OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
Doublespeak: The language of climate negotiations
One
of the consequences of climate change is the increase and aggravation
of natural phenomena such as droughts, floods and storms. To make
matters worse, the consequences of the current human-induced climate
change are further aggravated by a number of destructive activities,
among which we will focus on two: deforestation and monoculture
tree plantations.
Although
heavy rains are natural occurrences in the tropics, current flooding
in the Malaysian state of Sarawak can be attributed to higher
rainfall resulting from climate change. However, it must be stressed
that the Sarawak government has for over two decades been promoting
the destruction of Sarawak’s forests by supporting industrial
logging. In spite of the strong organized local opposition with
international NGO support to oppose logging –the “Sarawak Campaign”-
corporate interests prevailed and most of Sarawak’s primary forests
disappeared. As a result, forests ceased to play their role as
rainfall regulators, soil erosion increased, river beds rose due
to siltation, and the resulting floods have devastated local peoples
lives and livelihoods (see details in relevant article in this
bulletin).
Similarly,
droughts are a natural phenomenon in Uruguay, and some put the
blame for the length of the current drought on climate change.
However, government forestry policies promoting the establishment
of monoculture eucalyptus and pine plantations have undoubtedly
played a major role in the current water crisis. Vast expanses
of fast-growing tree plantations are now sucking up huge amounts
of already scarce water resources, thus aggravating the drought’s
impacts (see more details in relevant article in this bulletin).
As in the case of Sarawak, the Uruguayan government has chosen
to ignore national opposition –in this case, to plantations- and
has instead supported the establishment of plantations by foreign
companies such as the Finnish Botnia, the US Weyerhaeuser, the
Spanish Ence and Finnish-Swedish Stora Enso.
The
above two examples are by no means exceptions and similar cases
can be easily found in most countries facing either the impacts
of deforestation or those linked to the expansion of fast wood
plantations -or both.
Linking
situations such as those to the international climate change negotiations,
the sad conclusion is that these are being carried out in a very
cynical language that can only be termed as doublespeak.
Governments
unanimously agree that climate change is a fact and that it needs
to be addressed, both internationally and locally. They also agree
that fossil fuels and deforestation are the two major causes of
climate change. They talk about mitigation, compensation and adaptation.
And then their either do nothing or do the opposite of what needs
to be done.
Instead
of declaring fossil fuel extraction a criminal activity, they
continue extracting the existing sources and exploring for new
oil and gas deposits. Instead of declaring large scale deforestation
illegal, they discuss complex ways of making business out of forest
conservation while continuing to destroy forests. Instead of seeking
to prepare their peoples for better coping with climate change
–that will impact disproportionately on the poor, on women and
other disadvantaged sectors of society- they engage in activities
like deforestation and tree plantations that deplete precious
resources needed for future adaptation –such as water.
Seven
years ago, during the Climate Change Conference held in Delhi,
an Indian religious leader --Swami Agnivesh- confronted governmental
doublespeak with the plain truth: "Whom do you think you
are cheating? You are cheating your children; you are cheating
your grandchildren."
Those
words remain today as true as they were then.
index
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
- Colombia: Militarized mining tramples ancestral rights of indigenous
and Afro-Colombian communities in the Chocó
The
Chocó is a biogeographical region that forms part of the neotropics
(meaning that it contains the largest area of tropical rainforest).
Its high rainfall levels, tropical temperatures and isolation
have helped make it one of the world’s most biologically diverse
regions as well. In Colombia it encompasses the Pacific Coast
region and, among others, the department of Chocó, located between
the jungles of Darién and the basins of the Atrato and San Juan
Rivers.
For
centuries, this region has been inhabited by Embera indigenous
communities and the Afro-Colombian communities of the Jiguamiandó
River basin, who are now threatened by a mining project. In 2005,
the Colombian government granted U.S.-based Muriel Mining Corporation
a 30-year concession for the mining of copper, gold, molybdenum
and other minerals (the Mandé Norte mining project) in an area
encompassing 11,000 hectares of indigenous and Afro-Colombian
territory in the municipalities of Murindó (Antioquía) and Carmen
del Darién (Chocó). This area has already been hit by the violence
of numerous Colombian army operations backed by paramilitary groups,
which resulted in repeated displacement of indigenous and Afro-Colombian
communities.
In
2008, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal tried and condemned Muriel
Mining for “the violation of the self-determination, culture and
cosmovision of indigenous, African-descendant and mestizo communities,
and for the profits derived from the systematic execution of crimes
committed over the last ten years by the military and paramilitary
structures in the Bajo Atrato and Urabá regions to permit the
exploitation and sale of copper reserves and gold and molybdenum
by-products” (http://www.sicsal.net/articulos/node/631).
Since
late 2004, Muriel Mining has been encroaching into the region
with no prior consultation with local communities but with the
consent of the Colombian state and government, a fact that has
been systematically denounced by indigenous and Afro-Colombian
communities.
In
early January of this year, workers from the mining company entered
Cerro Cara Perro, also known as Ellausakirandarra, a sacred site
used for traditional spiritual practices by the area’s ancestral
peoples and local communities, who reported that the company had
not duly consulted with the local population before entering their
territory, in clear violation of the 1991 Colombian Constitution,
ILO Convention 169 and Colombia’s Law 70 of 1993.
The
implementation of the mining project endangers the very survival
of the local communities, because mining operations entail the
contamination of the Jiguamiandó and Murindó Rivers, the destruction
of native flora and fauna, and the prohibition of the use of natural
resources by the region’s ancestral inhabitants.
The
area has been heavily militarized by Colombian army units, who
have been sent in to control the region and protect the mining
company’s operations, overriding the rights of the area’s traditional
and legitimate inhabitants. The government justifies this move
on the grounds of six meetings held with supposed indigenous representatives.
For
their part, the communities of Alto Guayabal, Bachidubi, Bella
Flor, Cañaveral, Caño Seco, Koredó, Coredocito, Guaguay, Isla,
Lobo, Nueva Esperanza, Pueblo Nuevo, Puerto Lleras and Urada have
taken action to stop the mining company, with the support of human
rights organizations. The communities affected by the Mandé Norte
project do not recognize the legitimacy of the meetings that the
Colombian government puts forth as “consultation”, since they
were held through the Department of Ethnic Affairs of the Ministry
of the Interior and Justice. Only a few of the region’s communities
participated in these meetings, which means they do not fulfil
the principles of representativity or full and informed consent
established in ILO Convention 169.
As
a result, local indigenous leaders report that “with the power
of Mother Earth and our spirits, since the middle of January more
than 700 indigenous people have been carrying out a reconnaissance
and territorial monitoring exercise in the community of Coredocito,
the site where a camp is being built at a distance of three hours
from the community.” (1)
On
February 24 to 28, the communities will be holding a consultation
for the defence of their territory, an internal decision-making
process in which men, women, the elderly and young people over
the age of 14 will be able to voice their opinions and decide
whether or not to allow the mining company onto their land. The
consultation will take place with the oversight of national and
international social, human rights, environmental and civil society
organizations, who will participate as observers and guarantors.
The
National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) declares:
“We do not need gold to live, but we do need corn and plantains,
so let’s drink chicha (corn liquor) and plant corn. MULTINATIONALS
OUT OF COLOMBIA! Muriel Mining Corporation out of indigenous and
Afro-Colombian territory!”
To support the protest of the Embera indigenous
people and other communities affected by Muriel Mining, Rainforest
Rescue has organized a campaign that you can join through its
Spanish language website at: http://www.salvalaselva.org/protestaktion.php?id=346
(1)
“La Muriel Mining Coporation, atropella y desconoce las autoridades
indígenas en la mina Cerro Carra de Perro”, statement by ONIC,
in Noticias de Censat, Agua Viva, http://www.censat.org/noticias/2009/2/6/La-Muriel-Mining-Coporation-atropella-y-desconoce-las-autoridades-indigenas-en-la-mina-Cerro-Carra-de-Perro/
index
- India: A human chain to defend Niyamgiri Hill from mining
The
Niyamgiri Hill, in Orissa, an outstanding natural beauty place
rising more than one thousand meters, has some of the most pristine
and dense humid forests in the region and is the source of Vamshadhara
river and of major tributaries of Nagaveli river. It is also the
most sacred site of the Dongria - literally 'hill people'-, a
dwindling sub-section of the Kondh peoples, who have inhabited
the forests of eastern India for several thousand years.
The
Dongria Kondh depend on the forest hill for their livelihood:
they farm its slopes growing crops in among the forest. Their
fruit gardens high up on the hillside require hard work; a man
may spend 10 days there protecting precious crops from elephants,
wild boars and light-fingered monkeys, warning them off with tribal
songs and the banging of drums. They obtain cash from the sale
in the local market of wild fruit, flowers and leaves gathered
in the forest.
The
Niyamgiri forest is ecologically vital to the entire ecosystem
of the hills as it enables the numerous streams and lush forests
which sustain the Dongrias to continue to thrive. The mountain
has also rich deposits of aluminium ore. This has become a curse
for the hill and the peoples that depend on it since their future
is at stake by mining interests.
Reporter
Peter Foster (1), who visited a Dongria village and heard their
complaints, wrote that “digging up the Niyamgiris will be a social
and environmental catastrophe, they say, destroying rivers and
streams on which tens of thousands of people depend to irrigate
their crops, polluting rivers with the toxic 'red mud' that is
a by-product of aluminium manufacture and - most importantly,
according to the anthropologists - wiping out the Dongria Kondh,
who worship the sacred hills named after their god, Niyamraja.”
Mining
the Niyamgiri Hills may represent a genocide for the Dongria.
According to anthropologist Felix Padel, quoted by Peter Foster,
“'The Dongria are hill people, resettling them on the plains is
a form of ethnicide. They live in the hills, they worship the
hills, they survive off the hills. The Niyamgiri Hills are not
simply where the Dongria live, but the very essence of who they
are. To resettle them is to destroy them.' An elder of the village
visited by the reporter said: 'We can't go. The hills are who
we are.'
The
fate of a resettled Dongria village –Sakata- looms as a sad premonition.
Foster tells that the people received concrete houses and land
to grow crops “but have since done nothing with the government's
gift. Almost all the men of the village are dead from taking too
much of the potent local liquor, which is far stronger than the
sago-wine of their tradition. 'With the connection to the forest
gone,' a local social worker says, 'the men of the village simply
earned enough as day labourers to drink themselves to death.'”
Although
India’s Supreme Court has forbidden Vedanta –a firm majority owned
by London-based Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal- from mining the
mountain, the hunger for raw materials has led it to welcome Vedanta’s
Indian subsidiary, Sterlite Industries. In August 2008, Sterlite
was given the green light to mine on Dongria land upon following
certain guidelines.
The
company has tried to build roads for the mine. However, the Dongria
and other Kondh tribes have marched through the dense forest to
create a 17-km-long human wall across at the base of Niyamgiri
Hill on the 27th January to blockade the roads and keep the British
company off their sacred mountain.
According
to Survival International, some reports put the number of men
and women from Orissa's Niyamgiri area taking part in the protest
at over 10,000. Placards carried by the protesters bore slogans
including 'Vedanta, go back' and 'Stop mining in Niyamgiri'.
It
was the second large-scale demonstration in ten days: on 17 January
up to 7,000 protesters marched to the gates of Vedanta's aluminium
refinery in the nearby town of Lanjigarh.(2)
If
the mine succeeds, a whole ancient world may be destroyed. As
Bijaya Kumar Baboo, who has worked with the tribes of Orissa since
the rice famines in the 1980s, was quoted by Foster: “The Dongria
people have lived on so little for so long without destroying
their world. And yet we are destroying our world at an unsustainable
rate. Before the Dongria cease to exist, shouldn't we be asking
if we have anything to learn from them?”
A
campaign has been organized by Survival International to support
the Dongria Kondh by either writing to the Prime Minister of India,
your MPs, your Indian embassy and/or donating to their campaign
(see
http://www.survival-international.org/news/4152)
(1)
Mining in Orissa threatens Dongria Kondh tribe, Peter Foster,
Telegraph Media Group,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/3340194/Mining-in-Orissa-threatens-Dongria-Kondh-tribe.html
(2)
Tribe forms human chain to keep British company off sacred mountain,
29 January 2009, Survival International,
http://www.survival-international.org/news/4152
index
- Liberia: Country
Heading for Disaster -timber industry set to reopen despite widespread
concerns and evidence pointing high potential for illegal logging
Liberia’s
forests hold great promise for its people, but that promise is
quickly evaporating as the Liberian government mismanages this
valuable resource. The government is awarding flawed logging contracts,
community rights are being trampled underfoot, and civil society
organizations are under threat of censorship (1) for speaking
out.
Fumbling towards Disaster
In
an effort to break with the country’s bloody history linked to
natural resources exploitation, the Liberian government passed
a new forestry law in 2006. The law promised a new, participatory
process for identifying potential areas for new concessions, and
transparent processes for pre-qualifying logging companies, and
tendering new concessions. Unfortunately, in the words of the
UN Panel of Experts, the Liberian Forestry Development Authority
(FDA) “is often either not aware of the legal requirements
or is unable to follow them.”(2)
A
series of logging contracts have been awarded in violation of
the laws (3); to logging companies with unproven technical and
financial capacities and financial backers about whom far too
little is known. When qualifying companies to bid, the government
failed to establish proper standards and thus failed to weed out
companies with tax arrears and others that could not fulfill their
obligations were they awarded contracts.
The
three companies that have been awarded the three largest contracts
should not have been awarded contracts had the forestry authorities
applied the law. For example, Liberia Tree and Trading Company
(LTTC) had tax arrears at the time they were pre-qualified. The
company still had arrears when they bided for contracts (4); again
in violation of the law. During the bid evaluation the company
contacted the bid evaluation panel “requesting the Panel to
hold on to its final report on evaluation for one week to allow
them settle their tax arrears with the Ministry of Finance”(5);
the Chairman of the Bid Evaluation Panel informed the panel that
this was a violation of the law (6). Ownership of the second
company, Alpha Logging and Wood processing, significantly changed
between the time it pre-qualified to bid and when it bided on
one of the three contracts (7). This significant change in ownership
automatically nullified their pre-qualification certificate (9).
Like LTTC the forestry authorities awarded them a contract even
though they were not qualified to bid. The third company, E J
and J, failed to demonstrate sufficient technical and financial
capacity during the due diligence process; a major precondition
for the award of contracts.
The
due diligence demonstrated how little is known about these companies:
how leadership has changed hands, how funders remain in the shadows,
or how required start-up capital fails to materialize. Certainly
more worrying, the contracts that were awarded to them enjoyed
a quiet, late change to their payment obligations, reducing by
96 percent the amount they would pay in land rent to the government.
While this change was corrected after questions were raised, it
is demonstrative of the uncertain and potentially dangerous future
promised by Liberia’s confused FDA.
Trampling over Communities Rights
The
government appears intent to ignore also those aspects of the
law that protect the limited rights of forests communities. The
government cannot unilaterally take forestland from communities
without due process, consultation, agreement, and contractual
obligations to provide benefits. Yet it has – sometimes through
incompetence, sometimes willfully – violated these requirements.
While
Liberian law unfortunately does not recognize the property rights
of traditional communities to their trees the FDA is required
to request permission from communities to be affected by logging,
when zoning areas as suitable for logging. This process is designed
to coordinate or prevent wholesale taking of forestland by a runaway
agency. The FDA did not fulfill these requirements.
Additionally,
the people who are to be affected by logging are being pushed
around. The government is required to help communities form local
representative bodies and ask those bodies for permission to log
the land. Of the ten current or potential logging concessions,
the author has spoken with individuals who live in eight and has
found no evidence that permission to log was granted by those
who live on the land. And while representative bodies are being
formed, this is being done only after the government has already
decided what forests will be logged.
This
violation notwithstanding, the FDA rolls on. Before being allowed
to start logging, a company is required to sign a contract, a
Social Agreement, with those affected by the operation. This Agreement
is supposed to contain the benefits the community will receive
in exchange for logging. Six Agreements have been signed and there
are widespread reports of the abuses that characterized the process.
For
example, in one region the FDA arrived and called a meeting. At
the meeting they announced the need for representatives or a Community
Forestry Development Committee (CFDC) to be elected. On the day
of the meeting the community’s representatives meet those from
the FDA and the logging company. A FDA-drafted Agreement is read,
but that Agreement provides only a minimum of benefits required
under law, is plagued by typos, and contains numerous legally
disingenuous promises. FDA, the logging companies and local government
officials collude to threaten and lie to the community representatives.
The Agreement is signed without revision within 24 hours. Reports
suggest that the process by which other Social Agreements have
been signed were similarly characterized by coercion and a massive
deficit of informed consent.
The
FDA is required to void such Agreements and has an opportunity
to ensure that future Agreements are signed voluntarily and knowingly.
If it does not do so then little opportunity exists for the people
whose everyday lives will be severely affected by logging to gain
from the cutting of their trees.
Deaf to the World
Rather
than addressing these difficulties the FDA has opted to bury its
head in the sand. The Authority is mandated to follow certain
transparency requirements, including a requirement that it produce
documents on its treatment of community rights. However, repeated
requests from NGOs and community groups go ignored leaving great
uncertainty as to whether those violations already witnessed represent
the extent of the damage done.
As
an alternative, the FDA has misguidedly produced Guidelines from
how it considers civil society actors should behave. The Guidelines
state that all NGO actions pertaining to the forests must be first
vetted by the Authority. If an NGO acts without FDA approval then
the FDA would recommend the NGO be stripped of its accreditation.
The Constitution of Liberia and the forestry law make such Guidelines
illegal and unenforceable, but calls for their revocation have
remained unanswered. The FDA remains an agency unprepared to focus
on righting Liberia’s forestry process, choosing instead to shut
its ears to concerned calls.
It
is not too late. While the FDA has signed contracts for six logging
contracts to date, the three largest are not yet operational as
they await legislative ratification. There is time for the qualification,
bidding, and Social Agreement processes to be corrected. There
is time for communities to be consulted and for logging to benefit
the people of Liberia. Perhaps more importantly, there is time
for alternatives to logging to be discussed; alternatives that
may provide the capital the government needs, the rights the communities
deserve, and the environmental protection the country requires.
There is still time for Liberia to enjoy the promise held by its
forests.
By
Jonathan Gant, Legal Fellow (from Columbia University, US) with
the SDI in Monrovia, and Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor, Director
of the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), February 20, 2009
index
- Malaysia: River siltation due to deforestation underlying severe
floods in Sarawak
Heavy
rains started pouring on January 14 and continued for almost one
month in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak, hitting especially
the central and northern region.
Thousands
of evacuees, essential foodstuff airlifted to longhouses, tons
of relief aid, closure of primary schools, landslides, crops destroyed
have been the toll of an unprecedented devastating flood that
has mainly hit rural Sarawak. Paddy fields were ripening when
the rain started. Eventually the crops were completely destroyed
by the flood. According to a report in The Borneo Post on 11 February
2009, indigenous communities from a number of longhouses in the
Baram river region have lost almost their complete harvest.(1)
While
changing climate patterns may be conveniently blamed for the devastation
(everybody’s fault - no one’s fault) more than twenty years of
forestry policies favouring large-scale depletion of the fragile
tropical rainforest ecosystems for short-term (rather short-sighted)
profit are a major underlying cause that some are highlighting
now.
As
the organization Bruno Manser Fonds recalls “Despite warnings
from environmentalists and international scientists, less than
ten percent of Sarawak's primary forests have been spared from
logging without due importance being attached to the long-term
environmental, social and economic consequences of logging.”
A
lawyer from Kuching, one of the provinces hit by the floods, wrote
in his blog (http://voonleeshan.blogspot.com/2009/01/2009-floods-in-kuching.html)
that many of the causes of floods in Kuching and other adjacent
areas had been created through policies of the government of the
day. And he asks them: “Why fell the trees and cleared the forests,
when trees could help mitigate floods by soaking the water during
heavy rain? Why fell trees and clearing of forests be allowed
for purpose of profit of the few, yet, without proper replanting
and forest management? Were not these contributed to erosions
and siltation of the river beds of the Sarawak River? Had not
this siltation then caused the riverbeds to be shallow? Had not
the shallow waterbeds cause rain water to rise up very quickly
to flood riverbanks and into the farms, shops and houses?”
Siltation
linked to deforestation has also resulted in massive death of
fish. In this respect, the Digest on Malaysian News reported that
“hundreds of fish surfaced in the Batang Rajang [river] as they
struggled for air, some already dead. There also have been several
reports of such incidents in Belaga and Kapit since late last
year which was cause for much worry for the people there. Natural
Resources and Environment Board (NREB) had found that the fish
had practically suffocated to death and not poisoned. The cause
of the incident is very simple. Rajang River became too shallow
due to heavy siltation. Siltation was caused by heavy and uncontrolled
deforestation in upriver areas.”
According
to the same source, “We all know that the erosion is due to uncontrolled
logging in upper Batang Rajang. The culprits (who happen to be
associate of Taib Mahmud, the Chief Minister of Sarawak) are the
timber companies. They rape the virgin jungle of Sarawak which
resulted in massive deforestation and erosion and siltation which
eventually make the Batang Rajang proned to flooding (which severely
affected Sibu town) and hindering water nagivation due to shallow
river. And now, the fishes are dying.”
The
huge profits from logging have gone to a handful of corporations
and to the pockets of few and powerful people, but its devastating
effects are now being suffered by thousands of people, many of
whom have actively opposed logging in their territories.
(1)
“Rural Sarawak suffers flood consequences”, media release
of Bruno Manser Fonds, 17 February 2009,
www.bmf.ch,
info@bmf.ch
(2)
“Siltation killed fish at Batang Rajang”,
Digest on Malaysian News (http://malaysiadigest.blogspot.com/2009/02/siltation-killed-fish-at-batang-rajang.html)
Other
sources: several news features from the Malaysian website The
Star Online, http://thestar.com.my
index
COMMUNITIES
AND TREE MONOCULTURES
-
Brazil: Veracel plantations, certified land seizure
In 1991,
the Veracel Celulose company, then known as Verazcruz Florestal,
first arrived in the extreme south region of the state of Bahia.
Originally,
this hot, humid region was covered with various types of Atlantic
Forest, which has since been destroyed and replaced with crops,
pastureland and monoculture eucalyptus tree plantations.
The
implementation of a “model of development” based on deforestation,
violence and the expulsion of local communities paved the way
for the large-scale installation of eucalyptus plantations and
pulp mills in the region.
In
mid-1991, Veracruz Florestal purchased 47,140 hectares of land
from a company called Vale do Rio Doce. In November 1992, civil
society organizations began receiving reports that Veracruz Florestal
had hundreds of trucks removing native wood species from the land
in order to plant eucalyptus trees.
On June
17, 2008, after 15 years of legal action, the Federal Court of
Eunápolis finally declared Veracel Celulose guilty of the environmental
destruction committed during its first years of operations in
the area, up until 1993. It sentenced the corporation to a fine
of BRL 20 million (close to USD 8.7 million), in addition to revoking
the environmental permits issued for the establishment of the
eucalyptus plantation. This decision meant that Veracel will have
to cut down the eucalyptus trees planted under these permits and
reforest the land with native Atlantic Forest tree species.
In
1997, the Swedish corporation Stora became of one of the principal
owners of Veracel. Subsequently, in 2000, Aracruz Celulose formed
a joint venture with Stora Enso (formed through a merger between
Stora and Finnish company Enso), under which each controlled 50%
of shares. Through the expansion of their eucalyptus plantations,
both Veracel and Aracruz have been gradually coming closer to
the region’s national parks, traditionally inhabited by the Pataxó
indigenous people.
Within
the lands identified by the national indigenous agency FUNAI as
Pataxó territory, there are 1,645 hectares of Veracel Celulose
eucalyptus plantations. For its part, the Pataxó Resistance Front
states that there are roughly 30,000 hectares of Veracel Celulose
plantations on the 120,000 hectares of land that rightfully belong
to the Pataxó people.
The
Pataxó say that the land in question had been illegally seized
by large landholders through false ownership deeds, and then sold
to Veracel, which cut down the native vegetation and poisoned
the area’s water sources with the toxic agrochemicals it uses,
killing off animals and plants.
“We call
this a green desert because the eucalyptus plantation has brought
us a lot of pollution, it has brought us a lot of problems for
us and for our children. This green desert doesn’t bring us health,
it doesn’t bring us education, it doesn’t bring us food. Not even
the birds are free to live on the plantation. The only thing it
brings is wealth for people from the outside, but it brings us
nothing. And it angers me to be in a green desert inside indigenous
territory.”
(Interview
with Chief Jurandir, village of Jataí, 09/04/2008)
Throughout
the years, the Pataxó have fought for the legal demarcation of
their territory and protested the establishment of eucalyptus
plantations.
There
is, however, a major obstacle when it comes to the inspection
of the operations of a company like Veracel by the government
authorities: a total lack of the necessary structure and staff,
at both the national and state government levels.
At
a seminar held in Porto Seguro in November 2007, the director
of the Environmental Resources Centre at the Bahia Environmental
Institute admitted that the agency has only 20 technicians to
assess all of the projects undertaken in the state of Bahia, which
is made up of 418 municipalities. In the extreme south region
of the state, there is just one agency inspector to cover an area
in which the companies occupy no less than 400,000 hectares of
land.
In
the face of this situation, a number of organizations in the extreme
south of Bahia have called for a moratorium on the planting of
eucalyptus in the region until an economic-environmental zoning
process has been completed and the state has the necessary technical
and human resource requirements to authorize and monitor company
operations, in addition to establishing zones reserved for other
activities, such as family agriculture.
Nevertheless,
although it still lacks the power to properly fulfil its functions,
the CRA continues to grant authorization for the conversion of
more land to tree plantations. This can only lead to the conclusion
that Bahia’s environmental policy favours the economic interests
of Veracel and other companies over the common good.
Veracel
eucalyptus plantations currently cover 15.1% of the total land
area and 40% of the arable land in the municipality of Eunápolis.
When
it comes to employment, it is well known that eucalyptus plantations
and pulp production contribute very little to job creation. This
is a highly mechanized sector that requires only a small number
of workers to monitor and manage the production process in order
to ensure high productivity.
While
the building of the pulp mill created a relatively large number
of jobs (around 9,000), once the mill was fully operating the
number of workers employed by the company on its plantations and
in the mill combined dropped to 741, most of them highly skilled
labourers. Relative to the amount of land covered by eucalyptus
by Veracel, this works out to one direct job per 103 hectares
of plantations.
The
fact that the company did not create thousands and thousands of
jobs as expected provoked a major backlash from the region’s population.
Yet
in spite of all this, Veracel continues to be backed by the FSC’s
“green” label, meaning that the FSC has served as an important
tool for the expansion of big pulp corporations that can operate
with an environmentally sound and socially just image, a factor
that also helps to boost sales.
According
to the inhabitants of local rural communities and members of peasant
movements, the company has done nothing but to promote the concentration
of land ownership, the establishment of monoculture plantations
and the expulsion of the rural population, who are left with only
two choices: to leave the countryside, or to fight back.
Extracted
and adapted from “Violações socioambientais promovidas pela Veracel
Celulose, propriedade da Stora Enso e Aracruz Celulose: Uma história
de ilegalidades, descaso e ganância”. CEPEDES
(Study and Research Centre for the Development of the Extreme
South of Bahia), Eunápolis, Bahia, 2008.
The full study in Portuguese is available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/CEPEDES_2008.pdf
index
- Brazil: A private sector rationale in forestry training at Viçosa
Federal University
Concern over the destruction of forests
was already documented
at the end of the seventeenth century. Since then,
some studies
argued that
it was necessary to develop knowledge
regarding forest use
adapted to the situation of tropical forests
considering that the way it was being carried out –as well as
the slavery-based approach- were destructive and degenerated national
morale. However, these remained as references of historic possibilities
that were initiated but never had any effective long-term continuity
as Brazilian aristocratic and patriarchal society chose extensive
monoculture plantations and an agro-exporting, large landowning
and slavery-based economy. This social and economic way of life
imposed a utilitarian, immediate and predatory type of relationship
between society and nature.
Regarding
forestry matters, this rationale was promoted particularly through
public bodies seized by a private rationale, such as the Forestry
Service which in 1911 became a major producer and disseminator
of Eucaliptus to the detriment of research endeavouring
to establish other species for the most diverse purposes.
One of the consequences was that in 1935, the forest cover of
Sao Paulo had already shrunk to 26.2%.
Following
the same rationale as the Green Revolution, as from the
seventies the “forestry sector” ceased being solely the object
of specific actions and, in addition to medium and long-term planning,
became the object of political actions and programmes involving
massive public non-recoverable investments and tax incentives.
This reveals that Brazilian private “forestry” companies
were in fact set up with public money, in return leaving a scourge
for thousands of families, in particular for the so-called
traditional peoples.
As
a result of this policy, Fanzeres stresses that: “As from that
time, a series of conflicts and disputes started, now considered
as having a socio-environmental nature. However, until the
return and consolidation of political freedom in Brazil which
started in 1985, disputes were maintained of a local and isolated
nature. The memory of those who lived through those times
reconstructs the action of the companies or of their intermediaries
as being clad in moral or physical violence, even causing the
death of many people. Today’s so-called social disputes basically
happen because of land appropriation at no cost or at a symbolic
price. Indigenous and Quilombola* groups, even less empowered
than the rural workers who also occupied these lands without ownership
deeds, were also evicted or enclosed by vast expanses of tree
plantations. Environmental problems started almost immediately
due to felling to replace the native forest, unsuitable for the
industrial purposes aimed at, and to the use of chemicals to fight
ants and other creatures that attack monoculture tree plantations.
The impacts related to water resources clearly showing the socio-environmental
combination of damage to human survival and to the native biodiversity,
only appeared following the establishment of these plantations.
Presently this is one of the most important issues to be discussed
and solved regarding these vast tree plantations.”
It
is within an international “cold war” climate, an hegemonic conception
of the country with a clearly developmental approach - of a technical
nature in the case of agrarian sciences - and within the great
agitation of the political disputes that subsequently ended in
the military, pro-capitalist coup in Brazil, that came recognition
of the need for professional training aimed at forestry production
issues in the country.
In
their works, Ladeira and Ehlers tell us that: “The research institutes
and agronomy schools established at the beginning of the twentieth
century suffered from the influence of various agreements, for
instance, MEC/USAID. Other examples are agreements such as those
with the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the
US-led Alliance for Progress. These agreements resulted in the
donation of scientific equipment, literature, human resources
[there were many exchanges between US and Brazilian academics]
and financial resources. The main Brazilian schools of agronomy
(ENA, ESALQ, UFP, UFRGS and UFV), under the influence of the North
American Purdue, Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina schools, reformulated
their curricula, structures and teaching, extension and research
methodologies and started favouring areas and disciplines directly
and indirectly related with the adaptation and validation of the
emerging agricultural model, already conventional in the US and
Europe. The professional forestry study programme, set up in 1960,
is placed in this context.”
This
description reaffirms what is being set out here and what a professional
forester, trained in 1976, and interviewed by France Coelho states
on depicting the conception of forestry study programmes: “At
that time, there was what was known as a silviculturist-agronomist.
That is to say forestry was pure silviculture. Forest management
was completely out of the question. It means that they did not
work on forests, they worked on reforestation. Silviculture as
“THE ART OF MAKING FORESTS,” but they didn’t work with the forest
itself, they did not work with native, natural forests.”
From
the start and given the intrinsic and growing relationship with
the private sector, the Forestry study programme at Viçosa Federal
University has inherited even today all the concepts set out above.
In order to have an idea of what goes on with research at the
Department of Forestry at UFV, we have analyzed the participation
of each sector in the funding of research recorded by the Department.
Out of the almost twelve million reais [Brazilian currency] invested
over the period, 83% originated from some public body and the
remaining 17% from private institutions, which is very significant.
However, the private companies also appropriated 53% of the public
money allocated to research in the Department. And it should be
remembered that what is most expensive is the infrastructure,
the payment of salaries and all the investment in training up
to a degree, which is not accounted for and is paid out from public
money.
Among
the lines of research in the areas of knowledge, we find that
that of the environment as a whole, is the only one that does
not have most of its resources geared mainly to the private needs
of corporate groups. It is not by chance that the smallest
amount of resources is allocated to this area, a scant 13% of
all the funds entering the Department for research.
Regarding
the subject of research, although Brazil is a tropical country,
44% of the research projects gather 55% of the resources entering
the Department for science and technology development and are
allocated to the study of a single species: Eucalyptus sp.
It may also be affirmed that there is a direct relationship between
investigating technology related to eucalyptus and mainly benefiting
private initiative, because out of the 213 research works on the
above-mentioned species, 76% of them, that is to say 80% of the
resources allocated to this research, give primacy to the private
sector’s productive progress.
Within
such context, much confrontation, willpower and courage is necessary,
as is being shown by the student movement and other peoples’ social
movements, which carry out
activist work day by day in the building up and
strengthening of their representative bodies at all levels, through
assemblies, congresses and various other actions, such as marches,
cultural demonstrations adopting the most diverse forms such as
occupation of the dean’s office, struggles around the extinction
of foundations in universities and attempts to prevent agreements
between the universities and these corporations. Furthermore,
in a positive struggle, demanding research that effectively benefits
traditional and peasant peoples.
These
clashes are inevitable. According to sociologist Francisco de
Oliveira this process of privatizing what is public involves the
destitution of speech through the demoralization of discourse
and disqualification of opponents with the aim of annulling political
discussion, “the imposition of a consensus in the way of dictatorships.”
And this is easy to be seen within the Department and within
the UFV as a whole, when groups opposing this privatizing policy
or the hegemonic production model are pejoratively stigmatized
as the “eco-bores” or “neo-hippies.” And, when this is not sufficient,
with guardianship – through the creation of means to lessen student
autonomy – and/or psychological and often physical violence entering
on the scene.
Even
so, the struggle for a Democratic and Peoples’ University still
continues, particularly in the hearts and minds of combative students
organized in their several representative organizations.
By
Professional Forester Vladimir Oganauskas
Filho, e-mail:
florestavladimir@yahoo.com.br.
NOTE: The complete
text (in Portuguese) with graphics, tables, bibliographic references
and sources may be downloaded from the WRM webpage:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/ThesisVladimir_2008.pdf
*Quilombo
= Remote places of difficult access where runaway slaves sought
refuge. Quilombola people are their descendents.
index
- Indonesia: Criminalization of social leader for the benefit
of oil palm corporation
As
exposed in previous WRM Bulletin issues, criminalization is part
of a strategy aimed at silencing any protest generally against
the extractive activities of transnational corporations (see WRM
Bulletin Nº 125). It is happening all over Southern countries.
And it is happening right now in Indonesia, where it has victimized
another fighter of social resistance to land-grabbing by palm
oil-companies in the country.
The
powerful agribusiness transnational group PT Sinar Mas, apart
from wide investments including chemicals, finance, banking, hotels,
telecommunications, pig-breeding, shares the world's largest holdings
of oil palm lands and is Indonesia’s largest palm oil company.
Operations
of its subsidiary PR Kresna Duta Agroindo (KDA) in Jambi province,
on the east coast of central Sumatra, have raised conflict among
villagers of Karang Mendapo. The company aggressively expanded
its oil palm plantations grabbing forest and rubber plantations
of Karang Mendapo farmers. Some 600 hectares were illegally cut
down to integrate the land to a larger oil palm plantation, for
which KDA distributed a monthly fee of 58.000 rp (3,50 €) to each
registered farmer without clearly stating the purpose of such
payment.
According
to Watch Indonesia! (1) “in August 2008, the villagers seized
the land - that in fact is their own - and harvested the yields
of the oil palms there. Ever since, they have been subject to
intimidation and maltreatment by unknown persons presumably acting
on behalf of KDA. These incidents were reported to the police
but to no avail.”
“As
part of the protest, the citizens of Karang Mendapo decided to
return the fee they had received from KDA in August. However,
KDA refused to take back this money”. The villagers decided then
to entrust the money on resistance leader Muhammad Rusdi -who
is also the village’s mayor- until KDA would receive it.
Rusdi
was arrested on 28 January 2009 and still remains in detention
at the district police facilities. He was interrogated and there
are reports that he was maltreated. It seems that Rusdi was arrested
under the alleged charge of misappropriation
of the money entrusted to him by his fellow villagers.
The
communiqué of Watch Indonesia! says that “local activists and
the population of Karang Mendapo fear that Rusdi is being framed
by local law-enforcement authorities acting on behalf of KDA.
Local activists fear that Rusdi is being criminalized to suppress
the protest of victims of abusive land-grabbing practices that
palm oil-companies apply Indonesia-wide.”
With
7.1 million hectares planted with oil palm, Indonesia is positioned
as the world's leading palm oil producer. The urge to plant oil
palm has not ceased. On the contrary, on 18 February this year,
Indonesia acknowledged it had quietly lifted a ban established
since December 2007 on the use of peat land for palm oil plantations
(2). This implies that around 2 million hectares of peat land
eligible for palm oil plantation will be cleared and drained,
thus releasing millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere that
will add to global warming.
Mounting
criminalization, deforestation, destruction, land-grabbing, global
warming: the fruit of oil palm tastes bitter than ever.
A campaign has been organized to demand Rusdi‘s
immediate release and a thorough investigation of how he came
to be detained at all. You are invited to take action and send
letters –a suggested sample is available- to Indonesian authorities
through Watch Indonesia!’s website at
http://www.watchindonesia.org/Index-engl.htm, or Salva la
Selva campaign at
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=359
(1)
“Urgent Appeal: Resistance against Palm Oil - Unlawful Arrest
of farmers’ resistance leader in Jambi, Indonesia”, Watch Indonesia!,
Berlin, 5 February 2009,
(2)
“Indonesia reopens peatland to palm oil plantation”, Ian MacKinnon,
The Guardian, 18 February 2009,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/18/indonesia-peat-palm-oil
index
- Paraguay: Peasants can better confront eucalyptus advancing
on their lands thanks to the experience of their Brazilian peers
The
Paraguayan Federation of Wood Industries
(Federación Paraguaya de Madereros - FEPAMA) is talking of “collaborating
with the Agrarian Reform Project promoted by the Government, through
a proposal for comprehensive rural development and generation
of wealth by introducing tree plantations on idle lands.” (1)
FEPAMA alleges that “with this work special support could be provided
to small and medium-sized rural landowners, to enable them to
help organize the promotion of tree plantations ... in the farms
of small and medium-sized landowners.” (2)
The
“idle lands” referred to by FEPAMA are part of the peasants’ productive
system, which is generally diversified. The proposal is to plant
fast-growing trees on these lands. This business, that will mainly
benefit the forestry sector, providing the necessary raw material
to develop an industry, will be implemented by using national
funds. The FEPAMA proposal is to set up a fund to activate Law
536 which established subsidies to tree plantations with “an initial
input of between five and ten million dollars from the MERCOSUR
Structural Funds and/or the social contributions from Itaipu [a
large hydroelectric dam shared between Brazil and Paraguay] and/or
the World Bank, IDB, JICA and others.”
The
1994 Law 536 set out the bases for the development of a large
scale forestation model – although due to special circumstances
in Paraguay it came to a halt – which is suspiciously similar
to the legal frameworks of other countries, such as Chile and
Uruguay that have promoted tree plantations.
Thus,
in Paraguay the process is being launched of imposing large-scale
monoculture plantation of fast-growing trees. This is an opportunity
for Paraguayan peasants to benefit from the experience of their
Brazilian brothers and sisters regarding the plantation of eucalyptus
on peasant farmland.
In
this respect, a document prepared recently by the Brazilian Movement
of Small Farmers
(Movimiento de Pequeños Agricultores - MPA) (which can be accessed
at the WRM website at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/Fomento_Florestal.pdf)
analyzes the impacts of the “forestry promotion” programme fostered
by the Government in the State of Espirito Santo, which promotes
monoculture eucalyptus plantations by small farmers.
Behind
the discourse of “benefitting” the peasants is concealed a new
strategy for the expansion of agribusiness companies (the pulp
company, Aracruz, in the concrete case of Brazil). This
strategy ensures them the supply of raw material without the responsibility
of producing it and allows them to avoid any type of restriction
on land ownership. Furthermore, the companies are able to
obtain timber from trees planted on lands that would not be profitable
for industrialized company management, such as hilly areas.
Small
landowners entering the programme become captive to the company
as it has a monopoly over the purchase of wood. Furthermore, they
sign a contract with the company in which they take on numerous
obligations such as the application of agrochemicals, technical
assistance defined by the company, delivering of the timber to
the company and achieving an estimated production. If this goal
is not reached the farmer may even have to make up the difference
himself.
“We almost had to sell coffee to pay the freight
to transport the eucalyptus. I went to the Aracruz office and
told them I was not going to do that, but they insisted that I
had to pay.”
The
experience of these farmers tells us among other things, of the
dangerous and unprotected work in the monoculture tree plantations,
the drop in water courses caused by these trees and the obligatory
use of poisons in the plantation.
Using
a practical approach, the document compares the economic and socio-environmental
returns from a eucalyptus plantation (in the worst and best scenarios)
with those of corn and bean plantations. The results leave no
doubts, even in the best of the scenarios for eucalyptus it is
more profitable for the peasants to invest in growing food-crops
and even to diversify their production with the plantation of
native trees.
It
is important to transmit this experience to other countries where
the intention is to impose the expansion of industrial tree plantations
using the same arguments. The Paraguayan peasants and people can
back themselves on the experience of their regional peers to avoid
being misled.They are still in time to resist.
(1)
“Paraguay: FEPAMA plantea apoyo a reforma agraria mediante
forestación”, ForestalWeb,
http://www.forestalweb.com/Noticias-internacionales/paraguay-fepama-plantea-apoyo-a-reforma-agraria-mediante-forestacion/
(2)
“Fepama plantea desarrollo forestal”, ABC digital,
http://www.abc.com.py/2009-01-26/articulos/490192/fepama-plantea-desarrollo-forestal
index
- Uruguay: A new land redistribution...in favour of forestry companies
In
Uruguay at the end of the forties, the State promoted an exemplary
initiative, the creation of the National Settlement Institute
(Instituto Nacional de Colonización - INC), that arose from the
need for a “suitable instrument to promote a rational subdivision
of land and its appropriate exploitation in order to achieve the
settlement and welfare of rural workers, thus promoting an increase
and improvement in farm production.”
"Settlement
is a productive socio-economic process, whereby the State acquires
lands or receives them as property or for administration, re-dimensions
them and then allocates them to farmers so that they can settle
there with their families and work them appropriately." (1)
Thus, within these settlements it is common to find land subdivisions
that maintain the name of the cattle ranch that was subdivided
for settlement. Such is the case of Santa Kilda and Santa Blanca,
in the Colonia (settlement) Baltasar Brum in the Department of
Paysandú.
Invited
by farmers of Santa Kilda and Santa Blanca – concerned over the
advance of pine and eucalyptus plantations in the vicinity of
their lands – we had the opportunity to visit part of the Colonia
Baltasar Brum. The area was originally used for agriculture but
later cattle-raising was also introduced.
The
Colonia is being surrounded by monoculture tree plantations and
while these grow in height and in extension, the negative impacts
on the farmers become more notorious: lack of water, pest proliferation,
among others.
"The
forestry companies have killed our settlement and our water resources
and wells are disappearing,” said one of the farmers. “Streams
that had never dried up today have no water in them” and “this
has nothing to do with the drought.” They are quick to say that
at times of longstanding droughts the streams only dwindled down
at some point along their route, but since tree plantations were
established in the area they have dried up completely. The
settlers see how in wells 40 m deep the water level has become
dangerously low and in some areas has even disappeared, implying
that the farmer has to invest in another well where an attempt
will be made to reach the water table at a depth of 100 m. This
is an extra cost that not all the families are able to cover.
On
passing by some land belonging to one of the forestry companies,
we noticed a considerably large area with no plantation on it.
“Those low-lying lands were wetlands and that is why they could
not plant trees on them. They could not enter with the machines.
You see now, some years after they planted the rest of the land,
the wetlands no longer exist, now it is land ready for planting
trees." A similar process occurred in lands belonging to
the settlers, the wet lowlands – where it was impossible to pass
even on horseback and where even in the worst droughts ever in
the country these locations enabled the settlers to save the cattle
– now they have been dry for the past five years.
"You
plant a crop and the birds eat it all, there are millions of pigeons,
although the companies’ foresters say that pigeons do not live
in those woods [they refer to the tree plantations], but hey,
do they live there!!”
Another
settler whose lands are on the other side of the “tree curtain”
affirms that “when one plants sorghum along come the wild boars
and they eat it, and nobody sees this, it is full [the plantation]
of wild boar and deer.” "This was a wonderful settlement,
then they spoilt it with tree plantations. You breed animals and
the wild boars eat them, both the calves and the cows.”
Among
the arguments used to promote tree plantations, they say that
they generate jobs, they talk about biodiversity, sustainable
management. Slogans such as "Forests give life and work.
Protect them” may be seen along the roadside. Those “forests”
are in fact the companies’ tree plantations.
The
inhabitants of the settlement have another view on this. "Have
you noticed how under the trees nothing grows?” while he points
to the 1000 ha of tree plantations surrounding his 40 ha piece
of land. That land was like this [referring to his own land
where he grows crops and breeds cattle] and they came along and
killed everything, there is no more grass, there is no life in
that place."
These
families, that have lived all their lives in rural areas, say
that “to us who know the land, they can’t tell us about work in
plantations; there is work when they plant and then, nothing.”
"The harvest doesn’t provide jobs either, it is a lie; one
woman is in charge of the harvesting machine, one man manipulates
another machine that loads the logs on the truck which, once full,
leaves and bye-bye, no more labour.”
"The
forestry companies have moved strongly into our settlements. They
arrive with their promises and offer materials and kitchen equipment
for the schools to promote a good image and to get accepted.”
“For us, who are confronted with the negative impacts we suffer
from these plantations, those things are of no importance.”
"You
work the land, make your home and its surroundings nice, for this
to happen to us now...” Today, not only these good agricultural
lands need to compete against the advancing plantations, but the
permanence of the settlers’ families is in jeopardy. They
see with sadness how a new redistribution of their lands is taking
place, except that now the process is the reverse: land that could
be allocated to other settlers is being given to foreign forestry
companies. Not only is land concentration taking place once again
but it is also being ‘foreignized,’ and as if this were not enough,
these same plantations are certified by the FSC.
(1)
National Settlement Institution
http://www.colonizacion.com.uy
By
Elizabeth Díaz, Guayubira Group, http://www.guayubira.org.uy/
index
CARBON
TRADE
-
Bath tubs, forests, carbon trading and climate change
In
2008, the value of the carbon market increased by 84 per cent,
with total transactions increasing from US$64 billion in 2007
to US$118 billion in 2008. Surely, with all that money changing
hands, there must be some good news to report about the amount
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
Unfortunately
not. The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) reports that in 2008 global concentrations of carbon dioxide
increased by 2.28 parts per million.
Carbon
traders are now looking at trading the carbon stored in the world's
forests. They hope that reduced emissions from deforestation and
forest degradation (REDD) will generate large quantities of carbon
to be traded. But there are three major problems with this.
First
it would drive down the price of carbon, perhaps even making the
carbon market crash. Recently, carbon prices have fallen dramatically,
making investments in renewable energy less attractive. As the
Financial Times notes, "The price of carbon dioxide in the
European Union has fallen so low it no longer provides an incentive
to low-carbon development, and seems unlikely to do so in the
near future."
The
second problem with trading the carbon stored in forests is that
it would create an enormous loophole for the world's worst greenhouse
gas polluters. We need to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere. This means that we need to dramatically reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases, not find new ways of allowing continued
emissions.
Underlying
this is a common misunderstanding about climate change. In order
to prevent runaway climate change, we need to reduce the concentration
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This means cutting emissions
radically – it is not enough to stabilise emissions.
Currently
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 386 parts
per million. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth
Assessment Report states that to prevent global warming exceeding
2°C, emissions need to be reduced globally by 85 per cent (compared
to 2000) by 2050. The IPCC's target is 450 ppm, but according
to James Hansen of NASA the target has to be 350 ppm.
Perhaps
the best way of understanding the difference between concentrations
and emissions is the "bathtub analogy" put forward by
John Sterman, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
Linda Booth Sweeney at Harvard Graduate School of Education. They
explain that the atmosphere is like a bathtub: the running tap
represents greenhouse gas emissions; the plughole represents absorption
by plants and the ocean; and the water in the bath represents
the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. With
the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the amount of water
coming out of the tap is more than double that going down the
plughole. So, the level of water in the bath is increasing.
To make matters worse, we keep turning the tap a bit further,
increasing the amount of water going in. To prevent the
bath from overflowing, it is not enough just to leave the tap
alone (the equivalent of stabilising emissions), we have
to turn it right down, so that less water is going into
the bath than is going out through the plughole.
Reducing
deforestation is the equivalent of unblocking the plughole. But
trading the carbon stored in forests is the equivalent of cranking
open the tap at the same time.
The
third problem with trading carbon stored in forests is that in
terms of the climate, the carbon stored in forests is not
the same as the carbon stored in fossil fuels. The carbon
stored in fossil fuels is stable and will not enter the
atmosphere unless it is dug out and burned. Carbon stored
in forests is unstable and can easily be released back to
the atmosphere. The recent fires in Australia illustrate
the point well. Such fires are likely to increase with climate
change. To quote the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: "An increase
in fire danger in Australia is likely to be associated with a
reduced interval between fires, increased fire intensity,
a decrease in fire extinguishments and faster fire spread."
The
fires in Australia were a tragedy, killing more than 200 people
and destroying 1,800 homes. They also resulted in the release
of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
– more than one-third of Australia's annual CO2 emissions.
But
what would have happened if the carbon that had been stored in
Australia's burnt forests had been traded? By allowing emissions
elsewhere to continue, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted
to the atmosphere would have been doubled.
Certainly,
deforestation needs to be stopped. But trading the carbon stored
in forests guarantees that greenhouse gas emissions continue elsewhere.
Carbon trading does not reduce emissions. Trading the carbon
that is stored in forests will only make matters worse.
By
Chris Lang, chris@chrislang.org
