
flora, fauna and the peoples’ means of livelihood, eventually
killing everything...just like cancer does.
In
the State of Sarawak in Malaysia, the local people claim that
eucalyptus and oil palm plantations are much worse that industrial
logging. The reason is that the logging companies enter the forest,
cut down the best trees and leave, taking the timber with them.
But the plantation companies cut down the best trees, burn the
rest and stay!
In
Ecuador there are communities that, not by chance, call eucalyptus
trees “eucas.” The reason is very simple “eucaliptos” contains
the charming diminutive “ito” (little), which these trees don’t
deserve because they are so evil.
A
last example, that in some way summarises all the above definitions,
comes from the state of Espirito Santo in Brazil, where the eucalyptus
plantations were defined as “dead forests that kill everything.”
All
these definitions are a reflection of the fact that the rural
communities are well aware of the meaning of biodiversity because
it has been the sustenance of their ways of life: ranging from
agricultural biodiversity, treasured and transmitted through the
centuries, to the forests that have been another opportunity for
food sovereignty for those who inhabit them and depend on them.
Monoculture
plantations not only devastate local seed diversity but also the
knowledge accompanying it, the cultural identity that bred it,
the food sovereignty that it ensured. The owners of monoculture
plantations – increasingly large agribusiness transnational corporations
- take over the land, the seeds and the destiny of the food and
the peoples.
But
this is not enough for them; they want to strengthen their power
even more with genetic manipulation, making tree plantations tailored
to their business. Transgenic trees threateningly stick out their
green crowns from the test tubes of powerful laboratories related
to famous and not so famous universities, linked to corporate
groups interested in the various points of the business: biotechnology,
the automotive industry, the pulp and paper industry, the energy
industry, the chemical industry, just to name a few. They intend
to install monoculture transgenic tree plantations and even then,
continue to call them forests!
In
this framework, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has
an enormous responsibility in its hands: to define whether biodiversity
is to be at the service of corporations or at the service of people.
The
forthcoming COP 9 must resolve various pending issues, among them
agrofuels, transgenic trees and forest diversity. There has been
no consensus over these issues and therefore the proposed text
will be full of brackets (*). Paraphrasing Helena Paul of Econexus...biodiversity
itself is between brackets.
Regarding
transgenic trees, the CBD will have to decide between a moratorium,
the precautionary principle or no restrictions. The proposal of
a moratorium was submitted by some delegates to CBD in 2006, promoted
by various social organizations. On that occasion, it was
decided that CBD should prepare a report on “the possible negative
environmental, cultural and socio-economic impacts of genetically
modified trees.” This was presented in February at the thirteenth
meeting of SBSTTA. It pointed out that many scientists place “emphasis
on the application of the precautionary principle on considering
the use of genetically modified trees.” But some countries are
attempting to weaken this safeguard, promoting another text that
leaves it between brackets.
Regarding
agrofuels, in spite of the acknowledged and overwhelming evidence
of the negative environmental and social impacts of their large
scale production, CBD is sailing between two waters, acknowledging
the negative impacts but also talking of the positive ones and
it is not categorical in opposing their large scale expansion.
In
general terms, it is alarming that CBD opens up its doors to the
companies responsible for productive, market and consumer models
responsible for so
much destruction and that today can be
part of national
delegations to the convention.
In
order to protect biodiversity, the CBD should give instead
its decided support to community forest
management systems and to traditional
farming systems that have successfully harvested and conserved
biodiversity.
As
expressed in the open letter to CBD, which many social organizations
are supporting (http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/BDC/open_letter_CBD.html),
this excludes the expansion of large-scale monoculture plantations,
and requires that:
-
monoculture tree plantations are excluded from the definition
of forests;
-
all political, technical and financial support should be withdrawn
from monoculture plantations for agrofuels due to their direct
negative impact on biodiversity and food sovereignty;
-
the release of transgenic trees should be banned together with
the use of “terminator” technology.
Only
thus can a biodiversity for and with people be possible.
(*)
The texts over which a consensus has not been reached are left
between square brackets for later discussion.
index
COMMUNITIES AND FORESTS
-
Ecuador: Amnesty Exposes Unjust Criminalization
of Environmental Activists
The
Constituent Assembly formed to discuss and draft a new Ecuadorian
Constitution resolved on 14 March 2008 to grant an amnesty to
357 human rights activists who had been “criminalized for their
protest and resistance actions in defence of their communities
and the environment,” according to an official press release.
Most of the 357 are community and peasant leaders, some of them
indigenous, from communities throughout the country. The criminal
charges against them stemmed from their involvement in grassroots
opposition to mining, oil, hydroelectric and logging projects,
as a means of protecting water supplies and the environment and
defending their communal lands and collective rights. Their crime:
defending life, human rights, and nature.
Local
human rights organizations, such as the Ecumenical Human Rights
Commission (CEDHU), have documented countless cases of the criminalization
of social protest in Ecuador. CEDHU has compiled a list of over
100 cases involving a much larger number of individuals, since
many of the charges are collective, encompassing entire families,
groups or communities. But the dimensions of this problem are
even greater, since many of these cases remain shrouded in anonymity,
unknown and ignored as cases of common crime. “We celebrate this
event as a victory of collective causes over the attempt to individualize
the socio-environmental struggle through the prosecution of leaders
and community members,” said a joint statement released by human
rights organizations right after the amnesty was announced.
Among
those cleared under the amnesty there are a large number of residents
of the Intag valley, an area of incomparable natural wealth covered
by a subtropical rainforest. The valley forms part of the Chocó
bioregion, one of the most biologically diverse regions on the
entire planet. The local communities face the constant threat
of extermination by a transnational mining megaproject but have
continued to struggle unconditionally in defence of the rainforest.
As a result, many community leaders have been brought up on criminal
charges, and close to 100 peasant farmers from the area have faced
legal prosecution. During the course of their trials, held in
local courts, evidence emerged of strategies concocted by the
companies, false statements made by witnesses and irregular proceedings.
In the end, all of the defendants were acquitted.
The
recently announced amnesty represents a further step and is viewed
as highly important by local communities. It implies the full
clearance of guilt on the part of community and peasant leaders
for their participation in legitimate acts of community resistance.
Through the amnesty, an official body is openly and clearly acknowledging
the existence of the unjust criminalization of defenders of the
environment and of human rights, a phenomenon that up until now
had been almost completely ignored by the general public.
The
amnesty has also served to expose many of the dirty tactics to
silence community resistance used by numerous companies with powerful
economic interests in natural resources and raw materials. These
tactics include punishing those who get in the way of environmentally
destructive business projects by legally prosecuting them for
common crimes established in the country’s Criminal Code. The
resulting trials are typically “rigged” by buying witnesses and
sometimes by bribing public officials. It is not unusual for those
accused to end up behind bars. The crimes they are most frequently
sentenced for include sabotage and terrorism, rebellion and attacks
against public officials, aiding and abetting criminal acts, illicit
association, crimes against property (such as theft) and crimes
against persons (such as kidnapping), among others. “It is not
possible that they can violate the rights of communities, destroy
their natural heritage and evict them from their lands under the
pretext of generating income for social development, from which
these communities are excluded outright,” declared CEDHU.
For
these reasons, this major victory in Ecuador has become a reference
point and a successful precedent for other communities facing
similar situations. Moreover, these are not isolated cases in
Latin America.
Through
this amnesty, the systematic persecution of those who oppose extractive
projects that deplete natural resources, the destruction of tropical
rainforests and the violation of human rights has been exposed
and made visible to society and to the national and international
public. Civil society organizations should follow this lead to
demand that other governments adopt similar measures for victims
of the criminalization of social protest in their own countries.
The
significance of this amnesty transcends the borders of Ecuador,
setting an important precedent for peasant struggles criminalized
in the same way in other countries. Many Latin American communities
and members of social or human rights organizations have suffered
or are currently suffering the criminalization of acts of legitimate
struggle and resistance in defence of life and nature (for an
overview of the situation in December 2007 see WRM Bulletin Nş
125 at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/125/viewpoint.html). This phenomenon,
relatively unknown and systematically silenced, has been exposed
and brought to public attention through the amnesty granted by
the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly.
Peasant
communities throughout Ecuador are celebrating this encouraging
development. The amnesty is the result of determined efforts by
the communities affected and human rights and environmental organizations
who continue to work vigilantly to ensure that truth and justice
prevail. We congratulate all of them for this new victory. The
amnesty is a sign that when people fight for it, change is possible.
For
more detailed information, see the website of the Ecuadorian Constituent
Assembly and the statements by its president, Alberto Acosta (in
Spanish) at:
http://asambleaconstituyente.gov.ec/boletines/
amnistia-para-defensores-de-los-derechos-humanos-criminalizados-aprueba-asamblea.do,
http://asambleaconstituyente.gov.ec/blogs/alberto_acosta/
2008/03/14/acosta-“se-ha-hecho-justicia-con-los-perseguidos
-politicos-por-defender-la-naturaleza”/
By
Guadalupe Rodríguez, Salva la Selva, www.salvalaselva.org
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Ghana: Norwegian biofuel company destroyed
local forest to establish a large jatropha (1) plantation
Agriculture
in Northern Ghana accounts for more than 90% of household incomes
and employs more that 70% of the population in the region. Most
of the agricultural production is by small-holders at subsistence
level, reliant on seasonal rainfall which is unpredictable and
sporadic. During the dry season much of the population is idle,
forcing people to migrate to the more prosperous southern parts
of the country where they are employed in menial jobs.
Rural
communities who are desperate for incomes are enticed by developers
who promise them a “better future” under the guise of jobs with
the argument that they are currently only just surviving from
the “unproductive land” and that they stand to earn a regular
income if they give up the land for development. This argument
fails to appreciate the African view of the meaning of the land
to the community. While the initial temptation to give up the
land to earn a wage is great, it portends of an ominous future
where the community’s sovereignty, identity and their sense of
community is lost because of the fragmentation that the community
will suffer.
The
strategy for the acquisition of the land often takes the following
course. The imaginations of a few influential leaders in the community
are captured. They are told about prospects for the community
due to the project and they are swayed with promises of positions
in the company or with monetary inducements. The idea is that
these people do the necessary “footwork” in the villages where
they spread the word about job opportunities. A document is then
prepared, essentially a contract, to lease the land to the company.
In the event of problems, the developer can press their claim
by enforcing the ‘contract’ or agreement. When the legality of
the process is not adequately scrutinized, the developers have
their way but, subject to proper scrutiny, it emerges these contracts
are not legally binding as they have not gone through the correct
legal channels. This is what happened in the Alipe area.
In
November 2007 a team from RAINS (Regional Advisory and Information
Network Systems) discovered massive destruction of vegetation
cover over a large stretch of land near a village called Alipe
within the White Volta River basin about 30 kilometres from Tamale,
the capital town of the Northern region of Ghana. Heavy agricultural
machinery were systematically pulling down trees and decimating
the area a few metres south of the village. The land had been
stripped bare of all its vegetation cover. Enquiry revealed that
the site was to be the beginning of a large jatropha plantation
developed by a Norwegian biofuel company called BioFuel Africa
– a subsidiary of Bio Fuel Norway.
Using
national regulations, RAINS managed to get them to stop the destruction
but not before more than 2 600 hectares of land had been stripped
of its natural vegetation cover. Still, the identity of the company
responsible for the development had not yet been disclosed. They
were described simply as “some white men”. In this community,
like in most parts of Ghana, over 80 percent of the land is held
under communal ownership and more that 70 percent of this land
is managed by traditional ruler-chiefs mainly on behalf the members
of their traditional areas. The chief was very categorical that
he had not made such a grant and that he had also been battling
with those “white people” to stop them – without much success.
He confirmed that he “thumb printed” a document in the company
of the Assemblyman of the area which had been brought to his palace
by the “white people” but he did not confirm its contents. The
Chief was initially unwilling to go against the wishes of his
people as his efforts to stop the developers were being interpreted
by the community as “driving away opportunities to earn an income
during the current dry season”.
After
presentation of the case to the community by RAINS and further
discussions, the community realised that BioFuel Africa’s promises
were really a hoax. The community understood the impact that such
a project would have on their lives individually and on the community
in general and realized that the promise of jobs, shared prosperity
and improved livelihoods – the Company’s main benefit to the community
– were not really commitments but mere campaign gimmicks. But
how long will this hold as they sit idle for the rest of the year
until the rains come in April?
Most
vocal indeed were the women at the session. Looking at BioFuel’s
representative in the face a woman asked, “Look at all the sheanut
trees you have cut down already and considering the fact that
the nuts that I collect in a year give me cloth for the year and
also a little capital. I can invest my petty income in the form
of a ram and sometimes in a good year, I can buy a cow. Now you
have destroyed the trees and you are promising me something you
do not want to commit yourself to. Where then do you want me to
go? What do you want me to do?”
Such
is the story of how a Norwegian biofuel company took advantage
of Africa’s traditional system of communal land ownership and
current climate and economic pressure to claim and deforest large
tracts of land in Kusawgu, Northern Ghana with the intention of
creating “the largest jatropha plantation in the world”.
Excerpted
from “Biofuel land grabbing in Northern Ghana”, by Bakari Nyari,
Vice Chairman of Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems
(RAINS), Ghana and African Biodiversity Network Steering Committee
member,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/agrofuels/Biofuel_Northern_Ghana.pdf
(1)
Jatropha curcas, is indigenous to Central America. Its oily seeds
can be used to produce biodiesel. The plant, particularly the
seeds, is toxic to humans and animals.
index
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Indonesia: Destruction of forests by
pulpwood and oil palm plantations drives climate change
A
recent study published by WWF (1) analyzes deforestation and forest
degradation in Riau Province between 1982 and 2007 and identifies
their main drivers: pulpwood and oil palm industrial plantations.
The
study shows that the fastest rate of deforestation in Indonesia
is occurring in central Sumatra's Riau province, which used to
have 78% of its land covered by forest. In the past 25 years,
some 4.2m hectares (65%) of its tropical forests and peat swamps
have been cleared for industrial plantations.
About
30% of Riau’s forest has been cleared to establish oil palm plantations.
The recent rise of palm oil demand to feed the increasing global
market of agrofuels is fuelling much of the forest clearance.
Industrial
pulpwood plantations also entered the scene. According to the
study: “In the 1980s began the forest conversion boom that covered
Riau with more oil palm concessions than any other province in
Indonesia. Over the last decade the palm oil industry saw the
rise of a serious competitor in Riau: the pulp and paper industry”.
The pressure on Indonesia’s and Riau’s forests is going to increase
as plans to establish tree plantations accelerate.
As
the report says, the "speed and finality" of forest
conversion to feed the ever expanding pulp and paper and palm
oil industries is matched "by no other type of deforestation".
Still,
the problem of deforestation in Riau is not only about biodiversity
loss. Greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest
degradation and peat decomposition and burning in Indonesia have
generated increased attention.
Both
forests and peat soils are important long-term or even permanent,
stores of carbon on Earth. According to the study, “Riau is home
to vast peatlands that are estimated to hold south-east Asia's
largest store of carbon, and contains some of the most biodiverse
ecosystems”. Soil loss from deforestation has resulted in globally
significant CO2 emissions and the much-reported trans-boundary
haze across the Malacca Straits.
“After
2000, forest conversion began focusing on Riau’s peatlands. Long,
deep canals dissect all of Riau’s peat bogs, draining the soil
with canals sometimes more than a meter deep until the loggers,
legal and illegal, can go in to cut the trees and float out the
logs. The peat subsides and the dried-out soil becomes Riau’s
number one source of fires. The fires blanket central Sumatra
and neighboring Singapore and Malaysia with haze for weeks without
end in many years and accelerate the release of untold tons of
CO2.”
Peat
fires as well as forest destruction deprive people from their
livelihoods and have increased poverty, which is now up to four
times more severe in Indonesian peatlands than in the country’s
other lowland areas. The fires have also led to increased illnesses,
with “about 30% of all young children in peatlands in Indonesia
having respiratory diseases and growth inhibition as a result
of peat smoke”.
These
findings add to the many others that urge a drastic change in
public policies in order to halt the present model of production,
trade and consumption which carelessly destroy forests and other
sources of life, irresponsibly change our climate and is criminally
leading us towards extinction.
(1)
“Deforestation, Forest Degradation, Biodiversity Loss and CO2
Emissions in Riau, Sumatra, Indonesia”, 2008, by WWF, Remote Sensing
Solutions and Hokkaido university,
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/riau_co2_report__wwf_id_27feb08_en_lr_.pdf
index
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Peru: Government intent on privatizing
the Amazon for implementing tree plantations
Alan
Garcia’s government is promoting a bill (draft law 840) also known
as the “Forest Law.” It is a law concerning the promotion of private
investment in reforestation and agro-forestry, whereby land with
no forest cover in the Peruvian Amazon – erroneously classed as
deforested wastelands, meaning there are no acquired rights over
them – could be allocated, not as concessions, but as private
property. This would open the door to major capital to establish
large-scale tree plantations, under the guise of “reforestation.”
The
argument used is that in order to promote reforestation, private
investment needs to be attracted and security must be given to
the investors. For this purpose, it is not enough to give them
a 40-year, renewable concession as established in the present
Forestry Law, but allocate them land as “owners” that is to say,
for ever. Furthermore, when the State allocates land under ownership
it can no longer control or make demands in the same way as if
it were under concession.
There
is strong resistance to the bill, among other things because it
is contrary to article 66 of the Constitution, which establishes
the public nature of renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
It has also been denounced that no preliminary land survey has
been made to delimit the extension of deforested lands that could
be invested in, or their location. This fact would enable the
new law to become a perverse incentive to encourage deforestation
and lay waste the Amazon.
Furthermore,
in Loreto (as in Ucayali or in Madre de Dios) there are no large
areas of free deforested wasteland areas according to an article
published by Servindi (1). The article points out that “the traditional
slash and burn agricultural model used by the peasants implies
leaving fallow for 10 to 20 years land that is “tired”, to enable
a process of secondary forest regeneration and to recover soil
nutrients. Most of the secondary forests in regeneration in Loreto
have owners, although these may not have deeds.” Another factor
is that “out of the almost 2,500 indigenous and peasant communities
existing in Loreto, less than 500 have deeds and the rest has
no documentation whatsoever certifying their ownership rights
over farms and forests they use and have used for hundreds of
years for their subsistence.”
The
First Amazon Summit meeting was held on 17 February in Pichanaki,
Junín, where, among other things, the rights of native communities
over lands in the Central Forest and in the Amazon were proclaimed
and the “intention of Alan Garcia’s Government to auction off
our Amazon in favour of large foreign capitals” was rejected (2).
The
Second Amazon Summit was held in Pucallpa, Ucayali region on 12
and 13 March. On this occasion the “Platform of the originating
Amazon peoples before the Peruvian State and the international
community against a single centred world” was re-launched (3).
Among the items on their action plan is the demand to “definitively
shelve the Legislative package that contains the Draft Forest
Law,” because “with this Bill the intention is to dispossess us
of our territories and the natural resources of the Amazon. We
therefore demand that our own initiative of community development
as a people is taken into account, and not to discriminate against
us in favour of big capital.”
Many
demonstrations and strikes took place in the central forest zone,
in rejection of law 840. In March this year, in the web page of
“Con nuestro Perú” (with our Peru) it was reported that “several
thousand indigenous people from the Shipibo, Konibo, Ashaninka,
Yine and Cocama peoples marched through the main streets of the
city of Pucallpa to ask the Peruvian State to shelve the 840 Bill
and the 2133 Bill or Forestry Law. This peaceful march, that was
considered to be one of the largest indigenous demonstrations
that had taken place in the region, was joined by students, professional
people and indigenous mayors.”(4).
Servindi
reports that (5), the Romero group is behind the government’s
initiative and has ten million dollars to purchase 2 million hectares
of land in the Amazon as soon as the Bill is adopted. Part of
the two million hectares would be dedicated to carbon sink plantations
with the aim of trading carbon on the New York stock-market under
the Kyoto Protocol Mechanism. Some of the beneficiaries would
be pension fund administrators, specific power groups and high
officials of the present government.
As
stated at the First Amazon Summit, “We declare the Amazon to be
in a state of emergency because of the danger hanging over our
peoples and we call on each one of the Amazon Regions to prevent
the consummation of the violation of our human and constitutional
rights, the right to life and to the environment, to the biodiversity
of our water and energy resources.”
Article
based on information provided by Alain
A. Salas Dávila, ONG INCODES, e-mail:
ongincodes@malko.com,
www.malko.com./ongincodes; (1) “Ley de la Selva y Desarrollo
Regional” (Forest Law and Regional Development), José Álvarez
Alonso, Servindi,
http://www.servindi.org/archivo/2008/3346; (2) First Amazon
Summit, 16 and 17 February 2008.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Amazonia/Cumbre.pdf; (3) Platform
of the originating Amazon peoples before the Peruvian State and
the international community against a single centred world.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Peru/Pueblos_Originarios_Amazonia.pdf;
(4) Ucayali Indigenous peoples march against the Forest Law, 20
March 2008.
http://www.connuestroperu.com/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=1681&Itemid=32; (5) Peru:
żPor qué es criticado el Proyecto 840, “Ley de la Selva”?(Why
is Bill 840 “Forest Law” criticised?) ,
January 2008, Servindi,
http://www.servindi.org/archivo/2008/3332
index
-
Second generation agrofuels will destroy
ecosystems and worsen the food crisis
The
world is undergoing an acute food crisis with soaring prices for
basic food and desperate food-related riots that threaten political
stability in many Third World countries. By the end of March,
prices of rice and wheat were about double their levels a year
earlier, and maize prices were over a third higher. According
to FAO, the import bill for cereals for the world’s poorest countries
will rise by 56% in 2007/08, after a 37% increase in 2006/07.
The
crisis in food prices is the result of a combination of factors,
among which the reduction of supplies due to farmers’ switch from
growing crops for food to crops for agrofuels. Rich countries have
promoted the production of agrofuels despite strong arguments warning
about the ecological and social disaster they would imply on the
world's food security and on local peoples’ livelihoods and environments.
However,
deaf to good sense and wide-open to a new market opportunity,
second generation agrofuels are being heralded, to be based largely
upon woody biomass. According to Glen Barry (1) “It is a myth
that enough unused forest and agricultural waste, and a surplus
of land to grow various grasses and wood, exists to base an industrial
energy source. The same will be true of ethanol production from
trees. Cellulosic ethanol will be the ultimate deforestation biofuel,
equivalent to dismantling and burning your home to keep warm.”
Dr.
Barry explains that “As with agrofuels, a cellulosic ethanol industry
will indirectly destroy forests and lead to more costly food by
increasing land pressures upon natural forests and agricultural
crop lands. We can expect more vast, lifeless, toxic and water
dependent monocultures of genetically modified Frankentrees on
stolen deforested lands at a net carbon loss. And the agrofuels
will be sold to us as a green product, perhaps certified as ‘well-managed’
by WWF, FSC, and other forest sell-outs”.
The
promotion of cellulosic ethanol would thus result in increased
clearing of terrestrial ecosystems: “As if the world's forests,
land base, ecosystems and habitats do not have enough demands
upon them already, let us try to use them to power seven billion
consumers in their drive to each have it all. Think this a needlessly
harsh appraisal? Name one time the global economic system has
demonstrated self-control in matching growth to underlying resources.”
Barry warns that “The Earth system is perilously close to failure
and cannot stand more environmental solutions based upon greater
and more resource use for current, much less increased, human
population and consumption. There is a finite amount of energy
that can be taken, and waste put into, the global biosphere before
it becomes uninhabitable. And we are reaching or have passed that
point.”
“It
is imperative that we embrace an environmental agenda based upon
what is actually needed to maintain and restore ecological systems
upon which all life depends. It is too late to put our efforts
into anything else than the full package of societal and personal
change necessary to maintain the biosphere. There are no solutions
worth pursuing at this late date other than those that are ecologically
sufficient. Anything less is more of the same disease that is
assuredly destroying being”, concludes Glenn Barry.
(1)
“Burning Forests to Feed Cars. The Ecological Madness of biofuels,
Take Two”, Glenn Barry, March 15, 2008, Ecological Internet, Earth
Meanders, GlenBarry@EcologicalInternet.org,
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/;
Posted by: "Rachel Smolker" rsmolker@uvm.edu
index
COMMUNITIES AND TREE MONOCULTURES
- The Brazil of Stora
Enso: Violence against women and made-to-measure legislation
In
Brazil there are two conflicting models: that of the large monoculture
plantations (ranging from eucalyptus, soy-beans and rice to sugar-cane),
on lands held by a few large companies; and that of the peasant,
indigenous and landless communities that build collective and
diverse productive spaces and demand the historically promised
agrarian reform.
In
the framework of the week of International Women’s Day and as
a way of strengthening 8 March as a day of struggle for peasant
women against agri-business and in favour of the Brazilian people’s
food sovereignty, 900 women, members of Via Campesina in Rio Grande
do Sul (Brazil) occupied 2100 hectares of monoculture eucalyptus
plantations belonging to the Swedish-Finnish transnational company,
Stora Enso –the Taruma ranch, located in
the municipality of Rosario do Sul (State of Rio Grande do Sul),
in the frontier zone with Uruguay. The fact that Stora-Enso
is the owner of these lands involves a violation of legal provisions,
which prohibit the acquisition of land in frontier zones along
a 150 km strip from the bordering country. Stora Enso has endeavoured
to elude the regulation, purchasing land through a fictitious
company, the Azenglever company, whose owners are two important
company officials (1)
The
occupation of this ranch by the women
of Via Campesina had various objectives:
-
To demand that these lands illegally acquired by Stora Enso be
expropriated in favour of the Agrarian Reform.
-
To demand that projects proposing a reduction of the frontier
strip be withdrawn from the Senate and the Federal Chamber, as
they will only lead to greater land concentration in benefit of
foreign companies, while involving a threat to the ecosystems
and to Brazil’s sovereignty, causing greater environmental destruction
and more poverty for the people.
-
to denounce the impacts of monoculture eucalyptus plantations
– depletion of water sources, elimination of flora and fauna due
to agrochemicals applied in the plantations – that end up by affecting
peasant farming, as can be testified by the rural population of
the Municipality of Encruzilhada do Sul, where Aracruz Celulose
has an enormous green desert. (2)
The
action against Stora Enso was quickly repelled by repression.
The Rio Grande do Sul Military Brigade used extreme violence against
the 900 women and 250 children who occupied the Stora Enso plantations.
Later they showed on their bodies the marks of rubber bullets,
fragments of bombs and horse-hoof marks, among other atrocities.
The
speed of the Rio Grande government’s reaction in support of Stora
Enso may be explained by the fact that the present State Governor’s
electoral campaign was partly financed (according to official
data from the High Electoral Court) by the pulp companies, Aracruz,
Votorantim and …Stora Enso.
However,
in the midst of so much violence, the solidarity of the population
of the frontier town of Santana do Livramento prevailed, guaranteeing
food and medical care, lawyers contributed voluntarily to avoid
greater outrages, some few parliamentarians put pressure on the
federal and state governments, demanding the adoption of measures
against Stora Enso and the punishment of those responsible for
acts of violence against women, and number of
people from different parts of the world sent messages
in solidarity with the women’s struggles, in indignation over
the violence.
As
a response to the violence the women stepped up their commitment,
expressing that for each woman who suffered
violence, ten more will appear, willing to resist the death plans
being carried out by companies such as Aracruz, Stora Enso (through
its company Derflin) and Votorantim, in addition to the Granflor
plantation company, that are planning to plant 400,000 hectares
of monoculture tree plantations in the next ten years in Rio Grande
do Sul.
Contrary
to what happened with the peasant women, the companies did not
have to face any repression in order to achieve their objectives.
The result of the pressure they exerted was that on 9 April, 19
out of a total of 29 members of the Rio Grande do Sul State Environmental
Council (Consema) voted in favour and adopted the much questioned
Environmental Forestry Ordinance, which had been under preparation
for almost three years. The original plan established limits in
the State regarding the plantation of alien species – such as
eucalyptus, pine and acacia. Throughout 2006 no licences were
granted and only temporary authorizations were issued. In 2007
the pulp industries stepped up pressure considering that the situation
was damaging to their business, arguing that the government encouraged
their projects but hindered the progress of investments on refusing
authorization for the planting of trees. The result was
the withdrawal of the ceiling on percentages of area authorized
for plantation (3). The decision “will compromise from 500 thousand
to one million hectares of our native rural areas in one generation.
When this happens, the present managers of public affairs will
be dead and no one will be able to question them or make them
take on their responsibilities” stated Celso Marques, a member
of the Upper Council of the Gaucha Association for Protection
of the Natural Environment (Agapan).
And
he added “the means that the government is using to impose the
interests of the major national and foreign companies trading
in timber-pulp-paper, form a chain of legal and administrative
irregularities. These range from a real government intervention
in the state environmental body, Fepam, successively changing
its directors, imposing a regime of terror with threats to the
officials and effective persecution of the technicians who, safeguarding
public service, were not in agreement with the government’s political
impositions in the sector’s regulations, to the culmination of
irregularities and legislation and ethical violations as was the
adoption of the Environmental Forestry Zonation in the State Environmental
Council.” (4)
Two
models are confronting and excluding each other: on one hand the
Brazil of profit, of transnational corporations, of concentration
that charges in with monoculture agribusiness plantations, counting
on the support of power and violence. On the other, the Brazil
of women, of peasants, indigenous people, defending themselves
with solidarity, conviction and courage. We pay tribute to the
latter.
(1)
Manifesto of the Women of Via Campesina, March 2008,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/Manifesto_Mulheres_Via_Campesina.html
(2)
Letter of the women of Via Campesina de RS,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/Mulheres_Via_Campesina_Mar%E7o.html
(3)
“Zoneamento para plantio de florestas é aprovado”, 9 April 2008,
Zero Hora,
http://www.clicrbs.com.br/zerohora/jsp/default.jsp?uf=1&local
=1§ion=Economia&newsID=a1823196.xml
(4)
“Perda total do Estado de Direito”, 13 de abril de 2008, RS Urgente!,
http://www.rsurgente.net/2008/04/perda-total-do-estado-de-direito.html
index
-
Colombia: Oil palm plantation workers
in Puerto Wilches on strike
The
municipality of Puerto Wilches, located in the Central Zone defined
by the Agricultural Plan for the Implementation of the Biodiesel
Programme, is home to much of the agricultural activity in the
department (province) of Santander. According to the Agricultural
Plan, there are roughly 21,000 hectares of oil palm plantations
in the municipality, representing 91.7% of the department’s palm
oil output.
Oil
palm plantations invaded Puerto Wilches, destroying the original
wetland and tropical rainforest vegetation, after large landholders
succeeded in acquiring ownership of the land. As the Agricultural
Plan itself recognizes, the destruction of these ecosystems “has
had a direct influence on the extinction of varieties of flora
and fauna and on the decrease in water resources which has modified
the structure and composition of the soils.”
Despite
the enormous cost involved, the expansion of oil palm plantations
in the region has not benefited the residents of the area in any
way. According to the 2005 census, the rural region of North Santander
presents low levels of socioeconomic development, reflected in
an Unsatisfied Basic Needs Index rating of 45.4% – a figure that
drops to 21.9% for the department of Santander as a whole when
urban areas are included. (1)
In
December of 2002, we reported on the abysmal working conditions
on the oil palm plantations of the region, as described by a representative
of the oil palm sector workers organization in the department
of Santander (see WRM Bulletin Nş 65).
There
are approximately 5,000 oil palm sector workers in the region,
yet only 610 are directly employed by the companies that own the
plantations. The rest are members of so-called work cooperatives,
which pay an average of less than 120 dollars a month, far below
the legal minimum wage. Workers employed through
cooperatives work for up to 16 hours a day, must pay for their
own working tools and other equipment, and are charged stiff fines
for picking unripe or overripe fruit. They are not granted even
such minimum rights as pensions, health insurance or family allowances.
The dramatic situation they face is reminiscent of the conditions
suffered by Colombian workers when capitalism took hold in the
country in the first decades of the 20th century. (2)
On
30 January, 350 workers on the Monterrey oil palm plantation in
Puerto Wilches began a strike that quickly spread to the rest
of the plantations in the municipality. There are now over 2,500
workers on strike against the Monterrey, Bucarelia, Brisas, Agropalma
and Agrícola del Norte companies. They are demanding individual
labour contracts, higher wages, and the elimination of fines based
on the quality of fruit picked. They are also demanding that the
companies pay for their transportation to and from the plantations,
food, work clothes and tools – costs that the workers are currently
obliged to cover themselves.
The
oil palm industry workers and residents of Puerto Wilches are
calling on the Colombian government to take responsibility for
protecting the rights of the workers and ensuring that they are
paid decent salaries, because “they are ultimately the ones who
are generating wealth.”
During
a community assembly in February, the residents of Puerto Wilches
resolved to call a civic strike to show their support for the
oil palm workers. The strike was staged on 14 and 15 February,
followed by a demonstration on 18 February. Both actions met with
violent repression by public security forces, as denounced by
the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) trade union federation.
(3)
As
the Colombian human rights organization Espacio de Trabajadores
y Trabajadoras de Derechos Humanos reported in a press release,
“Social and trade union organizations in the region have pointed
out that the expansion of oil palm plantations poses a threat
to food security, because large concentrations of oil palm trees
impoverish the soil and inhibit the growth of other types of vegetation.
As a result, local residents pay a high price for a crop that
leaves very little wealth in their municipality."
“The
uprising has come at a time when the quality of life of the workers
is extremely poor, due to the lack of workplace security. A worker
died in 2007, apparently because of agrochemicals that are handled
without proper protective gear. Working conditions are established
through work cooperatives that serve as subcontractors and intermediaries
for the large companies. ‘Outsourcing’ is a mechanism established
by the state to benefit employers, since it allows them to evade
their responsibility to provide employees with social security
and benefits.” (http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/2008/02/80323.php)
CUT
accuses the government of encouraging outsourcing and promoting
the legalization of work cooperatives, temporary employment agencies
and all other forms of precarious employment that serve to cut
labour costs and deprive workers of their most basic rights. In
a statement released on 21 February, CUT stressed that this hiring
model “has spread across the length and breadth of our territory,
sowing poverty and contributing to the worsening of the difficult
social and economic conditions faced by the population.” (4)
Staged
in defiance of threats against trade union leaders and the use
of tear gas to break up demonstrations, despite the presence of
children and pregnant women, the uprising in Puerto Wilches is
a milestone in the defence of the rights of oil palm sector workers.
(1)
General Census 2005, Unsatisfied Basic Needs, National Statistics
Department,
http://www.dane.gov.co/files/censo2005/nbi_censo2005.pdf
(2)
Communiqué from the Press Office of Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo,
of the Polo Democrático Alternativo, posted by Carlos A. Vicente,
information officer for Latin America, GRAIN, email: carlos@grain.org
(3)
“Huelga de trabajadores de CTA en Puerto Wilches”, CUT website,
http://www.cut.org.co//index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=955&Itemid=456
(4)
Press release from the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia
(CUT), 21 February 2008,
http://www.abpnoticias.com/boletin_temporal/
contenido/comunicados/359.html
index
- Ecuador: Social and
environmental impacts of oil palm
The
Palmeras del Ecuador Company was established in the Ecuadorian
Amazon, in the Province of Sucumbios, Shushufindi Canton, at the
end of the seventies.
The
former Institute for Agrarian Reform and Settlement (Instituto
de Reforma Agraria y Colonización - IERAC) granted a concession
to the company of 10,000 hectares of land, considered to be “waste
land,” deliberately ignoring that these were ancestral lands of
the Indigenous Siona and Secoya peoples and nationalities. This
led to their almost complete extermination because of the occupation
of their lands.
The
method used by the company to install its palm plantations was
to clearcut the entire rainforest, build drainage to dry out the
marshy areas and use herbicides to kill off the weeds. As a result,
the tropical forest in the area was totally destroyed. According
to local testimonials “the palm lords took the best land and the
peasants took the land that was left over.”
People
from the community and men coming from outside work in the company’s
plantations. Among the workers there are two situations: those
who work under a signed contract and those who have no contract.
In the first case they have health insurance, social security
and legal guarantees. This is not the case with those who work
without a contract and who are not protected by the law.
Women
who work in the plantations have to do the same work as the men.
Each person – man or woman – is responsible for a certain number
of plots and the work done is measured by: 1) the number of trees
pruned; 2) the number of bunches cut and loaded; 3) gathering
and cleaning of seeds on the ground; 4) clearing the land, by
cutting the woodland in the whole plot and leaving the land clean.
A
local woman tells us: “we have no protection...if we are pregnant
we have none of the benefits of the law, the office workers do
have this right, but us women who work in the plantations, we
don’t have it.”
Spraying
is an activity carried out by men and by women, with back-packs
loading 12 litres. Very often those who have been spraying come
home feeling dizzy, their bodies ache and they feel nauseous because
of the chemicals used in spraying. One woman tells us that her
son “was spraying and he started to get patches all over his body,
his skin got mottled and he had a boil, his body became ugly,
he didn’t even want to get up, the company people took him away
and put in a drip, they had him there all day and he came back
better. After that he became frightened and went off to Santo
Domingo.”
In
addition to suffering from the same problems as the men when they
also work, they are also affected when they don’t. A woman explained
this situation by saying: “For us women, caring for the family,
the children and the husbands who work in the company is a worry.
When they come back sick we have to spend a lot of money on medicine
to cure them. The days they are sick they don’t go to work and
therefore don’t earn. We have to leave our daily chores and therefore
we too don’t earn our living. It is a lot of expense.”
A
special problem is that of water pollution. Although the populated
centre has tap water coming from a well, the people used the river
Raya to wash clothes and for recreational activities such as bathing
and children’s games. Today it is known as “dirty river,” it is
in the middle of the palm plantation and absolutely polluted.
When people bathe in the river they come out with their whole
body itching. It has been observed that a lot of drainage in the
plantation ends up in the river. Both spraying products and waste
from washing the pumps end up in the marshes and eventually the
water reaches the river. Those who are not aware of this and drink
water from the marshes or drainage suffer from diarrhoea and vomiting.”
Another
problem affecting both the health and the economy of the local
population is the so called “Stable Fly.” This plague originates
from the Palmeras del Ecuador Company’s practice of fertilizing
the land by placing around each plant the waste left from the
bunches of palm fruit. The community complains that the fly breeds
in the places where this waste is left. They say that “it is a
fierce fly that stings all the animals, the cows, the horses and
even the pigs, it also stings people, and the sting of these flies
is severe.”
The
problem is serious: “the quantity of flies is such that the animals’
heads are black with so many flies. When the flies sting the animals
they try to run away and go into the forest, so we have to go
and look for them until we find them. With the flies attacking,
the cattle can’t eat in peace. During the day the cattle don’t
eat, they go out at night so the flies don’t bother them.”
On
applying the waste around the palm trees and causing the fly to
proliferate, peasant economy is seriously affected because the
cattle – an important source of the peasants’ livelihood – on
being attacked by the flies do not eat properly, getting thin
and not producing any milk and in some cases, even dying. Furthermore,
the animals escape from the areas where there are more flies and
leave the peasants’ farms so they have to spend a lot of time
in recovering their animals and neglect other tasks on the farm.
What
the company calls “stable fly” and many local people call the
“fierce fly” is also a problem to health and those most affected
are children. It causes fevers, headaches and skin irritation.
In
spite of the pressure, the company continues to fertilize with
this waste and, because it coincides with the pressure the company
is exerting on the peasants to sell their farms, it leads us to
suppose that the application of waste is also a measure to force
the sales. It is interesting to note a testimony saying that “here
in the populated centre the fly has not attacked with any force
because the company does not put any waste nearby.” However where
it does put the waste is “where the farms are, where the cattle
is and that is where it bothers.”
By
Ivonne Ramos, Acción Ecológica,
cbosques@accionecologica.org
index
-
Malaysia: Severe health effects of pesticides
on workers in oil palm plantations
Pesticides
negatively impact the health and lives of millions of agricultural
pesticide users, their communities and consumers worldwide –they
also cause great damage to biodiversity and the environment. The
pesticides used in oil palm plantations have adverse impacts on
human health and the environment. Agricultural workers in oil
palm plantations are heavily exposed to pesticides and suffer
a range of dangerous acute and chronic health effects, though
many remain tragically ignorant of the causes.
Tenaganita
and PAN AP have carried out numerous surveys in Malaysian oil
palm plantations during the last few years which have revealed
horrendous working conditions. These include workers spraying
pesticides without any knowledge of their hazards; not being provided
with protective clothing; and even cases where the labels are
removed from the pesticide bottles before being given to workers
so that they are unable to identify the pesticide used.
Workers
complaining about pesticide poisoning are treated callously by
the medical personnel and often prescribed paracetemol for pain
and skin creams for skin irritation. Workers in oil palm plantations,
are reluctant to report pesticide poisoning for fear of losing
their jobs or retaliation, or because they cannot afford the time
off or medical costs. The impacts of pesticides compromise people’s
ability to work, earn a living, and conduct community and livelihood
functions.
Long
term chronic impacts (including systemic damage and diseases,
cancer, reproductive health problems and hormonal disruption)
seriously threaten rural communities’ long term survival. Endocrine
disruption can affect particularly unborn babies —disturbing growth
and formation, causing systemic and functional deficiencies like
lowered IQ levels, susceptibility to disease, behavioural problems,
and effects on future fertility. These impacts on children seriously
threaten the future of whole communities, and could mire communities
in more social and economic disintegration, greater poverty and
suffering.
Women
are particularly susceptible due to physiological characteristics
and socio-cultural and economic circumstances as they are often
the poorest of the poor. Impacts on women’s health (and children)
are critical as the pesticides women workers spray are potentially
toxic to the foetus. Women can be exposed even if they do not
directly apply the pesticides, and yet are less likely to receive
training to reduce risks. Such is the case with the Glufosinate
ammonium, a groundwater contaminant that has toxicity to humans,
including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity,
neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.
Some
of the pesticides used in oil palm plantations may produce chronic
illness and death in humans --like endosulfan, an endocrine disrupting
chemical insecticide that acts primarily on the nervous system
known to interfere with hormonal mechanisms at very low concentrations;
2,4-D dimethylamine and diuron, that are potential carcinogens;
glyphosate, cypermethrin and carbofuran, maneb, that are possible
endocrine disrupting pesticides.
Paraquat
is a highly hazardous pesticide that is known to cause the highest
number of poisoning of agricultural workers in the oil palm plantations
in Malaysia. The Malaysian government announced a ban on paraquat
but the ban has not been implemented due to the pressure from
the industry. The symptoms of paraquat poisoning are nosebleeds,
tearing of the eyes, contact dermatitis, skin irritation and sores,
nail discolouration, dropping of the nails, and abdominal ulcerations.
Damage to the lungs, for example, may not be evident until several
days after absorption. There is no antidote against paraquat poisoning.
The outcome can be fatal and in these cases death results from
respiratory failure. In 1994, the Danish government had imposed
bans and severe restrictions on 7 pesticides -including paraquat-
it considered a threat to health, the environment or both. The
Danish decision to ban paraquat, enacted in 1995, was based on
its persistence, and its toxicity to non-target organisms.
However,
as the Pesticide Action Network’s regional office for Asia and
the Pacific (PAN AP) has already expressed, “in Malaysia the industries’
profits override the health considerations of the people.”
By
Sarojeni V. Rengam, PAN Asia and the Pacific, E- mail:
sarojeni.rengam@panap.net and
panap@panap.net, www.panap.net
index
CARBON TRADE
-
Offsetting Democracy
Carbon
trading and offsets distract attention
from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action
that needs to be taken in the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Promoting more effective and empowering approaches to climate
change involves moving away from the blinkered reductionism of
free-market dogma, the false-economy of supposed quick fixes,
the short-term self interest of big business.
The
concept that underpins the whole system of carbon trading and
offsetting is that a ton of carbon here is exactly the same as
a ton of carbon there. That is, if it’s cheaper to reduce emissions
in India than it is in the UK, then you can achieve the same climate
benefit in a more cost-effective manner by making the reduction
in India.
But,
the seductive simplicity of this concept is based on collapsing
a whole series of important considerations, such as land rights,
North-South inequalities, local struggles, corporate power and
colonial history, into the single question of cost-effectiveness.
The mechanisms of emissions trading and offsetting represent a
reductionist approach to climate change that negates complex variables
in favour of cost-effectiveness.
So
when the Dutch FACE Foundation plants trees in Kibale national
park in Uganda to offset consumer flights, it ignores the fact
that the land has been the site of violent evictions in the recent
past and is still hotly contested by the people who once lived
there. When companies buy carbon credits in the EU Emissions Trading
scheme, the cheapness of the supposed emissions reductions is
all that is important. But, any offsetting in Southern countries
to justify emissions in Northern countries completely bypasses
the issue of the extreme disparity in the levels of per capita
carbon consumption and assumes that emissions reductions in the
South can be treated like another colonial commodity to be extracted
and traded.
Even
within the cost-obsessed logic of the market, the use of carbon
trading and offsetting goes against common sense. The point of
the system is to provide opportunities for Northern companies
to delay making the costly transition to low-carbon technologies.
This is indeed, ‘cost effective’ in the short term, as it’s easier
and cheaper to buy carbon credits rather than go about the complicated
business of making those changes, but studies have shown time
and again that the longer we delay making those changes, the more
expensive and difficult it will be, in terms of society enmeshing
itself even further in the web of fossil-fuel dependency, and
of even more costly adaptation to the exacerbated impacts of climate
change.
There
has already been some documentation of how offsetting can be used
by countries to avoid taking responsibility for meeting their
Kyoto targets, and how fundamentally unsustainable companies like
Land Rover, BP and BA can use offsets in an attempt to garner
undeserved environmental legitimacy. What is more disturbing are
the new ways in which offsets are being creatively applied by
the corporate sector in order to further their agenda.
The
corrosive influence of offsets illogic is now not even restricted
to the sphere of climate change and carbon emissions. Coca
Cola has been the subject of sustained campaigns by social justice
groups all over the world, but its business practices in India
have received particular attention. In 2003, the Delhi-based Centre
for Science and the Environment issued a report on laboratory
tests that showed pesticide and insecticide levels of between
eleven-times and seventy-times the maximum set by the European
Union for drinking water, in a number of soft drinks being sold
by Coca Cola in India. The US-based India Resource Centre has
made numerous allegations against the company, saying that it
causes severe water shortages for local communities, and that
its bottling facilities pollute the surrounding soil and groundwater.
In March 2004, officials in Kerala, a state in Southern India,
shut down one of Coca Cola’s bottling plants over claims by local
communities and activists that it had drained and polluted local
water supplies.
In
August 2007, while he sipped a can of Diet Coke in front of the
distinctive World Wildlife Fund (WWF) panda logo, the CEO of Coca
Cola, Neville Isdell announced a $20 million dollar partnership
with WWF that would aim to “replace every drop of water we use
in our beverages and their production.” Aside from plans to reduce
and recycle the water being used, the third component of the package
was to replenish. This replenishment wouldn’t be taking place
at the sites of the water depletion, but through a series of projects
taking place in other parts of the world – effectively water offsets.
This
$20 million sum (which represents less than 1% of Coca Cola’s
enormous $2.4 billion annual advertising budget) is being used
to counteract the huge amount of negative publicity that Coca
Cola has received through its practices of water depletion and
pollution in countries like India. The company has maintained
a vigorous campaign of denial of responsibility for any of the
devastating impacts that such communities have suffered, so by
using water offsets, it can play the corporate good guy in other
parts of the world without having to even acknowledge the damage
it has caused elsewhere.
The
potential for water offsets isn’t limited to just individual acts
of corporate greenwash. Some commentators, like John Regan, a
carbon credit-supplier on the Chicago Climate Exchange, sees Coca
Cola’s water offset scheme as “an encouraging sign of the nascent
need for a water-credit trading scheme.” The idea is that
if one company didn’t control its water pollution sufficiently,
it would have to purchase credits from another company that had
controlled its water pollution beyond its target.
Like
carbon trading, such a scheme would provide ample opportunity
for obscure accountancy procedures and the flurry of market activity
to give the impression of activity and mask the fact that very
little happens in reality to address the fundamental issues of
environmental degradation and social injustice.
Many
other schemes to commodify and trade away environmental problems
have been proposed or are in development, including landfill trading,
endangered species trading and wetlands banking. The irony is
that it is the perpetual expansion of market economies that has
created such pressure on natural resources and threatened
all manner of ecosystems with the soaring levels of industrial
pollution. Now, those same market forces are being put forward
as the panacea to our multiple environmental ills. This commodification
agenda has little to do with public interest – it’s more about
the opportunities for businesses to capitalise on the transactions
of such new markets. What is claimed to be a cheaper solution
for industry to meet environmental standards transforms a political
and social issue into a market issue, thus offsetting democracy.
If
we are to properly grapple with the issue of climate change, we
need to develop and apply a systemic analysis that goes beyond
the fixation with cost or even carbon dioxide, and promote synergies
with other important struggles in the areas of trade, finance,
human rights, biodiversity, environmental justice and democracy.
By
Kevin Smith, Carbon Trade Watch/Transnational Institute (first
published in March/April 2008 Resurgence Magazine), e-mail:
kevin@carbontradewatch.org,
sent by the author.
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