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WRM Bulletin
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The launch of the anti-plantations campaign Large-scale tree plantations are having grave social and environmental impacts in many countries of the world. While governments and international organizations promote this forestry model, more and more people rise in opposition against it. Its promoters' real aims (power, profits) are hidden under a "green" guise: the plantation of "forests" in a world facing deforestation and climate change. This environmental discourse, which has little or no influence on the people living in the plantation sites, is aimed at uninformed -mostly urban- audiences, which constitute the main potential support for the plantations industry. The World Rainforest Movement has for many years been supporting the struggles of local peoples against these industrial-scale tree monocrops and building knowledge and alliances to launch an international campaign against it. In June this year, the WRM organized an international meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, to focus on this issue. The meeting, attended by concerned people from 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, North America and Oceania, resulted in a unanimous decision to launch a campaign against this destructive model. The aims of the campaign will be: 1) To support local people struggling against plantations To facilitate the discussion, some people were invited to make presentations on some country situations which hold some of the largest plantations on earth, which are having important negative impacts: Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and South Africa. At the same time, presentations were also made about some important actors which can either promote or destimulate plantations: the influential Finnish forestry consultancy Jaakko Poyry, the World Bank and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests. What follows are brief summaries of the different cases and issues presented and discussed at the meeting.
The expansion of tree monocultures, especially in the South, is favoured by the combination of inexpensive land, low labour costs, fast tree-growth, subsidies, support from international "aid" agencies and multilateral development banks, technology provided by northern suppliers and advice by northern consultancies. Plantations are not forests. Plantations are uniform agroecosystems that substitute natural ecosystems and their biodiversity, either in natural forests (e.g.: Chile, Brazil, Indonesia) or in grasslands (e.g.: Uruguay, South Africa). When natural ecosystems are substituted by large-scale tree plantations they usually result in negative environmental and social impacts: decrease in water production, modifications in the structure and composition of soils, alteration in the abundance and richness of flora and fauna, encroachment on indigenous peoples' forests, eviction of peasants and indigenous peoples from their lands, loss of livelihoods. Pulpwood plantations Industrial tree plantations occupy more than 100 million hectares worlwide. This production model is not based upon the material or spiritual needs of local people, neither aimed to favour them or their environment. Their goal is to provide the global paper industry with cheap raw material –mainly from eucalyptus- to assure the present overconsumption of paper and paper products, particularly in the North. Already 29% of the fiber used in the paper industry comes from fast-growing plantations and this figure is increasing. Local people and social organizations from Brazil to Hawaii and from Spain to Congo have organized against this model. Nevertheless we need to be aware of some difficulties: generalized public opinion that planting trees is a good thing for the environment and for the preservation of natural forests, increase of paper consumption shown as associated to education and literacy in underdeveloped countries, lack of serious environmental impact assessments, proposal of alternatives to the dominant model, etc. Timber plantations The production scheme and consequences of timber plantations -pine, teak or other species- are similar to those of pulpwood plantations, with some differences in management, since they aim at the production of timber. Oil palm plantations Among non-timber plantations, oil palm is especially important. Global consumption of palm oil products increased 32% in the last five years. In Malaysia -the major palm oil exporter in the world- and in Indonesia, natural forests are being felled or set on fire to clear land for these plantations. Peasants are deprived of their lands and resources. Oil palm companies were responsible for fires that destroyed 80,000 hectares of forests in Indonesia this year.Plantations are expanding in Ivory Coast, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador and other countries with similar negative environmental impacts. Carbon sink plantations Even if OECD countries are responsible for 77% of the world fossil fuel-related emissions of CO2 -whose increasing concentration in the atmosphere is one of the main causes of global warming- they advocate for a "solution" that consists on using the photosynthetic activity of tree leaves to capture CO2 and retain carbon in the wood. These so-called "carbon sinks" are fast-growing species' plantations to be installed in the South. The model is simple: the North will continue emiting CO2 to the atmosphere and the South will be responsible of capturing it throught the new installed "forest cover". They call it "joint implementation" and is the most recent argument used by plantation promoters to justify their activity. According to one calculation, 300 million hectares of fast-growing trees are required to absorb the annual global emissions of CO2 if the present rate of emissions continues, as is expectated. There’s no scientific evidence of their efficiency, since their capacity to capture CO2 can be much influenced by climate change. The above named four types of plantations have commonalities: - All of them are large-scale - They are all monocultures that correspond to an industrial scheme, aimed at the production of an export good or service obtained at low cost in a Southern country. - They result in strong negative social and environmental impacts - Their implementation is the result of top-down oriented decisions that see reality only at a global scale and are focused mainly -if not exclusively- on the obtention of economic benefit. - Local people and national societies are ignored at decision-making levels. They are just used to provide cheap labour force and their land and related resources are directly or indirectly appropriated by powerful national or foreign agents.
Chile: an unsustainable forestry model Forests cover about 30 million hectares in Chile while plantations occupy 2,1 million hectares. Chilean forests -with more than 100 native species- are one of the most biodiversity-rich temperate forests in the world. In marked contrast, 80% of the plantations are composed by radiata pine and 12% by eucalyptus monocultures. The Chilean forestry model -based upon plantations in spite of the vast and rich forests existing in the country- has been trumpeted as an example for developing countries and one of the factors of the Chilean economic boom. Such model is being promoted in different countries, from Uruguay to Mozambique. Albeit its negative side is not publicized. The promotion of vast monocultures in Chile began with the military dictatorship in the ‘70s. In line with the imposed economic model, subsidies and taxes breaks benefitted a few powerful economic groups. Nowadays only two groups -Angelini and Matte- own respectively 470,000 hectares and 340,000 hectares of plantations, involving more than 50 forestry companies in Chile as well as in Argentina, Paraguay and Peru. In the meantime, peasants are expelled from their lands, progressively occupied by plantations or affected by their effects on water and biodiversity. Recent independent studies have revealed that plantations have not helped to alleviate poverty in rural areas and local communities oppose them. One of the more publicized arguments for the promotion of industrial tree plantations says that fast growing plantations help to alleviate the main pressures on native forests and consequently help to preserve them. This argument has been proved false in Chile. The annual deforestation during the 1985-1994 period reached an annual average of 36,700 hectares, 40% of which were deforested to make way to industrial tree plantations. In the southern VII region -which concentrates the majority of tree plantations- from 1978 to 1987 30% of the Coastal Andean forests were clearcut and substituted by radiata pine plantations. The pulp industry -closely associated to the plantation scheme- is a relevant polluting factor. Five of the six pulp industries existing in Chile cause strong negative impacts on the environment, while only one is adopting a less harmful production process. The fishing community of Mehuin in the X Region, for example, is opposing the project of Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion S.A. (CELCO) -a huge pulp and paper company- to build a pulp mill coupled with a pipeline that would discharge toxic pollutants resulting from the production process in the bay where they live, affecting the population of fish that is the livelihhood of this community, and their own health. Some of the main consequences of tree monocultures in Chile have been the destruction of native forests, a decrease in water yields, loss of biodiversity and livelihoods of local communities, rural-urban migration, soil erosion and industrial pollution on the one hand and in the concentration of land and wealth on the other. Obviously not a model which can be described as either socially or environmentally sustainable.
Indonesia: a depredatory economic "miracle" Indonesia’s forests occupy about 120 million hectares. Although at least 2-3 million families of indigenous peoples live in or around the forests and many of the 220 million inhabitants of the country depend directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihood, the government’s approach has been to consider forests as "empty" land. Logging and plantation companies are responsible for the high deforestation rates (1 million hectares a year according to the World Bank, but 2,4 million according to Indonesian NGOs). The depredatory activities of such companies are a token that Indonesia’s economic "miracle" has been driven by ruthless exploitation of natural resources and by the use of cheap labour. In the last 20 years logging and associated industrial plantations -for pulp, plywood and palm oil- have been increasing in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Moluccas and West Papua. The whole of the timber, pulp and oil palm industry has been closely tied to the political situation. Former President Suharto, his family and the military have controlled the economy and benefitted from it. According to the Industrial Plantation Scheme (HTI) companies are supposed to establish plantations in degraded forest areas. But what really happens is that once they get the concession they clear forests, extract the valuable timber, set fire to the rest and then plant introduced species, as acacia, eucalyptus and pines. The government itself has recently accused several logging-plantation companies for the destructive fires that affected the country´s forests this year. The present crisis in South Asia has diminished the international demand for Indonesian timber, plywood, pulp and minerals. But in the long run, the economic crisis can mean that more people are going to be pushed into becoming spontaneous migrants, relocate in other islands and possibly establish tree plantations to supplement their incomes. During the 1990’s there has been a boom in the creation of oil palm plantations as Indonesia plans to replace Malaysia as the first South East Asia’s producer in the XXI century. Private palm oil plantations are dominated by big conglomerates. The economic crisis is pushing smallholder transmigrants to establish oil palm plantations hoping to receive the benefits of the so called Nucleus Estate Smallholder or PIR-trans System. The case of Indonesia shows clearly that the much publicized myth that plantations help to alleviate pressures on native forests and consequently helping to preserve them is totally false. On the contrary, they are a major factor for their destruction. Forests are actually being cut and set on fire to make way for pulpwood and oil palm plantations. From an environmental point of view, the increasing substitution of forests by plantations means a loss of biodiversity, in this case coupled by the atmospheric pollution produced by the heavy smoke arising from forest fires. Socially, plantations are having the effect of destroying indigenous and forest-dependent peoples' livelihoods, by usurping their land and undermining their means of living derived from their biodiverse forests. For many other Indonesian people, forests have always been a valuable survival resource in times of crisis. In the current situation, where many people are suffering from a crisis they are not responsible for, much of the original forests have been depleted, many of them to make way for monoculture plantations, which provide practically nothing in terms of useful products for survival. The changes that occured in May 1998 -which led to Suharto's resignation- could mean the beginning of a reform period. Indigenous peoples and local communities openly oppose plantations. A recently formed alliance of NGOs is calling to stop any new plantations and to carry out a review of the social and environmental impacts of the existing ones and of the concessions already granted. However, the problem of industrial plantations is part of the wider issue of land reform, that can possibly be discussed in the near future, and therefore it is expected that plantations will be analysed under such wider approach.
Brazil: the paradigmatic case of Aracruz Up to the decade of the ‘50s the Brazilian government provided subsidies for the import of pulp. With the military government, beginning in 1964, a forestry policy was set up trying to promote tree plantations and large export-oriented pulp companies by means of subsidies and loans. Eucalyptus for pulp is grown in Brazil with rotation periods of only 7 or even 5 to 6 years. Nowadays there are more than 250 pulp and paper companies all over the country, with a total planted area of about 3 million hectares of eucalyptus. According to estimates, the total area of tree plantations reaches 7 million hectares, 30% of which are for pulp and paper production. Its main objective is the international market and 90% of pulp exports are concentrated in 5 major companies, mostly integrated with foreign capital: Aracruz Cellulose in Espirito Santo, CENIBRA, Bahia Sul Cellulose, Riocell and Monte Dourado in northern Brazil. The present total planted area of these companies comprises 350,000 hectares, but new projects are under way. The tendency of the companies is to expand more and more and to establish alliances in order to maintain their competitiveness in the world market. Being land availability a crucial issue in this strategy, companies forcefully extend their land holdings. Some people gain and some others lose with plantations. Pulp companies, which receive strong support from the government, are obviously the main winners. Consulting companies for the modernization of mills and plantations, as well as a restricted number of industrial workers have also profitted of this process. In front of these few winners, there are many losers; as a matter of fact, most of the Brazilian people. The case of Aracruz Cellulose is paradigmatic of the social and environmental impacts produced by a plantation and pulp production megacompany that acts under a "green cover". Being the biggest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp in the world, it earned 3 billion dollars between 1989 and 1995. Due to tax breaks, Aracruz saves anually U$S 88 million at the expense of the state government of Espirito Santo. Water supply problems originated in the region are similar to those reported in other parts of the world. Water analysis performed at the laboratories of the company are not reliable and agrochemicals are producing a negative environmental impact on waters. The area chosen by Aracruz to establish its plantations and pulp mill was not empty; it was part of the Tupinikim indigenous peoples' ancestral lands. The Tupinikim already occupied a vast territory -currently part of the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais and Bahia- when the Portuguese arrived in the sixteenth century. The presence of the Tupinikim in the area was also recorded in reports of 1912 and 1919 by the Indian Protection Service. Since 1934 the Brazilian Constitution guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples to the possesion of their traditional lands, which cannot be handed over to third parties. In 1967 -the same year when Aracruz began its operations in the area- a group of Guarani joined their Tupinikim brothers and sisters and stayed there, considering it "the land without evil". Aracruz Cellulose chose to ignore history as well as the Brazilian Constitution when in 1967 it began to occupy the indigenous lands, advocating that it was a degraded and empty territory. A long struggle began since then. Due to the expansion of eucalyptus plantations following deforestation by Aracruz Cellulose, the indigenous peoples have been forced to abandon part of their ancestral territories. They claimed during four years for a further 13,579 hectares, situated next to their present reserves. In March 1998 the Brazilian Ministry of Justice decided to demarcate only 2,571 additional hectares for the Tupinikim and Guarani, ignoring all the studies previously done by FUNAI, which supported the indigenous peoples' claims. "Coincidentally", this was the same proposal that Aracruz Cellulose had put forward in February 1998. It is thus clear that the authorities acted defending the interests of the company. The indigenous people, supported by social and human rights organizations, reacted against the judicial decision and began the demarcation of their lands by themselves. But they and their supporters were intimidated and repressed by the military and the police, in an action similar to those common during the dictatorship period. Driven to a no way out situation, they were forced to accept an "agreement" according to which they exchange the limits of their traditional lands -occupied by Aracruz Cellulose- for a 20-year financial assistance. Concern for the consequences of such an agreement is growing. For the time being, Aracruz seems to have eliminated one of its main problems. However, in the long run this may become a boomerang, because all the efforts that the company has invested in creating an image of a socially and environmentally responsible corporation may have been thrown down the drains through this dictatorial-type of forced agreement.
South Africa: the ways of the powerful pulp industry Timber plantations have been a part of the South African landscape for more than a century. Colonial settlement brought a wide range of exotic tree species. Not all were successful, but it soon became clear that Australian acacias and eucalyptus were well suited to conditions in the Eastern part of South Africa. It has always been accepted that these trees, together with Pine species introduced more recently, play an important role in the local economy. As natural forests had been seriously depleted during the nineteenth century, it was considered necessary to obtain alternative, fast-growing trees to meet the growing demand for building timber, mine-props, packaging material and of course more recently, to feed the local paper mills. This situation soon began to change when it was realised that external demand for timber products could stimulate exports from South Africa. A Rayon mill was built by an Italian company at the coastal town of Mkomazi around 1950. Effluent from the mill was pumped directly into a river which entered the sea a few kilometres downstream. This gave South Africans their first taste (and smell) of serious atmospheric and marine pollution. Subsequently the SAPPI mill was built on the Tukela River at the town of Mandeni. The smell of this mill was detectable up to 50 km away, and liquid effluent was sprayed onto a large tract of land near the mill. Only after the giant SAPPI mill at Ngodwana, and the MONDI mill at Richards Bay, were put into production did people start to take a more serious view of the situation. Environmental awareness helped people to make the connection between respiratory disease and atmospheric pollution. A serious effluent spill at the Ngodwana Mill put shocking pictures of dead fish on the front pages of newspapers and people started to ask questions about the true impacts of these mills. As raw timber was desperately needed to feed the hungry mills, the two companies already mentioned, SAPPI and MONDI, together with a number of smaller players, went on a buying spree, paying very high prices for land in close proximity to their mills so that they could consolidate their operations into vast estates and take advantage of lower transport costs. In their hurry to plant up all this new land, very little consideration was given to environmental impacts -trees were planted in wetlands and streams and estate managers were paid bonuses to maximise production in these areas. Even public land including road reserves and commonage was ruthlessly planted to trees with no thought given to the consequences. At about this time the South African government decided to "commercialise" the state-owned timber plantations and SAFCOL (South African Timber Company Ltd) was born. Before very long they (SAFCOL) too had jumped onto the bandwagon and got busy with planting more trees into all the natural grasslands that had been excluded previously due to their ecological sensitivity. The ways of Corporate tree-planters It has been estimated that the larger corporate entities responsible for the expansion of pulpwood plantations in South Africa spend more money and effort on propaganda than on actual environmental protection and restoration. Their reaction to public criticism of their actions is to spend more money on advertising in journals and newspapers. They sponsor a wide range of "Environmental" projects -from bird and flower books to education and waste recycling. In recent years it has been part of the timber companies’ strategy to employ "environmentalists" to interface with their critics. In many cases these people are recruited from government conservation agencies who appear to be easily tempted by prospects of employment in the corporate world. These paid "environmentalists" are used as spokespeople -making statements to the media- speaking at schools and clubs, spreading the false message that their employers are actually improving the environment by planting millions of exotic trees. At shows and fairs, pine tree seedlings are given to schoolchildren as part of the brainwashing exercise. Poorly informed people are duped into believing that all trees are good. In order to defuse public anger over loss of natural surface water caused by plantations they install boreholes in the affected areas. People who previously had clean water virtually at their doorsteps are then forced to carry water over long distances to their houses and gardens. Areas where crops such as bananas, potatoes, cabbages and many others could be grown without irrigation before are now too dry. Cattle and goats are forced to overcrowd the few remaining natural springs and rivers -damaging rivers and stream banks- trampling and polluting springs and ponds, making this water unfit for human consumption. The two large pulpwood producers have embarked on promoting "community woodlots" on an extensive scale in rural areas. MONDI has claimed that their scheme is part of the RDP (Government Reconstruction and Development Program), to fool the community. The companies provide seedlings and basic information on how to establish the woodlot, after persuading subsistence farmers that they will become wealthy when their trees are ready for harvesting in seven or eight years’ time! What they fail to do is to inform prospective "woodlot" owners of the environmental and social consequences of their actions. - They do not warn them not to plant in wetlands or close to rivers and streams. - They do not tell them that they will have to find other land for their livestock to graze on. - They do not warn them about loss of income from their land for the next seven years at least. - They are not warned that their water supply may be affected negatively. - They are not told that there is no guarantee that the company will buy their trees when they are ready. - They are not adequately informed about the costs of services provided by the company. - They are not told how difficult and expensive it will be to convert their land back to pastures or other crops. Claims of creating employment for local people do not explain what happened to people previously employed on the land. With the expansion of the plantation companies’ landholdings, many people who were employed in vegetable, sugar cane or livestock farming are ejected from homes and land they have occupied for many years. It is the policy of the plantation companies to consolidate smaller farms into large "blocks" which can be managed by a single "forester". Farm houses, sheds and staff accommodation cottages are demolished to make way for contiguous plantations. People who may have lived on these farms all their lives are forced to relocate to overpopulated tribal areas where they have to build new houses -relocate their children to already overcrowded schools- look for new jobs in sectors where they lack appropriate experience and know-how. To make matters worse, most of the work opportunities created by the timber companies is sourced out to contractors who are not obliged to offer normal fringe benefits associated with permanent employment. Many of these contractors prefer to use desperate illegal immigrants who are prepared to work for lower wages and cannot belong to a labour union. State complicity in the development of the industry Pulp and paper mills in South Africa have benefitted from massive financial incentives, both directly through assistance from the IDC (Industrial Development Corporation) and indirectly through access to cheap water and electricity, free pollution, and very favourable tax laws. This gives the industry a significant advantage, together with its ability to manipulate the price of roundwood through its own extensive plantations. By holding the raw log price as low as possible, it is possible to ensure that maximum profits are accrued to the mills. Both MONDI and SAPPI have acquired mills in Europe and other northern countries. The simple explanation for this is that they need a guaranteed outlet for the products of their South African operations. The less obvious explanation may be that these investments are a way of laundering the surplus accumulated profits made at the expense of South Africa’s environment and people. Planned expansion of plantations It is the stated intention of the industry to increase the area in South Africa by 600,000 hectares more -which would add to the existing 1.5 million- and they also aim to establish extensive plantations in Mozambique. What is of serious concern is that intensive research into the development of cold-resistant strains of eucalyptus species is being undertaken. If this research is successful it could mean that vast tracts of the interior which presently consist of grasslands and grain production farms, could fall victim to tree plantations. The grassland areas inland of the sub-tropical coastal belt are vital to water production in South Africa. They are able to absorb rainfall in the summer which is then released slowly to feed rivers and streams during the dry winter. If extensive tree plantations were to be established in these areas, it would jeopardise the supply of water to farmers and townspeople situated downstream as well as exascerbate soil erosion. Computerised mechanical harvesting machines have been imported by MONDI. These machines operate 24 hours a day, felling, pruning, debarking, cutting and stacking. Three eight-hour shifts employing three people as opposed to an estimated 200 workers using manual methods -leaving 197 workers made redundant by a single machine. Most plantation operators have also converted from labour-intensive weed control methods to using herbicides applied by specialist contractors. Once again resulting in fewer people being employed directly by the industry. In sum -as elsewhere else- this forestry model is clearly showing that, although highly beneficial for large corporations, its social and environmental impacts make its unsustainable in the long run. People in South Africa are already organizing oposition and its environmental and social impacts are becoming clearer as the industry expands over larger areas of the country and even to neighbouring countries.
The World Bank has been and still is an active and influential promoter of industrial scale tree monocrops using different mechanisms. The first one is providing technical advice for forestry planning. The Bank has carried out dozens of forest sector plans for various countries, which include models on how to zone land and how should land be allocated for different uses, including particularly for plantations. This was a process that the Bank tried to institutionalize -as a global response to deforestation- through the Tropical Forestry Action Plan in the 1980's, which received very strong criticism, particularly from the World Rainforest Movement, which was actually created during that struggle. That is still one of the major ways through which the Bank influences and lays the ground for plantations. The Bank also supports specific forestry projects. Some of these projects are now known under other names, such as national resource management projects, environmental projects and so on. But basically many of them have forestry and plantations as a focus. Between 1984 and 1994, the Bank lent 1.4 billion dollars to create 2.9 million hectares of plantations. Additionally, the proportion of money lent does not really reflect the scale of its influence. Many of its loans trigger other institutions into committing money into projects, because the Bank provides them with some kind of guarantee. This creates an attractive environment for other investors, so for every dollar that the Bank invests, many other dollars follow. Apart from helping to establish industry around the plantations, the Bank also funds "social forestry programmes", which provide outsourcing for paper mills. An example of such a programme is in southern India, where eucalyptus plantations are promoted on farmers' land, leading to the displacement of many farm workers. In terms of industrial scale tree monocrops for pulp, the Bank also funds --and has funded for decades-- so-called small holder nucleus estates, which are set up by and large to furnish the para-statal industries with tree crop material such as palm oil and so on. Billions of dollars have gone to Indonesia to promote these plantations and some of these are linked to the transmigration programmes, whereby the workers are relocated to the Outer Inslands -again financed by the World Bank- to furnish labour to these small holder nucleus estates (the nucleus is the industrial plantation). The small holders are then trapped into a near monopolistic relationship with the company to provide the tree crop products. When the Bank got criticised for actually supporting the export of labour to the Outer Islands, it subsequently invested most of the money in so-called second stage development. The agricultural model was failing on many of these ressettlement sites and so it encouraged the settlers to switch to tree crops, again as a way of providing material to the mills. Plantations are also supported through agricultural sector loans in a whole range of kinds, included providing credit to agricultural banks. In Papua New Guinea, for example, all the coastal plantations are funded by the Multilateral Development Banks. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the Bank influences or creates the conditions for promoting plantations through structural adjustment lending. The basic objectives of structural adjustment lending being to promote foreign direct investment, to create a better fiscal climate for overseas investments, and to promote an export-based economy. Guyana is an example where promotion of the forestry sector for export is now leading into plantation companies coming in as a natural follow up to logging. The loggers come in, log the forest saying that they are doing selective logging, but all along they actually admit that they are coming in to do oil palm plantations. That is something which is starting there, and that has come up very explicitly in the context of structural adjustment programmes. The International Finance Corporation (IFC, part of the World Bank Group), invests directly in projects linked to plantations. Bahia Sul Celulose in Brazil, for instance, has the IFC as one of its shareholders, In Kenya, while the World Bank lent money to promote tree plantations, the IFC was investing money in the Kenyan pulp, paper and packaging industry. The Global Environment Facility,.which is a grant facility where the World Bank is the main implementing agency, has also provided money to set up plantations under the guise of carbon sinks, at least in Ecuador and Kenya. The World Bank is therefore one of the major agents in the promotion of industrial-scale tree monocrops and much effort will need to be directed in order to make it introduce changes, not only into its forestry sector loans, but to the whole range of those of its activities which result in the substitution of native ecosystems (both forests and grasslands) by monoculture tree plantations.
Plantations and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests In 1995, the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development established an Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) to address a wide range of forest-related issues. The IPF produced a final report in early 1997 containing a set of 135 proposals for action, that governments have agreed to implement. This package of proposals was formally endorsed at the June 1997 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the implementation of Agenda 21. As a follow-up to the IPF, at UNGASS, governments established the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) to promote implementation of the IPF proposals for action, to monitor such implementation; and to address matters left pending by the IPF. The first meeting of the IFF took place on 1-3 October 1997 in New York, and will be followed by three more meetings before reporting back to the CSD in the year 2000: August 1998, May 1999 and another one sometime later that year. The IFF is now an extremely important forum, where governments talk about forests together. It is being assisted by the Inter-agency Task Force on Forests, integrated by: the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank. So the whole complex of the IFF is an important discusion forum among governments about forests. The IPF and tree plantations The IPF's proposals for action, whose implementation is now going to be promoted by the IFF, contain a number of contradictions as respects to plantations, which reflect the different interests at stake among the governments involved in the process. Some of them seem to wish to preserve native forests, others want to replace them by plantations; some wish to create extensive plantations, others want to simplify existing forests, converting them into something similar to plantations; some are interested in the continuing provision of raw material for the pulp industry, others are focused on plantations as carbon sinks. The result of the ensuing discussion, influenced by other actors such as industry, bilateral and multilateral agencies, NGOs, indigenous peoples' organizations, and others, has been a very confusing set of proposals. This confusion has also been influenced by the FAO's definitions, which includes plantations under the term "forests". Although the IPF's proposals for action do differentiate between natural forests and plantations, the terms used allow for confusion ("natural" forests and "forest" plantations) and therefore pave the way for them to be used as sinonyms, for the benefit of the promoters of plantations. The first time plantations are mentioned is in paragraph 22, which says: "Both sustainably managed natural forests and forest plantations, as components of integrated land-use that takes account of environmental and socio-economic concerns, fulfil a valuable role in meeting the need for forest products, goods and services, as well as helping to conserve biological diversity and providing a reservoir for carbon. The costs, benefits and disbenefits of different types of forest management, including forest plantations, need to be appraised under different social, cultural, economic and ecological conditions. The role of forest plantations as an important element of sustainable forest management and as a complement to natural forests should be recognized." That paragraph contains a number of conceptual errors: 1) Plantations are not forests At the same time, it contains another major contradiction in that it declares that "The costs, benefits and disbenefits of different types of forest management, including forest plantations, need to be appraised under different social, cultural, economic and ecological conditions", but immediately recognizes (with no appraisal whatsoever) "The role of forest plantations as an important element of sustainable forest management and as a complement to natural forests . . ." The above paragraph is reinforced by paragraph 28, through which the "Panel urged countries: (a) To assess long-term trends in their supply and demand for wood, and to consider actions to promote the sustainability of their wood supply and their means for meeting demand, with a special emphasis on investment in sustainable forest management and the strengthening of institutions for forest resource and forest plantations management; (b) To recognize and enhance the role of forest plantations as an important element of sustainable forest management complementary to natural forests; The above clearly shows a wood supply approach to forests. In spite of all the international processes which have taken place particularly after the Earth Summit, forests are here still being basically considered as wood producers. In that context, obviously plantations make sense, to ensure an ever increasing consumption of wood and wood products. However, they do not make sense from a social and environmental perspective, where local people and local environments suffer the impacts, either of "sustainable" logging or of plantations, and usually from both: the latter following the former. Paragraph 43 states that in "some countries" [without specifying in which] plantations of fast-growing trees have had good and cost-effective results in terms of soil protection." Given that in many cases the opposite has been proven true, this should be brought to the attention of the IFF in order to avoid a wrong generalization of this type. On the positive side, the document at least mentions that plantations should be implemented preferably with native species and should not replace natural forests. Paragraph 58 (b ii) urges "countries with low forest cover: (ii) To plan and manage forest plantations, where appropriate, to enhance production and provision of goods and services, paying due attention to relevant social, cultural, economic and environmental considerations in the selection of species, areas and silviculture systems, preferring native species, where appropriate, and taking all practicable steps to avoid replacing natural ecosystems of high ecological and cultural values with forest plantations, particularly monocultures;" We obviously strongly support the last part of the paragraph (avoiding the replacement of natural ecosystems by tree monocultures), but at the same time it raises some questions: 1) Why does this recommendation only apply to "countries with low forest cover"? Shouldn't all countries avoid replacing forests (whether with high ecological and cultural value or not) with plantations and shouldn't all not avoid monocultures? 2) Who is going to "plan and manage" those forest plantations": the local communities, the Forestry Department? Is the "provision of goods and services" aimed at the local community or at the international market? How are the decisions going to be made? What does "paying due attention" mean? 3) From a Western forestry science point of view, plantations of native species are seldom "appropriate", either because their wood production is slower, or because they don't have a market value, or because when planted in closed stands they tend to be affected by "pests and diseases" (animals and plants which make part of the local ecosystems). So "preferring native species, where appropriate" seems to be only wishful thinking, to appease environmentalists. In sum, as respects to plantations, the IPF's proposals for action appear to be more a problem than a solution. However, there seems to be room for influencing their implementation and one of the campaign's main targets should be to generate awareness on the drawbacks of plantations, particularly the social and environmental effects that they have at the local level. The awareness-raising activities should obviously focus on IFF participants, but should at the same time aim at a much wider audience which will itself also influence decision-makers, both within and outside the IFF process.
Jaakko Poyry: more than mere consultants Jaakko Poyry is one of the actors involved in creating the conditions for establishing plantations. This consulting company was born in Finland 40 years ago. It grew up together with the the boom of Scandinavian forestry after the war, when Finland, Sweden and Norway became one of the superpowers of industrial forestry. Jaakko Poyry was there, helping them to do it. It's role was to provide special expertise about planning pulp mills, paper mills, plantations, logging, how to plan industrial operations. At first its clients were Sweden, Finland, Norway and the rest of Europe. In the last couple of decades it started to expand globally and this has followed the pressures to expand plantations to the South, the pressures to exploit the forests of the South. This is a result of that but it is also one of the things that has facilitated this move to the South. Because as a consultancy, Jaakko Poyry plays an important role to get the land together with the machines, to get the officials together with the executives, to get the consultants together with the Forestry Department, so that the land can be converted to something which will support industrial forestry for pulp and paper. Its role in the South especially --although obviously in the North as well-- is essentially political. They advertise themselves as technicians, but their role is largely networking, getting people together, getting the industry together with the officials, selling pulp and paper machinery, selling forestry machinery from Scandinavia and other countries, getting together the technology with the political infrastructure in each country. That's basically what they do. They have offices in 25 countries around the world and employ almost 5,000 people. Indonesia provides a clear example of Jaakko Poyry's work. First hired by the World Bank to do surveys, assessments and planning for the entire forestry sector in Indonesia, this later resulted in contracts to help the specific private firms who were involved in plantations and industrial forestry in Indonesia, where many pulp mills are now being built.. In 1988 Jaakko Poyry did a study of Indonesia's timber resources for the Asia Development Bank and this was to identify sites for the development of the pulp industry in that country. As a result of that there are now 65 big pulp mills planned for Indonesia, with another 15 with permision to operate. Since then, the Finnish government agencies have provided guarantees, bank loans, techical advisors and equipment for the pulp and paper development in Indonesia and this includes setting up the plantations and then setting up the pulp factories which work from that. A number of other Finnish agencies and companies benefitted later from this. Jaakko Poyry did the feasibility study for Indorayon in the North of Sumatra, and advised and supervised the plantations, the nursery and the equipment that went into that. It was also involved in Indah Kiat, which is another huge development in Riau, including pulp mills and paper production and in the Riau Andalan plant as well, where UPM/Kymmene (from Finland) is now involved. The PT TEL pulp mill also included Jaakko Poyry involvement, as well as the Finantara Intiga project in West Kalimantan, which is a joint venture between ENSO (The Finnish forestry state agency) and the Indonesian cigarette company Gutam Garang, who established a large plantation and there's a factory due for construction there in East Kalimantan. Those are just some examples within the whole pulp industry and the plantations on which they depend, that are a result of Jaakko Poyry's work. These pulp mills are at the moment using native forests because the plantations are not yet mature. In the case of Indorayon the plantations are mature now, but to create those plantations they destroyed the forest. The only example where mills have not been built first and then the plantations set up is the case of Finantara Intiga, where they have set up the plantations before they even built the mill. But the general pattern is the other way round: they build the mill, they get a timber concession, clear-fell and then establish the plantation. In spite of all the above -which are only some examples in one single country- Jaakko Poyry is now trying to promote itself as a "green" consultancy. However, its activities are being challenged, not only by the people directly affected, but also by Finnish NGOs, who have organized a number of seminars to show this to the Finnish public, on whose support the company depends to a large extent.
Available material on tree plantations Individuals and organizations interested in obtaining information on the issue of large-scale tree plantations can access it in the WRM web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy. Additionally, for those who wish more in-depth information and analysis, the WRM has produced a book (Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations and the Global Paper Economy), which has been published by Zed Books. Orders can be requested by sending a message to Helen Salmon <HELEN@zedbooks.demon.co.uk> The same book has been published in Spanish (El papel del Sur: plantaciones forestales en la estrategia papelera internacional) and can be obtained at RMALC (Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio) <rmalc@laneta.apc.org>
The Montevideo Declaration. June 1998 -A call for action to defend forests and people against large-scale tree monocrops- In June 1998, citizens of 14 countries around the world gathered in Montevideo, Uruguay out of urgent concern at the recent and accelerating invasion of millions of hectares of land and forests by pulpwood, oil palm, rubber and other industrial tree plantations. Such plantations have little in common with forests. Consisting of thousands or even millions of trees of the same species, bred for rapid growth, uniformity and high yield of raw material and planted in even-aged stands, they require intensive preparation of the soil, fertilisation, planting with regular spacing, selection of seedlings, mechanical or chemical weeding, use of pesticides, thinning, and mechanized harvesting. As people from six continents engaged in fighting such industrial monocultures and near-monocultures have testified, the resulting radical conversion of the landscape, together with the disruption of social and natural systems, can threaten the welfare and even survival of local communities. The following are the most frequently cited environmental impacts: * reduced soil fertility These effects frequently extend far outside plantation boundaries, with nearby or downstream areas being affected by erosion, desiccation and radical, sometimes irreversible changes in the local flora and fauna. All these impacts damage local peoples' lives and livelihoods. Industrial tree plantations have in many cases been preceded by firing or clearcutting of native forests and have therefore become a new and major cause of deforestation. In agricultural areas, industrial tree plantations have undermined food security by usurping productive cropland and pastures, thus contributing to local poverty. In many cases they have resulted in forced displacement or forced resettlement of local people, in widespread human rights abuses and in violation of local peoples' land rights. Nearly everywhere they have been established, industrial tree plantations have destroyed people's livelihoods in agriculture, fisheries, animal husbandry and gathering. The pitiful number of jobs they create -- insecure, seasonal, badly paid frequently dangerous, and susceptible to market cycles -- cannot compensate for the loss of employment that they cause. Pulpwood plantations can be particularly huge. The scale of these plantations --most often of eucalyptus, pine or acacia-- is influenced by the immensity of the factories which process the trees they grow. A $1 billion pulp mill may produce a half million to a million tons of pulp a year and divert an entire river through its machines as it squats amid sixty thousand hectares or more of plantations. The cost of reengineering and simplifying landscapes in this way can be paid only through massive direct and indirect subsidies-- including tax breaks, government handouts, infrastructure, research and suppression of labour organization-- captured through the exercise of political power. The power exercised by the industry locally tends to result in further subsidies, further expansion, political repression, hostility to democratic procedures, and contempt for local needs and landscapes. The plantation industry is increasingly moving to the South, where cheap land, labour and water, fast tree growth, and loose environmental controls result in lower production costs. This encourages the current pattern of excessive and growing paper consumption in the North and parts of the South. Assisting or underwriting the spread of industrial tree plantations is a set of supporting actors ranging from the World Bank and bilateral "aid" agencies to research institutions and university scientists. Money badly needed to support the development of local livelihood security (including the development of small-scale, locally-appropriate and environmentally-responsible paper production techniques using locally available raw materials) is directed into forestry research supporting the use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, biotechnology, cloning and a Green Revolution-like package of techniques which has proven to be detrimental to local environments and livelihoods. In the name of "development", other public monies are diverted to forestry consulting firms, pulping machinery manufacturers, and pulp and paper companies which are often also involved in logging native forests. To counter growing resistance, the industry is attempting to "green" its image by presenting tree monocrops as "planted forests" and as carbon sinks. Although tree plantations have little in common with forests and although most of the carbon stored by plantations will be released to the atmosphere again within five to ten years, such myths are sometimes accepted by uninformed audiences. In view of these concerns, we pledge our support to an international campaign to: * support local peoples' rights and struggles against the invasion of their lands by these plantations * encourage awareness of the negative social and environmental impacts of large-scale industrial monocrop tree plantations, and * change the conditions which make such plantations possible. We therefore commit ourselves to joining the movements opposed to such plantations --movements which have already achieved significant successes. We are confident that the struggle against the industrial forestry model will at the same time help enable local communities to implement local solutions to local problems --solutions which will simultaneously have positive impacts on the global environment, and whose continuing evolution we also pledge ourselves to support. Montevideo, June 1998 Yoichi Kuroda Witoon Permpongsacharoen Marcus Colchester William Appiah Larry Lohmann Chris Hatch Saskia Ozinga Wally Menne Liz Chidley Hernan Verscheure Rosa Roldan Elías Díaz Peña Göran Eklöf Chad Dobson Silvia Ribeiro Roberto Bissio Hilary Sandison Raquel Nuñez Liliana Medina Cocaro Ricardo Carrere
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World Rainforest Movement
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