Plantations,
poverty and power: Europe's role in the expansion of the pulp
industry in the South
Before the current global economic meltdown,
the pulp industry had ambitious expansion plans. Although the industry
was closing mills in the North, it was expanding dramatically in
the South where about five million tons of new capacity was due
to start up each year for the next five years. Vast areas of monoculture
tree plantations have been established to feed raw material to huge
new megamills, particularly in Latin America, southeast Asia and
South Africa.
Today, however, industry analysts are
talking about overcapacity in terms of a "wall of pulp".
Between September and December 2008, global pulp production shrank
by more than 2 million tonnes. Hardest hit is southeast Asia, where
Asia Pulp and Paper and APRIL have reduced pulp production by a
total of 580,000 tonnes. In Brazil, Aracruz is desperately trying
to save money after losing about US$2 billion on investment in derivatives
and has scrapped (for the time being, anyway) its proposed 1.5 million
tons a year pulp mill at Guaiba in Rio Grande do Sul.
Pulp mills do not build themselves any
more than plantations plant themselves. One of the reasons for the
industry's current problems is a conflict of interest. European
companies, aid agencies and institutions play a significant role
in promoting and financing the expansion of the industry in the
South. They promote this expansion not as a form of "development"
but because it is beneficial to European industry.
My new report, "Plantations, poverty
and power", looks at the role of European companies and institutions
in promoting the expansion of the pulp and paper industry in the
global South. The report replies to the lies that plantation proponents
repeat to justify the expansion of industrial tree plantations in
the South: that plantations provide jobs, relieve pressure on forests,
are only established on degraded land, restore soils, sequester
carbon and help meet a "global demand" for paper. The
biggest lie of all is that plantations are forests.
The reality for people living in the areas
where plantations have been established is that plantations have
destroyed their livelihoods and sucked streams and rivers dry. The
few jobs created are dangerous, poorly paid and often seasonal.
Pulp mills are among the most polluting of industrial processes.
Among the reasons that the South looks so attractive is that regulation
is less strict. Trees grow faster in the tropics, labour is cheaper
and governments provide a series of subsidies to encourage the expansion
of the industry. But another important reason, which the industry
is more reluctant to acknowledge, is that in several countries,
the area of industrial tree plantations expanded rapidly under brutal
military dictatorships, when protest against the impacts of plantations
was either extremely dangerous or impossible. Examples include South
Africa, Chile, Brazil, Thailand and Indonesia.
The report looks at five pulp projects
in detail: Veracel (Brazil); Sappi (Swaziland); Advance Agro (Thailand);
Asia Pulp and Paper (Indonesia); Botnia (Uruguay). Without generous
subsidies it is unlikely that any of these projects would have gone
ahead. The projects provided a series of lucrative contracts for
European, Nordic and North American consulting firms, machinery
companies, chemical suppliers and engineering firms. All of these
projects have resulted in serious problems for local communities.
This is followed by profiles of some of
the European actors involved in promoting, designing and building
pulp projects in the South. Pöyry is the largest forestry consulting
firm in the world and has facilitated (and benefited from) the expansion
of the pulp industry in many countries, both North and South. The
Confederation of European Paper Industries supports the European
pulp and paper industry regardless of its impacts on people and
forests. The Asian Development Bank, the International Finance Corporation
and the European Investment Bank provide examples of multilateral
aid agency support to the pulp industry. Each of these aid agencies
has different standards which it is supposed to apply to potentially
destructive projects such as industrial tree plantations and the
pulp industry. In each case, the standards (and the way in which
the standards are applied) are inadequate to prevent the impacts
on local communities and the environment.
The report looks in detail at two sets
of voluntary standards: the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's
voluntary guidelines for "planted forests", and the Forest
Stewardship Council's certification scheme. Both organisations support
the pulp industry and the expansion of industrial tree plantations.
By defining plantations as forests, the FAO helps create the illusion
that plantations are not destructive, but simply another form of
forest. FSC supports the pulp industry by certifying industrial
tree plantations as well managed, failing in the process to address
even the most egregious impacts of industrial tree plantations.
The report concludes with a suggestion
for an alternative way that the pulp industry could develop, which
would provide the paper needed to meet local demand, based on small-scale
pulp and paper mills using local raw materials. Paper could and
should be produced without destroying forests, grasslands and local
people's livelihoods. A first step in moving towards a less destructive
pulp and paper industry would be to stop the subsidies which help
to keep the status quo. No more development funds should be used
to facilitate the expansion of the global pulp industry and its
associated industrial tree plantations.
By Chris Lang,
http://chrislang.org
Chris Lang's new report, "Plantations,
poverty and power: Europe's role in the expansion of the pulp industry
in the South", can be downloaded here: http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/Plantations_Poverty_Power.pdf
