OUR
VIEWPOINT
- Forests, agrofuels
and policies of hunger
World hunger is a source of ever greater
concern for those who have yet to suffer from it, and ever greater
suffering for those who already do – and who are growing in numbers
year after year. Yet the policies being formulated in the global
power centres not only do little to solve the problem of hunger,
but actually tend to even further exacerbate it.
A clear example of this point is the
promotion of agrofuels. Under the guise of environmental protection
(through the replacement of climate change-provoking fossil fuels)
and the green label of “bio” fuels, millions of hectares of land
are being turned over to the production of food… for automobiles.
This policy has severe impacts on the
South. On the one hand, basic food crops like corn are no longer
being raised to feed humans, but instead to produce ethanol. On
the other hand, lands that once produced food have been taken
over by sugarcane or soybean monocultures to produce agrofuels.
In both cases, the result is a dwindling supply of foodstuffs,
leading to market speculation and soaring prices.
Of course, agrofuels are not exclusively
(nor primarily) responsible for rising food prices. But they are
clearly one more factor that contributes to the worsening of an
already serious situation, that of growing hunger and malnutrition
in the countries of the South.
Rising food prices have already led
to public protests and rioting – triggered by despair – in many
parts of the world, and have also spurred the organization of
powerful movements working to promote food sovereignty.
However, there is another process linked
to food production that remains relatively ignored, and needs
to be incorporated into this struggle: the destruction of forests.
The expansion of agrofuel crops is taking
place in two different settings: on agricultural lands and on
forested lands. In the first case, food crops are being replaced
by agrofuel crops. In the second, forests are being destroyed
so that the land they once occupied can be used to grow crops
for fuel production (oil palm, soybeans, sugarcane).
The second case – the destruction of
forests – is rarely perceived as an impact on food security and
food sovereignty, for the simple reason that few people are aware
of the food-producing capacity of forests. Those who are aware
of this capacity are the millions of human beings who live in
the forests, and for whom the forests provide most of their means
of survival, the chief of which is food. Thus every hectare of
forest that disappears means taking the food from the mouths of
these peoples, whether the land is being taken over to produce
agrofuel crops or for any other activity that causes the destruction
of forests (tree plantations for pulp production, commercial logging,
hydroelectric dams, shrimp farming, etc.). The result: hunger
and malnutrition in communities that were once well nourished
by the food provided by the forests.
Hunger – whether in the forests, the
countryside or the city – is not an inevitable phenomenon. Rather,
it is the result of the same policies and economic interests that
are at the root of other crises, such as climate change, biodiversity
loss, deforestation, the disappearance and contamination of water
supplies, the destruction of soils, and many others. At the same
time, all of these crises further exacerbate the problem of the
lack of access to food among the poorest and most vulnerable.
The misnomered “development” policies
promoted for decades by international institutions like the World
Bank, IMF, FAO, WTO and others have more than amply proven to
be socially and environmentally disastrous. The only thing that
they have succeeded in “developing” are the profits of large transnational
corporations, at the expense of human hunger and environmental
destruction. The model they have imposed on us is crumbling. It
is time for them to admit it, and to make room for the proposals
of social movements.
index
COMMUNITIES AND FORESTS
- Brazil: Sugarcane
for agrofuel poses a growing threat to highly biodiverse ecosystem
Agrofuels are increasingly drawing words
of warning, protest and condemnation from such disparate voices
as high-level United Nations representatives like FAO Director-General
Jacques Diouf and Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean
Ziegler, statesmen like Fidel Castro, and social organizations
in both the North and South (see notes 1 and 2). Nevertheless,
plantations of crops raised specifically to produce fuel continue
to spread.
In Latin America, Brazil is undoubtedly
at the forefront of this trend. Energy agreements signed with
the United States and Chile last year and recently with Germany
have consolidated Brazil’s position as an ethanol producer.
Plantations of sugarcane for fuel production
now occupy some six million hectares of land in Brazil, primarily
in the southeast, in the states of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and
Goiás, and also in the central states of Mato Grosso and Mato
Grosso do Sul.
The region where sugarcane monoculture
is now exerting the greatest pressure is the Cerrado, a sprawling
woodland savannah biome that is home to a vast wealth of biodiversity.
The Cerrado covers two million square kilometres of land and is
bordered by the Amazon, Atlantic Forest and Pantanal regions.
It was traditionally used for large-scale cattle farming, but
in recent decades sugarcane plantations have been gradually taking
over and converting large areas of the Cerrado into sugarcane
fields. According to figures from a study to be published in June
by the Brazilian NGO Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza
(Society, Population and Nature Institute, ISPN), there are 152,000
hectares of the Cerrado designated as conservation areas by the
government that are currently covered by monoculture sugarcane
plantations.
“Any monoculture provokes a loss of
biodiversity,” stresses Nilo D'Avila, the coordinator of the study,
adding: “Sugarcane plantations alter the biochemical composition
of the Cerrado, especially the acidity of the soil, which is very
high in the region.” Thus, on top of the deforestation that results
when land is taken over to establish plantations, sugarcane monoculture
techniques attempt to “correct” this acidity with lime, which
has killed off numerous fruit species that had adapted to the
Cerrado’s highly acidic soil.
The greatest tragedy of the Cerrado
is the fact that its rapid destruction has been largely ignored.
It is the second most threatened biome after the Amazon region,
but ranks first in terms of the threat posed by sugarcane plantations.
A report published by the Latin American
regional office of the IUF trade union federation (3) reveals
that in the last 40 years, the Cerrado has lost one half of its
surface area as a consequence of the spread of sugarcane plantations,
among other activities. If this trend continues, this ecosystem
will have disappeared by the year 2030.
Big agribusiness has attempted to build
an “eco-friendly” façade around the commodity of sugarcane by
using the term “biofuels”. But that façade is crumbling, and there
are now some who have begun to call these products what they really
are: necrofuels, the fuels of death.
(1) Position Paper of the Global South,
at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/agrofuels/Quito_Manifest.html
(2) Call for a Moratorium, at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/BDC/SBSTTA/Press_Release_26_6.html
(3) Caña de azúcar devasta el “cerrado”,
Silvia Adoue, Radioagencia NP, at:
http://www.rel-uita.org/agricultura/cerrado.htm
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Burma: Cyclone proved the failure of “development” based on
mangrove destruction
In the first weekend of May, a cyclone
ravaged Burma. Cyclone Nagris hit the Irrawaddy delta with winds
reaching 190km/h. However, most havoc was played by a sea surge
that came with the storm: a wave up to 3.5m high swept away and
inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. People couldn’t
flee and figures of dead people are estimated
at more than 100,000.
The storm was strong indeed, but the
root of such an enhanced devastation can be traced back in the
country’s so called “development programmes” in the industries
of tourism and shrimp farming, that implied the destruction of
formerly lush mangroves.
The importance of mangroves as buffering
zones that protect inhabited areas from storms and big waves is
widely acknowledged. Mangroves are salt-tolerant and grow along
coastlines, rivers and deltas where the saltwater and freshwater
meet, often covering a few kilometers inland. They form a dense
protection barrier of intertwining roots, branches, and trunks
that dissipate the force of storm surges.
Whenever coastal zones are being deprived
of their mangrove protection, the damage of big waves is much
more dramatic. The BBC reported several studies that reveal the
importance of mangroves to human lives and settlements: a study
of the 2004 Asian tsunami found that areas near healthy mangroves
suffered less damage and fewer deaths. Also a study published
in December 2005 said healthy mangrove forests helped save Sri
Lankan villagers during the Asian tsunami disaster, which claimed
the lives of more than 200,000 people. Researchers from IUCN compared
the death toll from two villages in Sri Lanka that were hit by
the devastating giant waves --while two people died in the settlement
with dense mangrove and scrub forest, up to 6,000 people lost
their lives in a nearby village without similar vegetation (1).
According to Mangove Action Project
(MAP), the loss of mangroves started in Burma under British colonial
rule, “in order to clear space for rice production. Since that
time, mangrove loss has continued; during WWII [Second World War]
to satisfy military demands, and more recently, for fuel wood
and unsustainable developments, such as industrial shrimp aquaculture
and urban expansion.” MAP reports Burmese researchers revealing
that “during a period of 75 years (1924-1999), 82.76% of the mangroves
of the Irrawady were destroyed.”
“The conversion to large-scale shrimp
and fish farms is the most significant threat to mangroves world
wide, and other pressures include tourism developments and rising
populations. This is worrisome to those who believe that global
warming and rising sea levels will cause more frequent and intense
storms, and that the loss of mangroves will make the coastlines
more susceptible to damage.” (2)
The
December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that ravaged several Asian
coasts, the 1999 Super Cyclone that hit the coast of Orissa (India)
killing more than 10,000 people are sad memories recalled by the
recent disaster in Burma, especially because they could have been
“greatly lessened and much loss in life and property damage could
have been averted if healthy mangrove forests had been conserved
along the coastlines of the Irawaddy Delta," said Alfredo
Quarto, MAP's executive director.
The cause of the evil is well known
by national and international authorities. An FAO officer has
acknowledged that "There are very limited areas that you
would describe as pristine or densely covered mangrove in the
Irrawaddy area" and though there are some efforts to rehabilitate
and replant mangroves, the loss rate is quite substantial still.
The officer said that "During the 1990s, they lost something
like 2,000 hectares each year, which is about 0.3% being lost
annually. But that does not give you the whole picture because
the majority of these tidal habitats are being degraded, even
if they are not being completely destroyed." (1)
How many other lives should be lost
in order to gain the political will to change the present “development”
policies that have so dramatically proved to be unsuccessful?
No development is possible on the long run when it implies destroying
our home, our nature. Burma’s people can sadly tell you that.
Article based on information from: (1)
“Mangrove loss 'put Burma at risk'”, Mark Kinver, BBC News,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7385315.stm; (2)
Press Release: “Destruction of Mangrove Forests Increased Devastating
Impact of Cyclone Nagris”, MAP.
http://www.mangroveactionproject.org
/news/current_headlines /press-release-destruction-of-mangrove-forests-increased-devastating-
impact-of-cyclone-nagris/
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Paraguay: Forced contact brought illness and death to indigenous
man
Parojnai was his name. He was from the
Ayoreo-Totobiegosode indigenous people who inhabit the Chaco forest
stretching from Paraguay to Bolivia and Argentina, south of the
Amazon basin.
Parojnai Picanerai, his wife and their
children had managed to live in the Chaco forest (located in Paraguay),
without contact with the outside world despite increasing encroachment
onto their territories. Though the Paraguayan law acknowledges
the Ayoreo’s right to own the lands which they have traditionally
inhabited, their forest is being sold to private owners and rapidly
cleared by speculators and ranchers for logging and later on for
cattle raising.
In 1979 and 1986, the American fundamentalist
New Tribes Mission organized “manhunts” to force large groups
of Ayoreo Totobiegosode out of the forest. Later on, harassment
and bulldozing of the Chaco forest continued with regular incursions.
Ayoreo communal life in villages was disrupted and they had to
move camp to live in hiding inside the forest, abandoning their
huts and leaving behind the crops they had planted as well as
valued possessions such as cooking pots and tools.
Finally, tired of the lonely life and
of living on the run, Parojnai and his family eventually gave
up and made contact in 1998. Survival International brings us
his testimony in that moment: “We ran from one place to another.
It looked like the bulldozer was following us. I had to leave
my tools, my bow, my rope to run faster… We thought that the bulldozer
had seen our garden and came to eat the fruit – and to eat us
too.”
They went to live in a small Ayoreo
community on the edge of the forest, but soon after contact, Parojnai
contracted flu and tuberculosis. Survival campaigner Jonathan
Mazower, who had visited him in 2003 and in 2007, this month said:
‘When I first met Parojnai, he was already very sick. But I’ve
seen pictures of him taken on the day after first contact and
he was incredibly fit and healthy then.”
On the first days of May, Parojnai died.
His death acquired a significance that Mazower expressed quite
properly: “For me, Parojnai’s life symbolises the fate of indigenous
people in the Americas since Columbus. Loss of his land to outsiders
forced him to give up his independence, and contact left him sick
with a disease that eventually killed him. The same tragedies
faced by Indians 500 years ago are being played out today for
the world’s last remaining uncontacted tribes.”
Article based on information from: “Paraguay:
Ayoreo Indian Dies after First Contact”, 7 May 2008, Survival
International,
http://mcsv.net/cgi-bin/redir?MCid=ADomPAu9J28E4tnmA4RM
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Zambia: Grabbed by the agrofuel stampede
In Africa,
agrofuel initiatives
are proliferating in many countries including Zambia, where jatropha
has been selected as the main crop to produce biodiesel while
sugar cane, sweet sorghum and cassava are chosen for bioethanol.
A research undertaken
by Matongo Mundia (1) in 2007 explains that “As on the rest of
the continent, much of the drive for biofuel developments in Zambia
comes from talk of achieving energy security and supporting social
and economic development. However, there seems to be a lack of
clarity over whether investment and targets are aimed at production
of biofuels for the Zambian market or for export.”
The Zambian government
has supported and endorsed the production of agrofuel
but the sector is fairly new in the
country. The report identifies D1 Oils -- a UK-based global
producer of biodiesel -- and Marli Investments as the main
drivers of agrofuel
production. Through the Biofuels Association of Zambia (BAZ),
the agrofuel industry has been trying to get incentives such as
minimum agrofuel
blends for all consumers, and the provision of incentives that
may fuel capital for the development of the sector.
“It seems that companies
such as D1 Oils may be promoting biofuels as a domestic
energy strategy, in order to open the door to amenable legislation,
while really intending to focus biofuel production on the export
market. The likelihood that biofuel production will ultimately
be targeted at export markets, and fail to benefit Zambians, is
supported by the fact that Zambia has no biofuel refining facilities
and D1 Oils are building a refinery in Durban, South Africa.
Once the product has left the country, the greater buying power
of the European consumer will undoubtedly prevail”, explains the
report.
A shared fate in most places where large-scale
agrofuel schemes have been launched is that of deforestation and
displacement: “66% of Zambia’s landmass is comprised of woodlands
and forests, some of which are of special importance such as those
in the river headwaters (catchment areas), forest reserves and
game parks. Only about 26% of Zambian woodlands and forests
could be used for further agricultural productivity such as crops
for agrofuels. However, even without clearing
more forests for agriculture, Zambia is already experiencing very
high levels of deforestation. In a recent statement, Copperbelt
Province Minister Mr. Mwansa Mbulakulima intimated that a de-gazzeted
forest reserve will be given to investors (The Post, 4th May 2007).
It is not yet public knowledge whether this give-away will go
towards biofuel production, or to other industry developments.
However, this indicates that biofuel developments leading to deforestation
will not find many obstacles from local or national government.”
“There are serious questions in Zambia about
land availability for conversion to agrofuel production, and the
impact it will have on farmers, food production, forested areas
and indigenous peoples. The Lands Act of 1995, provides for the
conversion of customary tenure to leasehold tenure, and many investors
have already used this provision to expropriate land for investment
purposes. The government of Zambia has intimated that they want
to adopt a market oriented land policy, and the new draft land
policy also looks to be taking these strategies forward.”
A
strong opposition to agrofuels has been rapidly mounting up challenging
both the alleged “carbon neutral” solution they claim to be and
their environmental and social impacts. In
November 2007, several African civil society organisations made
“An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel Developments” (2)
calling for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on their
continent. “We need to protect our food security, forests,
water, land rights, farmers and indigenous peoples from the aggressive
march of agrofuel developments, which are devouring our land and
resources at an unbelievable scale and speed,” reads the call.
They warn that “the
agrofuels ‘revolution’ is geared to replace millions of hectares
of local agricultural systems, and the rural communities working
in them, with large plantations. It is oriented to substitute
biodiversity-based indigenous cropping, grazing and pasture farming
systems with monocultures and genetically engineered agrofuel
crops. In addition, the millions of hectares of what the agrofuel-pushers
euphemistically call ‘wastelands’ or ‘marginal soils’ are to be
turned to ‘productive’ fuel production, conveniently forgetting
that millions of people in local communities make a living from
these fragile ecosystems. And where there are no indigenous farming
systems to replace, one just takes the forests. In the driver’s
seat are the multinational corporations that manage these kinds
of huge monocultures best and already control the international
market for agrofuels.”
And they conclude: “We can ill afford to lose
our food, forests, land and water, if we are to meet the challenges
of climate change and food insecurity. We therefore ask our African
governments and those of the North to stop and think. We urgently
call for a moratorium that can protect Africa from the many threats
of the new and dangerous Agrofuels stampede.”
Article based on information from: (1) “Agrofuels
in Africa – The impacts on land, food and forests”, African Biodiversity
Network, July 2007, Biofuel case study: Zambia, Matongo
Mundia, commissioned by Clement Chipokolo,
http://www.gaiafoundation.org/documents/AgrofuelAfrica_Jul2007.pdf;
(2) November 2007, An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel
Developments,
http://www.africanbiodiversity.org/media/1210585794.pdf?
PHPSESSID=0c91fabd2a80b164ffb52f594d4da9c5
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Community forest management: A new and inspiring FoEI publication
Millions
of people throughout the world live in rural areas and to a greater
or lesser extent depend on forest ecosystems for their livelihoods.
However, forest degradation and deforestation are occurring at
alarming rates, thus endangering their lives.
Whether for forest-dependent
indigenous peoples and rural peasant communities or for urban
communities reliant on environmental services provided by forests,
these play a vital role in everyday life. Unfair distribution
processes, consumerism and the lack of good governance lie at
the centre of unsustainable resource management causing environmental
problems and the continual impoverishment of local populations.
This
new publication produced by the Forest and Biodiversity Programme
of Friends of the Earth International, provides renewed impetus
and documentation illustrating how innovative solutions based
on the knowledge of local communities are contributing to the
improvement of their life conditions while also protecting and
maintaining forest ecosystems.
“Community-based
forest governance refers to the regulations and practices used
by many communities for the conservation and sustainable use of
the forests with which they coexist. This type of governance is
collective-communal, and by tradition identifies with forest protection,
opposing the industrial and commercial use of forest resources”.
The
publication provides community experiences from a broad array
of countries, detailing successes and challenges in local peoples’
efforts to control, use and protect their forests. These experiences
include cases in India, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia,
France, Greece, Chile, Bolivia, Amazonia, Costa Rica, El Salvador
and Haiti. The cases offer a good basis for illustrating and motivating
reflection on community forest management with the aim of encouraging
the sustainable use of forests.
In
addition to local community experiences, the publication includes
analysis for critical reflection and discussion on a large number
of threats and opportunities, with issues ranging from the role
of governments and international financial institutions to food
sovereignty, consumerism, climate change, peoples health, markets
for local products and land tenure. The book shows how those issues
affect local peoples, linking them with the broader issue of social
and environmental justice.
Used
as a basis for collective reflection over local level resource
control, through processes of participatory decision making and
egalitarian benefit sharing, this inspiring publication is a valuable
tool to be used by communities wanting to exercise greater control
over their lives and resources, for communities struggling to
improve their lives, to restore degraded ecosystems, as well as
for political lobbying against socially and environmentally destructive
policies.
By:
Antonis Diamantidis, email:
antonis@wrm.org.uy
The
book is available in electronic format in Spanish at
http://www.coecoceiba.org/images/pub91.pdf, and will soon
be available in English and French. For further information please
contact Javier Baltodano, from Friends of the Earth at:
licania@racsa.co.cr
index
COMMUNITIES AND TREE MONOCULTURES
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Women the most impacted by agrofuel production
The expansion of large-scale plantations
--either crops or trees-- for the production of liquid agrofuels
such as bioethanol and biodiesel is increasing in many Southern
countries –with harmful impacts on people and the environment.
Now, even the FAO admits the risks.
A recently published FAO report looks into agrofuel production
and their gendered impacts, explaining that it may increase the
marginalization of women in rural areas, threatening their livelihoods.
The large-scale pattern of agrofuel
feedstocks conveys increased land requirements that put pressure
on so-called “marginal” lands, which provide key subsistence functions
to the rural poor and are frequently farmed by women. The report
acknowledges that replacement of local crops with monoculture
energy crop plantations could threaten agro-biodiversity as well
as the extensive knowledge and the traditional skills of smallholder
farmers in the management, selection and storage of local crops,
all activities performed mainly by women.
In addition, agrofuel production may
negatively impact the livestock sector, which is key to the food
security of rural households, through a reduction in the availability
of land for grazing and an increase in the price of fodder (due
to the growing use of agricultural commodities for agrofuel
production).
The potential depletion or degradation
of natural resources associated with large-scale plantations for
agrofuel production may place an
additional burden on rural farmers’ work and health, in particular
on female farmers. If agrofuel production competes, either directly
or indirectly, for water and firewood supplies, it could make
such resources less readily available for household use. This
would force women, who are traditionally responsible, in most
developing countries, for collecting water and firewood, to travel
longer distances thus reducing the time available to earn income
from other sources.
The potential loss of both biodiversity
and agro-biodiversity presents risks to food production as well,
posing a serious threat to rural livelihoods and long-term food
security. In particular, the potential deforestation associated
with the establishment of large-scale plantations for agrofuel
production may negatively impact the peoples who depend on such
forests for their livelihoods, increasing their food insecurity.
Agrofuel
production might also have gender-differentiated impacts on food
access, through both price and income effects. There is growing
evidence that the increasing demand for agricultural commodities
for the production of liquid agrofuels is
contributing to reverse the decrease in the price of both agricultural
commodities and food that has occurred in the last few decades.
This may have negative food security impacts, particularly for
households that are net purchasers as well as countries that are
net importers of agricultural commodities and food. The
rising demand for liquid agrofuels could
also make the prices of agricultural commodities and food more
unstable, exposing a significant number of households and individuals
to the risk of food insecurity. Sudden increases in food prices
would have negative repercussions in particular for poor households
and vulnerable groups, particularly women and female-headed households,
which tend to be particularly exposed to chronic and transitory
food insecurity, due also to their limited access to income-generating
activities.
Furthermore, the alleged employment
opportunities in rural areas of the establishment of plantations
for agrofuel production are targeted mainly to low-skilled agricultural
workers and these are rather seasonal jobs or on a casual basis.
FAO reports that a growing number of these workers are women,
who due to existing social inequalities generally tend to be disadvantaged,
compared to men, in terms of employment benefits and exposure
to occupational safety and health risks.
In general, the cultivation of sugarcane
and oil palm has been linked, in several Southern countries, to
unfair conditions of employment, health and safety risks, child
labour and forced labour. In some cases, working conditions on
plantations (including those of agrofuel
feedstocks) tend to have a differentiated gender impact. Landowners
tend to prefer women workers, as they are able to pay them less
than their male counterparts and find them a docile and dependent
workforce, and are therefore more exploitable.
Reliable data on the share of women
waged agricultural workers are difficult to obtain, given the
prevalence of informal labour arrangements. There is evidence,
however, that this share has been rising worldwide and women now
account for 20-30 percent of total waged agricultural workers.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the figure is 40 percent,
while, in African countries, this percentage is likely to be higher.
There is evidence that women tend to receive on average less training
and instruction than men, they often do repetitive work that can
result in health problems, and face reproductive hazards as a
result of exposure to agrochemicals. In Malaysia, for instance,
women, who represent about half the workforce on plantations,
are often recruited as sprayers of chemical pesticides and herbicides,
without proper training and safety equipment. This may have serious
implications for the long-term health of these women workers.
The FAO report concludes that efforts
to mitigate climate change through the promotion of liquid agrofuels
production can reduce people’s socio-economic resilience
(especially among the most vulnerable groups, including women),
weakening their ability to cope with exogenous shocks such as
climate change.
However, FAO fails to take a committed
stance against the agrofuels model being promoted, which is unsustainable
by its own nature, and ends with the wishful thinking that “making
sure that biofuels production is beneficial to both men and women
in developing countries would therefore strengthen their ability
to cope with the impacts of climate change”.
We welcome the information provided
by the FAO report, though we feel that its final conclusion doesn’t
hold water. Agrofuels are increasingly proving that they bring
no environmental or social benefits, and the FAO report depicts
how they affect especially poor and rural women. The conclusion
should therefore be strong and clear: if you want to benefit poor
and rural women, do not promote agrofuels!
Excerpted, adapted and commented from:
“Gender And Equity Issues In Liquid Biofuels Production Minimizing
The Risks To Maximize The Opportunities”, Andrea Rossi and Yianna
Lambrou, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, Rome, 2008, ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/ai503e/ai503e00.pdf
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Australia/Tasmania: Deal favours Gunns’ pulp
mill project despite popular opposition
On the first days
of this month the Tasmanian people got to know of a deal that
had been struck four months before between their government and
the timber company Gunns. The deal, called the Sovereign Risk
Agreement, provides that taxpayers should fund the company along
20 years with $15 million in case its wood supply is compromised
by any reason. (1)
Gunns’ projected
pulp mill has faced strong opposition from social sectors including
students. In the blog Students Against the Pulp Mill (http://stopthemill.blogspot.com/2008/04/alliance-forms-to-save-tasmania-from.html)
it can be read: “So if we vote this government out because we
don't approve of the pulp mill, the next government will be forced
to continue supplying timber to Gunns, even if most Tasmanians
don't agree to it. How undemocratic”.
The government’s favouritism for Gunns is in
stark contrast with its attitude towards the concerns raised over
the potential adverse impacts of the unpopular pulp mill Gunns
plans to build in the Tamar Valley. The Gunns fast track approval
did not even assess the potential adverse impacts of the pulp
mill industry on tourism, fishing, niche clean agriculture and
wine making. And in case the proposed pulp mill causes damage
to clean, green industries, they won’t receive any compensation
for that.
Local businesses were told that it’s not the
government’s business to help them out if damage to their clean,
green reputation ensues.
An article from The Tasmanian Greens (2) denounces
the following: “A letter written by Premier Paul Lennon to the
Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania (TICT) specifically addressing
industry concerns over the pulp mill, dated 6 September 2007,
states in relation to the following concern expressed to him:
TICT: ‘There must be a method of assisting
businesses that suffer loss of trade or capital value as a proven
result of the operation of the pulp mill’.
Premier: ‘Individuals will need to seek independent
legal advice about remedies available to them should they suffer
loss of trade or capital value as a result of the operation of
the pulp mill.’”
The students’ blog reports that last April
16 “A diverse collection of groups, individuals and businesses
from around Tasmania and Australia have come together in the Tamar
Valley this weekend and agreed to the formation of a cohesive
working alliance to stop the Gunns pulp mill.”
There was a call to close personal bank accounts
in ANZ Bank as a punishment for its potential support to the Gunns’
pulp mill project, and around 100 people –especially young people—
rallied on the Parliament House’s lawn to express the central
message: DON'T PULP OUR FUTURE!
Article based on information from: (1) Compo
for Gunns if supply fails, Matthew Denholm, The Australian,
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23652116-5013871,00.html;
(2) $15 Million Price Tag On Democracy Under Deal With Gunns,
http://tas.greens.org.au/News/view_MR.php?ActionID=2979
index
-
Burma: Generals go berserk on biofuels
Biofuels – bio-diesel
oil extracted from plants to replace high cost fossil fuels –
have become controversial as the biofuel plantations are taking
away lands mainly used, in particular for food production, by
local communities.
In Burma, the ruling
military junta has embarked on a massive expansion of biofuel
plantations through forced confiscation of lands as well as arrests,
fines, and beatings of farmers.
The junta’s five-year
plan targets 8 million acres with the Jatropha curcas (physic
nut, jetsuu in Burmese) tree for biofuel production. Each
state and division of the country has to plant the crop across
500,000 acres. Now two years into the program, information is
seeping out about the brutalities the local populations undergo
being forced to plant jatropha.
“Biofuel by Decree:
Unmasking Burma's bio-energy fiasco,” a report produced by the
Ethnic Community Development Forum, an alliance of seven community
development organizations from Burma, details how the Burmese
junta is terrorizing the local populations to plant jatropha for
biofuels even as, according to the report, “evidence of crop failure
and mismanagement expose the program as a fiasco.”
The report says that
farmers, civil servants, teachers, schoolchildren, nurses, and
prisoners have been forced to purchase seeds and fulfill outrageous
planting quotas, consuming precious time, land and resources essential
for subsistence.
A manual produced
by the Ministry of Agriculture says that 1,200 trees should be
grown per acre. If the targets are reached, this would require
every man, woman and child in Burma to each plant 177 trees within
three years. The junta also plans to export biodiesel in future
and the jatropha project has attracted investors from Thailand,
Singapore and UK.
The junta claims
that biofuels are necessary as a fuel substitute to make Burma
decrease its dependence on the 200 million gallons of oil it imports
annually. The junta-owned Myanmar oil and Gas Enterprise hopes
that the country can replace all of its 40,000 barrels of conventional
oil imports with domestic jatropha within a few years. The junta’s
claims for energy self-sufficiency, however, seem dubious given
that it has been selling off the country’s numerous natural gas
deposits to Thailand, India and China.
On March 2006, the
head of Burma’s military and the ruling State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), Senior General Than Shwe, urged the “extensive
growing of physic nut across the nation,” a speech that effectively
made the biofuels project a “national duty” and set off frenzied
activities to plant jatropha in “all empty spaces.”
Soon high profile
plantation ceremonies involving military top brass and battalions
of soldiers kicked off plantation projects across villages and
townships. The military told civil servants to plant jatropha
at state offices, schools, and hospitals; house gardens, churchyards,
monastery compounds, and even cemeteries were targeted.
The military makes
people buy seeds, branches or seedlings as well as use their own
labor, farm tools and land. Land confiscation is the norm: for
example, in northern Shan State, the military took 1,000 acres
of land belonging to farmers in Man Mao village and gave the land
to the local militia to grow jatropha.
The majority of villagers
are forced to buy seedlings, branches, or seeds in packets and
tin baskets (as well as an “instruction manual”) often at exorbitant
prices.
One interviewee reports,
“We bought the plants when the authorities came to our village.
Every house had to buy at 400 kyat per plant. Some villagers had
no money and had to borrow from others to pay for the plants.”
(The official exchange rate varies between 5.75 and 6.70 kyats
per US dollar.)
In one bizarre instance,
villagers were forced to find wild seeds, sow them in a nursery,
and then buy back the seedlings they had nurtured.
By August 2006, jatropha
cultivation reached the 1 million acre mark; updated plans then
called for 2.3 million acres in 2006-07, 2.68 million acres in
07-08, and 3.38 million acres in 08-09, making a total of 8.36
million acres.
The report explains
the chilling situation in Burma where these quotas are being enforced
with beatings and death threats. Field research in 32 townships
in each of Burma’s states including 131 interviews with farmers,
civil servants and investors details how soldiers are arresting
and beating people and threatening death to those not meeting
quotas, damaging the plants, or criticizing the program. At least
eight hundred people have fled across the border to Thailand from
Southern Shan state to escape the cruelty of the biofuels program.
Despite all these
measures, massive crop failures – as high as 72% – plague the
project after two years of implementation due to haphazard growing
techniques and bad seed stock.
Even when the trees
themselves grow, often they bear few seeds because climate and
soil conditions are not adequately taken into consideration. Moreover,
Burma has little capacity to extract oil from seed, and much of
the biodiesel produced has been of such poor quality that engines
won't run on them.
The jatropha trees
take 4 to 5 years to mature fully. During this period, farmers
get no income from it; families also have little to eat since
the arable lands are taken over by the biofuel plantations. One
farmer asks, “They said it would be a three-year project; but
what are we going to eat in the meantime?”
Food scarcity is
a serious problem in many parts of Burma. According to the United
Nations World Food Program, in 2007, some 5 million people or
almost 10 percent of Burma’s population were chronically short
of food.
One farmer said,
“We suffer from lack of farmlands for cultivation. We cannot work
for ourselves properly. We have to grow jet suu. If we
don’t want to grow they collect 2,500 kyat per acre from each
of us. Our time is limited and now we have to go far away to work
and have no time to weed our paddy.”
Concerns also persist
about the poisonous properties of the jatropha plant due to presence
of toxalbumin called curcin, ricin and cyanic acid, related to
ricinoleic acid. Though all parts of the plant are poisonous,
seeds have the highest concentration of ricin and thus highly
poisonous. Ricin has been shown to exhibit many cardiotoxic (heart
muscle damage) and hemolytic (breaking open of red blood cells
and the release of hemoglobin into the surrounding fluid) effects.
Adverse effects following consumption of seeds include vomiting,
diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and burning sensation in the throat.
Local people have
found ways to show defiance. Faced with loss of lands and livelihoods,
many villagers see no choice but to find ways to avoid or refuse
to plant. Some buy seedlings but don’t plant them; others plant
less than ordered; signboards promoting biofuels have also been
defaced.
By Amraapali N.,
a writer in the Mekong region, e-mail: amraapali@gmail.com
The report “Biofuel
by Decree” published by the ethnic Community Development Forum
(ECDF) is available for download at:
http://cban.ca/Resources/Topics/Agrofuels.
index
- South Africa: A
visit to Komatiland Forests industrial
tree monocultures
In November 2007, several representatives
from World Rainforest Movement visited Komatiland Forests' operations
at Brooklands in Mpumalanga province in South Africa.
Under a photograph of J. Brooke Shires,
who planted the first eucalyptus and acacia trees at Brooklands
in 1876, we listened to a company presentation. Komatiland is
a parastatal company managing a total of about 128,000 hectares
of mainly pine plantations. The trees are grown on a 28 to 30
year rotation for saw logs. Komatiland employs 2,400 people with
a further 1,200 people employed on a contract basis, we were told.
The Komatiland plantations at Brooklands cover an area of just
over 12,000 hectares. The company uses a horse harvesting system
on about one-third of its land at Brooklands.
The company has been certified by SGS
Qualifor under the Forest Stewardship Council certification system
since 1997. A Komatiland official told us that there are four
stages of certification: unknowingly non-compliant; knowingly
non-compliant; knowingly compliant; and unknowingly compliant.
In these days of corporate greenwash, this part of the presentation
was refreshingly honest. "I'm buggered if I know where we
are," he said, laughing. "Somewhere between two and
three." This was a staff member of an FSC-certified company
admitting publicly that Komatiland was not fully compliant with
FSC standards. "There are problems with all operations. We
are not perfect. You will be able to find problems in every one
of our plantation units." He said this to an audience that
he knew was critical of both industrial tree plantations and FSC
certification.
Winnie Overbeek asked about land rights
and conflicts over land. "That sounds like a very European
question," came the reply. Overbeek explained that he has
worked for more than a decade in Brazil supporting the Tupinikim
and Guarani Indigenous Peoples in their struggle for land in the
area occupied by Aracruz Cellulose's plantations and that his
question was based on this experience. Undaunted, the company
representative continued. "South Africa is a very unique
country", he explained. "There are no indigenous people
in South Africa according to FSC standards. Apartheid happened
and there are lots of land claims. All plantations and farms have
land claims. That doesn't mean that they are valid land claims."
All of which sounds remarkably similar to the arguments that Aracruz
used, before the Brazilian Ministry of Justice ruled in favour
of the Tupinikim and Guarani (see WRM Bulletin 122, September
2007).
In 2007, Komatiland lost about 17,000
hectares of plantations to fire. "Global warming is making
things worse," said the Komatiland official. "For example,
pine beetles are attacking native forest trees. No one knows what
will happen next. We're in for some changes and we're scared of
it."
Wally Menne of the TimberWatch coalition
pushed home the point that although the company is called Komatiland
Forests, this is a misnomer, because Komatiland's forestry operations
consist of large scale industrial tree plantations.
After the presentation, the company
took us to look at some of its plantations. We drove through Komatiland's
pine and eucalyptus monocultures. We saw huge areas of clearcuts
and burnt areas of plantation. We drove past the company-built
accommodation for workers - rows of small, crudely built terraced
bungalows with tin roofs and large numbers painted on the doors.
In its assessment of Komatiland, SGS states that the company directly
employs only 1,729 people. Driving through the plantations and
clearcuts we saw very few workers.
We stopped on a ridge, with lush green
grassland on one side of the track and a scene of complete destruction
on the other. Every living thing had been cut and scraped away,
leaving what looked like a brown moonscape. We got out and walked
past piles of logs, some of which were marked with SGS's forest
management and chain of custody number (SGS-FM-COC-0068). In the
distance a machine was picking up logs and leaving them in neat
piles.
In the company's presentation we'd been
told that 30 per cent of Komatiland's land is open, and that since
1994, the area of plantations at Brooklands had been reduced from
10,000 hectares to 9,000 hectares. We were told that there was
no planting within 20 metres of streams. There was a stream flowing
just next to the clearcut. Eucalyptus and pine trees were growing
right up to the stream bank.
We saw a log extraction operation using
horses. Komatiland told us that using horses damages the soil
less and employs more people than mechanised log extraction. The
operation that we saw was on a slope that was in any case far
too steep to use machines. It looked like brutally hard work.
Four men were working with three horses. The horses pulled the
logs one at a time down the slope. The men then had to unfasten
the chains from the log and pull the horses back up the slope.
Meanwhile the managers watched them from the bottom of the slope.
One of them had brought his dog with him to work.
During the company's
presentation, we had been told that "Apartheid happened"
in South Africa. Yet every worker we saw was black. And every
manager we saw was white. In Komatiland's plantations, it seems,
apartheid still exists.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
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