OUR VIEWPOINT
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Africa: The World Cup and reality
Every four years millions
of people throughout the world suddenly become football fans.
Many of us know that the organizer –FIFA- is a huge and
corrupt money-making machine. We also know that football is
big business for a large number of highly destructive transnational
corporations. We even know that football players are in many
cases no more than modern gladiators sold as human commodities
in the FIFA market.
In spite of the above, the
magic of football glues us to the TV sets. The beauty of the
game and the art displayed by some of its players is coupled
with a very rare quality in today’s world: equality. Regardless
of the political and economic power of the country they represent,
11 young men compete in equal terms with 11 other young men.
Within the teams, collaboration between the players and with
the coach are essential. The rules of the game are the same
for both teams and referees are usually neutral in their application.
For the first time ever
the World Cup is taking place in Africa, which is a good opportunity
for comparing football with reality in this continent.
To talk about equality in
the relations between Africa and the economic powers of the
world is a bad joke. Rules are imposed by the referee (Mr. World
Bank, Mr. IMF, Mr. WTO and other misters) to assist corporate
players in winning the game. The African coaches –governments-
have been bribed by the opponents, thus making collaboration
within teams impossible. In the opposite side, corporate managers
–Northern governments- impose changes in the rules whenever
their teams require them to change. Fair play is non existent.
The result of the game is known well in advance: Transnational
corporations easily win over Africa.
Contrary to football, where
losers simply feel unhappy for some time, the Corporations-Africa
scenario is full of real human suffering: hunger, death, violence,
dispossession, homelessness, environmental destruction. The
riches of the continent –forests, minerals, oil- enrich
the already wealthy while pushing African people into absolute
poverty. The “game” is not a game at all: it’s
a tragedy.
However, little or nothing
of this is being informed by the thousands of journalists present
in South Africa reporting on the World Cup. Both the host country
and the rest of the continent appear to be full of joyful people
dressed in colourful clothing and blowing a vuvuzela, only concerned
about the success or failure of their teams in the beautiful
game.
But the real suffering and
exploited Africa is in fact very visible for anyone wishing
to see it. And so are its many communities, organizations and
movements struggling against all odds in the unfair game being
played against the continent. They have been kept well away
from World Cup reporting but, fortunately for Africa’s
future, they are still there and getting stronger. Our support
to them!
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
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Brazil: Juma REDD test case in the Amazon
At present, the initiative
for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
(REDD) is rather a collection of proposals and some pilot schemes.
However, it is being strongly pushed and at a remarkable speed
inside as well as outside the United Nations process, with the
aim of including carbon forest in the array of mechanisms for
carbon permits and carbon offsets.
Over the past two years,
national proposals and plans for REDD projects have proliferated
involving governments, multilateral organizations, big NGOs
and corporations. The World Bank and northern governments including
Norway, Australia and Great Britain have created a large fund
of some $800 million to finance REDD projects.
In Brazil, the Juma Sustainable
Development Reserve Project, in the south-eastern corner of
the state of Amazonas, in the municipality of Novo Aripuanã,
is the first Brazilian implemented project involving REDD and
has received the validation to the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity
Standards (CCBS) in Brazil, issued by the German audit company
Tüv Süd.
The REDD test case of the
Juma Sustainable Development Reserve covers a forest area
of 589,612 hectares and announces that it will avoid the
degradation of around 366,151 hectares of tropical rainforest
from the total area and the emission of 210,885,604 million
tones of CO2 into the atmosphere by 2050. The project promises
to pay local families an allowance for conserving the forest
untouched.
The money for the project
comes from the Brazilian NGO the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation
(ASF), which manages the reserve with funds donated from the
provincial government, the Brazilian private Bradesco Bank and
the big multinational hotel chain Marriott International. Hotel
guests worldwide are invited to donate $1 per night to the Juma
fund as a way to voluntarily offset the calculated emissions
from their individual hotel stay - the hotel’s website
announces: “Ten dollars will offset the carbon for your
next ten roomnights at Marriott hotels and is tax deductible
for U.S. taxpayers” (1).
Another financial source
for the Juma project is the prospective sale of carbon credits
for the CO2 emissions avoided by not deforesting the reserve
in the voluntary carbon market of emissions compensation, which
according to the project (2) is being developed in partnership
with Marriott International. For a big corporation like the
Marriott Hotel Group, the project might well be very useful
as a “green” public relations exercise.
The Juma project claims
it benefits local communities with direct payment through the
programme “Bolsa Floresta” – an allowance
for the 339 families living in 35 communities in the area, who
will be remunerated to protect the rainforest by receiving roughly
US$ 28 on a monthly basis transferred through a debit card issued
to the wife.
A contract signed by each
family head binds them not to cut or burn the trees, which will
be supervised by regular inspections. In case of deforestation,
the government will stop the allowance.
The Center for Investigative
Reporting Frontline wanted to have their own look at this project
which is being hoisted around the world as a model way to halt
tropical deforestation. So they conducted a field trip
by Mark Schapiro (3) who found that for residents like Dalvina
Almeida, it takes a two-day roundtrip journey by boat just to
receive their 28 monthly dollars. The report quotes Dalvina's
husband saying ‘We used to plant a lot. When this became
a reserve they told us that we could no longer plant in the
forest. Everyone signed up for Bolsa Floresta. But Bolsa Floresta
can't sustain my family.”
The allowance of US$ 28
per month represents US$ 0.93 per day. For an average rural
family of at least 5 people the per capita income drops to US$
0.18 per day. It would be good to inform the Juma Project managers
and funders that this meagre payment is well below the poverty
line, estimated by the World Bank as people earning less than
1.25 US dollars per day. Such a pittance becomes scandalous
when compared to the US$ 25,000 per month payment that is said
the Juma Project foundation director receives.
Additionally, it is important
to highlight that local communities that have until now obtained
their means of livelihood from the forest will loose most of
those resources as a result of the Juma reserve.
Schapiro comments in his
report that “some farming families have lost a significant
portion of their income when required to shift their food-growing
activities from primary to secondary forests, and that the roughly
$25 ‘Bolsa Floresta’ stipend has not significantly
made up for the short-fall.”
What makes matters even
worse is that the preservation of this forest will allow polluters
to continue emitting fossil fuel-related carbon. This means
that the inclusion of the Juma forest into emissions trading
will in fact contribute to climate change, because it will allow
polluting corporations and rich countries claim that they are
“offsetting” their carbon emissions by conserving
a patch of forest in Brazil. Were it not because the World Bank
strongly supports emissions trading, its economists would define
the Juma project as a “lose-lose situation” for
climate and people. But of course they won’t.
(1) https://www.marriott.com/green-brazilian-rainforest.mi
(2) “The Juma Sustainable Development Reserve Project:
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in the
State of Amazonas, Brazil,” Project Design Document for
validation at “Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance
(CCBA),” 29/09/2008, http://unfccc.int/files/methods_science/redd/application
/pdf/pdd_juma_reserve_red_project_v5.0.pdf
(3)“The Carbon Hunters,” Carbon Watch, reported
by Mark Schapiro, produced by Andres Cediel, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/2010/05/the-carbon-hunters.htm
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Bolivia: Hydroelectric dams on the Madera River denounced at
the People’s Permanent Tribunal
On 14 and 15 March, the
Third Session of the People’s Permanent Tribunal was held
in Madrid (Spain). This is an activity promoted by the Bi-regional
Europe-Latin America and Caribbean Network “Enlazando
Alternativas” (Linking Alternatives).
The network was set up in
2004 as a response to the European Union’s (EU) neoliberal
trade policy measures in its search to ensure the widest possible
access for its transnational corporations to Latin American
and Caribbean markets. Furthermore, the network supports
the peoples of Latin America and Europe’s resistance to
the expansion of European trade.
For its part the People’s
Permanent Tribunal, (Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos - TPP),
founded in1979, is aimed at assessing in legal terms all those
situations where the massive violations of fundamental human
rights are not tried by legal institutions, either national
or international. TPP includes a considerable number of members
appointed by the Lelio Basso Foundation for People’s Rights
and Liberation. Its main objectives are firstly to publicly
denounce crimes committed by transnational corporations, and
the impacts of their activities on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights and, secondly, to show up the co-responsibility of the
EU in this respect, given that its institutions and policies
favour the increasing power of multinational corporations.
In the framework of the
People’s Summit Meetings – alternative summits to
the official EU and governments of the region summits –
the Enlazando Alternativas Network and the People’s Permanent
Tribunal (TPP) have held meetings of the Tribunal on “Neoliberal
Policies and European Transnational Corporations in Latin America
and the Caribbean.” At these Tribunal meetings presentations
were made on the violations of human, labour and environmental
rights, committed by more than 25 transnational EU based corporations
and their subsidiary branches throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean.
During the Third Session of the TPP, organizations such as the
Movement of those Affected by Dams in Brazil (MAB), the Bolivian
Environment and Development Forum (FOBOMADE) and the Spanish
SETEM-Catalunya brought action against GDF-SUEZ (France), Santander
(Spain) and Banif (Portugal), and the international organizations
supporting them, inter alia the IMF, the World Bank and the
European Community, for the construction of dams in San Antonio
and Jirau in Porto Velho, capital of the State of Rondonia,
Brazil, 10 kilometres from the Bolivian frontier on the Madera
River. This is the second largest river in the Amazon, covering
close on a quarter of the Brazilian Amazon and spanning Bolivian
and Peruvian territories.
The Government of Brazil unilaterally granted environmental
permits for the construction of the two dams on Brazilian territory
without consulting Bolivia on the negative impacts they would
have on that country and refused to carry out environmental
impact assessments in Bolivia.
The action reports that the dams are part of a hydroelectric
complex included in the interconnection of facilities programme
of the Regional South American Infrastructure Integration Initiative
(IIRSA).
IIRSA is a plan sponsored among others by Inter American Development
Bank which endeavours, through the construction of land, air
and river infrastructure, oil and gas pipelines, river-ways,
sea and river ports and electric and optic fibre stringing in
the countries of South America, to optimize the efficiency of
the flows of transnational corporation international trade and
export, mainly improving connection with North American and
European markets.
According to reports by Fobomade (1) the construction of the
San Antonio dam, which started in August 2008, is an investment
made by the Santo Antonio Energy Consortium, part of the Eletrobrás-Furnas
(39%) Consortium. The Banco Santander holds 10% of the shares
as does the Banco Banif; CEMIG holds another 10%; Odebrecht,
18.6% and Andrade Gutierrez 12.4%.
The Jirau dam, started in November 2008, belongs to the Brazilian
Sustainable Energy Consortium (part of GDF-Suez with 50.1% shares),
Eletrosul Centrais Elétricas SA. (20%), the Companhia
HidroElétrica do Sao Francisco – Chesf (20%), and
Camargo Correa Investimentos en Infra-Estrutura SA (9.9%).
The Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) is
the main financing body for the Madera Complex, but the World
Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are also indirectly
involved.
Social organizations have lodged complaints with the TPP reporting
that the Brazilian dams in Jirau and San Antonio, in an advanced
state of implementation, are already causing severe negative
impacts and it is expected that they will cause more. Among
the impacts are the eviction of indigenous and peasant people
with consolidated deed processes from their land, the flooding
of vast agricultural and other areas where Brazil nuts -one
of the basic foodstuffs in the Amazon indigenous and peasant
peoples’ economy in the Department of Pando- are harvested
and whose living conditions depend entirely on maintaining the
forest intact. There are negative impacts on the native flora
and fauna, loss of fishery resources, interruption of the natural
transit of fish and river dolphins – an endemic species
in the municipalities of Pando and Beni; the slowing down of
the river flow leading to less oxygenation and increased temperature,
water pollution from mercury and increased malaria, yellow fever,
dengue and leishmaniasis as a result of the multiplication of
transmitting vectors due to increased migration of temporary
workers, changes in water quality and increased areas of stagnant
water.
Another recent study (2)
concluded that the construction of the San Antonio dam will
cause massive deforestation due to the works themselves and
to the building of the corresponding roads and ducts and will
cause the death of at least 11 tons of fish (some sources mention
60 tons) and other animals as a result of the daily explosions
involved in the works, in addition to water pollution and the
rupture of the indigenous communities’ social structure.
The study identifies “one
of the direct and most feared negative impacts of building dams
in a relatively flat area such as the Amazon is the risk of
flooding and its consequences on lowering agricultural soil
productivity, damage to biodiversity, groundwater pollution,
and human consequences (deaths, diseases, economic losses, and
loss of housing).”
It is for all these reasons
that at the Third Session of the TPP held in Madrid, Fobomade,
MAB and SETEM-Catalunya requested the following action by the
Tribunal:
“1. To curb
the violation of human rights and the abuse by transnational
corporations and to demand compensation.
This implies designing new binding international jurisprudence
in the framework of the United Nations, typifying environmental
crimes and imposing civil, administrative and criminal sanctions
implementing the rule of “the greater the potential for
destruction and greater risk to environmental conservation,
the greater the degree of responsibility.”
2. NO to double standards, NO to double ethics
That the Tribunal must urge governments and community institutions
to create global intergovernmental standards on corporations
and human rights. A binding and mandatory framework is required
to establish effective mechanisms for claims and accountability.
3. That the Tribunal must denounce and prosecute economic crimes
and ecocide.
We demand that the EU should be indicted for its trade policies
and those of its States and the institutional architecture that
legitimates the illegitimate securing of benefits by European
transnational corporations. The European Union must be held
accountable for the crimes of lese-humanity set out in the International
Criminal Court’s Rome Statute.
We are prosecuting the EU
for ecocide, defined by the State of Chiapas as “criminal
intent consisting of causing serious damage to the environment
by dumping contaminants, carrying out risky activities or affecting
natural resources.”
The Henkjan Laats’
report also notes that the generation of energy from water in
dams is considered to be a renewable source of energy insofar
as the construction of the dam does not release significant
levels of greenhouse effect gases. However, it should be borne
in mind that the levels of CO2 remain high and furthermore,
there is an increased release of methane gas, particularly due
to the turbines and dumps. Methane gas has an impact 25 times
higher on global warming per ton than carbon dioxide. Furthermore,
it is estimated that deforestation, fires, increased cattle-raising
and the building of highways contribute to make the electricity
from the Amazon hydroelectric dams “an unclean energy.”
In sum, hydroelectric dams
contribute to global warming. Another form of ecocide.
(1) “Caso de
las hidroeléctricas en el río Madera presentado
ante el TPP en Madrid”,(The case of the hydroelectric
dams on the Madera River submitted to the TPP in Madrid), Servicio
de Noticias Ambientales, http://fobomade.org.bo/bsena/?p=479
(2) “El Dilema Amazónico; ‘la construcción
de Mega-represas en el Río Madera’”,(The
Amazon Dilemma, the construction of mega-dams on the Madera
River); Henkjan Laats, CEADESC and PEC, Bolivia 2010, http://www.riomadeiravivo.org/docs/dilamazonico.pdf
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Posco: Bad for India, bad for Uruguay and bad for the climate
As we reported in October
2009, the Korean steel company POSCO has been granted the opportunity
both in India and in Uruguay to occupy territory that is valued
by the inhabitants of both countries.
In India, POSCO was granted permits to install a steel plant
and a port and also to carry out mining prospection in the eastern
state of Orissa in an area which includes 6000 hectares of pristine
forests, prime agricultural land and coastal economy. On its
part, the Uruguayan government signed an Investment Promotion
and Protection Agreement with the Korean government, whereby
all type of support is guaranteed to the Korean firm POSCO to
establish a “Carbon sink Forestation Project”
(See details in WRM Bulletin No. 147: http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/144/India.html)
The only reason why the project in India has not yet been implemented
is because of the massive resistance since 2005, involving thousands
of people who depend for their survival on the forests, agricultural
land and sea-coast the company plans to destroy for its business.
According to recent reports, due to the lack of response on
the part of the government and in protest against what the locals
call the joint conspiracy by the central government at Delhi,
the state government and the South Korean President, the inhabitants
decided to continue with their “Sit-in” (Dharna
in the local language), a peaceful protest that started on 26
January 2010 (coinciding India’s Republic Day in which
the Korean President was official chief guest). One hundred
and seven days and nights had gone by, during which women, men
and children of farm and fisherfolk families sat in, when they
decided to appeal for national and international solidarity
as they had been unable to achieve the slightest sense of government
responsibility towards the people they are supposed to represent.
In a desperate effort to comply with the promise to “expedite
works to hand over lands,” to the company, on 11 May this
year the government sent 25 strongly armed military squads,
which surrounded the area where the inhabitants were carrying
out the sit-in, occupying schools and prepared to attack ...
the local unarmed population. In this framework, the anti-POSCO
movement made a further urgent appeal to participate in the
Massive Resistance Week in solidarity with the local strugglers
against the giant POSCO and against State brutality.
“At no point, in their
struggle for over five years, have the anti-POSCO protestors
indulged in any violent activities and have instead set an example
to the rest of the country on how to carry out a democratic
struggle based solely on the mass support of ordinary men and
women” says the movement in their press release. In spite
of this, on May 15, Orissa police opened fire on peaceful protesters
who stood on the way in defense of their lands and livelihoods.
This act of the state was condemned by various human and civil
rights organisations across the country and the world. Forest-rights
movement groups such as the National Forum of Forest People
and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) and the Campaign for Survival and
Dignity (CSD) condemned this atrocious brutality and the desperate
attempt of corporatisation of forest resources, in which more
than 50 people were injured severely and many shops and houses
were set on fire by the blood-thirsty policemen.
Despite all the violence against the people and bullets lodged
in their bodies, people in the area continue to protest against
the acquisition of land for the steel plant and captive port.
They are still there because this is not just a “dispute
over land acquisition for development” as it has been
announced by the government but because POSCO project is illegal
and will not bring any benefits for the local population or
the country's economy. The POSCO project is illegal as it violates
the Forest Rights Act of 2006. Under that law, no forest land
can be given to anyone until: 1) all the rights of the people
in the area are recognised and 2) their consent is given to
the project. The Central and State governments have no legal
right to hand over this land to POSCO. In law, not just in public
view, this is daylight robbery of the country's natural resources
by a multinational. What is not usually mentioned is that POSCO
is getting a huge amount of land, water and millions of tonnes
of iron ore in exchange for which it will pay essentially nothing.
This is what India’s government considers “development”.
On June 22, the POSCO–Orissa
government Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was set to expire,
exactly five years after it was first signed. This MoU, which
basically restricts the government's role to that of a mere
"facilitator" for the project and an agency for land
acquisition, is highly unethical and should not have been signed
in the first place. Five years later, having witnessing the
state's brutal repression of the local opposition to this project,
and how the state has repeatedly flouted its own laws and policies
regarding forest rights and enviromental protections, local
people demand that this MoU not be renewed and request support
by signing the petition available at: http://www.petitiononline.com/p210610/petition-sign.html
This same company also disembarked
in Uruguay with a project for “clean development”
involving monoculture tree plantation aimed at “compensating”
for carbon dioxide emissions within the so (badly) called “Clean
Development Mechanism” (CDM) of the UN Climate Change
Convention. As to be expected, the company assures that its
project implies “a significant contribution to the sustainable
development of Uruguay.”
What is really sad is that
the Uruguayan government has just given the green go-ahead to
the POSCO project, in spite of the long track-record of opposition
to monoculture tree plantations in this country and the enormous
amount of documented information available regarding their social
and environmental impacts. This decision has disregarded the
document submitted by the Network of Environmental NGOs and
by the Uruguayan Association of NGOs to the CDM Advisory Committee
in Uruguay, in which the arguments used by the company to justify
the so-called development associated with its project, are refuted
one by one.
What is even more serious
is that the government of Uruguay has not considered the level
of conflict and repression that the presence of POSCO has caused
in India over the past 5 years, clearly showing up the real
nature of this company that now intends to appropriate Uruguayan
land under the mask of “clean development.”
The lack of respect for
the right of the peoples over their lands and forests in India,
the lack of consideration for the well established social and
environmental impacts caused by monoculture tree plantations
in Uruguay, are disastrous for either country, and even worse
for the climate.
Article based on information from the Appeal of the anti POSCO
Movement (PPSS), and the Press Releases of May 15 and June 6
sent by Mamata Dash, e-mail: mamata68@gmail.com
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Paraguay: Report on the Ayoreo People by IWGIA
The International Work Group
for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) has issued a report on the indigenous
Ayoreo people in Paraguay and the injustices they have been
experiencing due to the expansion of ranching, illegal sale
of land and extractive industries (1).
More than a report, it is
an urgent wakeup call that Director of Iniciativa Amotocodie
Benno Glauser introduces as follows:
Non-indigenous society began
to invade the vast territory of the Ayoreo only 50 years ago,
with the goal of taking possession of the land.
From that time forward,
group by group, the Ayoreo were deported to mission stations
and sedentarized by force. Today, there are still Ayoreo living
in the forest, in six or seven group territories that have always
belonged to them. During the Paraguayan dictatorship, most of
the northern Chaco region was divided into lots, and what was
once Ayoreo territory was turned into a commodity for the benefit
and profit of a few hundred private landowners. Until
today, they are permitted to deforest or otherwise transform
their landholdings as they wish, to pursue productive activities
that –under close scrutiny– serve exclusively their
own interests.
The future of the Chaco
forest, of those Ayoreo who continue to live there as isolated
groups, and of a territory that is still the territory of the
Ayoreo people, now depends on these landowners: Paraguayan citizens,
Mennonites, foreigners, agro-industrial and cattle ranching
companies, and oil prospecting firms. They are responsible for
determining the future of the only significant continuous forested
area left standing in Paraguay.
The state, until now, has
not intervened in this matter in any meaningful way, and has
failed to assume its responsibility: to protect the public good
and public interest, to enforce the country’s laws, and
to protect human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.
Non-indigenous society is
not even aware of what is happening in and with the northern
Chaco. “Public opinion” has no opinion on the matter.
The international community is only very slowly beginning to
recognize the Chaco, the Gran Chaco, as a vital ecosystem not
only for the Ayoreo and other indigenous peoples, but also for
the future of non-indigenous peoples and for humanity as a whole.
Today, the Ayoreo people
are watching what is happening to their territory, which is
their home and the foundation for both their way of life and
their livelihood.
They do so in a state of
poverty, uprooted from their land, precariously clinging to
the margins of the society of their invaders and a culture that
is not theirs and never will be. Today, through this publication,
the Ayoreo people are speaking out to those who are in charge
of the state, and to all non-indigenous people in Paraguay and
the rest of the world.
They are speaking out because
they need to be seen, and because they need the injustices and
human rights violations of which they have been and continue
to be victims to be seen, recognized and reparated. They need
non-indigenous people to assume their role and to accept their
responsibility in this very recent colonial history, open to
everyone’s view. They are speaking out to voice a call
for the justice that has yet to be extended to peoples and cases
like theirs.
Today the Ayoreo people
are standing up and reaching out. They are not reaching out
to beg or ask for favours. They are taking a stand and demanding
to be heard and respected, reaffirming their dignity and their
right to their own distinct way of life.
(1) “Paraguay: The
Case of the Ayoreo,” May 2010, Unión de Nativos
Ayoreo de Paraguay (UNAP), Iniciativa Amotocodie (IA), International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), http://www.iwgia.org/sw42257.asp
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Papua New Guinea: Indigenous peoples lose their rights to investors
We are witnessing a global
process of agribusiness expansion and land grabbing in the South.
Through lease, concession, even purchase, corporations or foreign
states take over large areas of farmland on a long-term basis
to produce staple foods or agrofuels for export. It is estimated
that roughly 1,000 investment groups have targeted more than
50 countries in Asia, Oceania, Africa and Latin America (1).
For that to happen, large
quantities of money are mobilised, trade deals are closed and
legal amendments are needed to create the infrastructure that
will allow private appropriation of the land that in many southern
countries is still managed by communities through their traditional
systems.
Within this framework IRIN
reported (2) that on 28 May, Papua New Guinea’s parliament
amended sections of the Environment and Conservation Act 2000,
which rules on major resource projects in the country. The amendments
give the director of the Office of Environment and Conservation
wide power to authorize environmental plans submitted by investors.
The authority granted is so broad that the director’s
final decision “may not be challenged or reviewed in any
court or tribunal, except at the instigation of an Authorization
Instrument”.
The amendment has wide range
implications for some six million people’s rights to land
and environment protection. For many years Papua New Guineans
could individually or under customary rights protect their land
sueing or claiming compensation in case of environmental damage.
Now, with the amendments, they have lost such rights.
Papua New Guinean indigenous
groups have long struggled for their land and environmental
rights. In 1997, 1989 and 1999 people were killed when confronting
the mining activities of Freeport-Rio Tinto in Bougainville
and Ok Tedi copper mines (see WRM Bulletin Nº 7). IRIN
reports that more than 5,000 people then lost their lives.
Apart from mining, logging
operations have destroyed or degraded forests with harmful
impacts on forest dwellers. And more recently, another pressure
has been added on forests and forest people: large scale
oil palm plantations promoted by World Bank loans, that have
increased in a country where 97% of the land is communally
owned and most of its 6 million population still lives in
the rural area and rely on subsistence farming for their
livelihoods (see WRM Bulletin Nº 40).
Within this context the
new amendments depriving local people from their rights to protect
their land seem quite convenient for the corporations’
quest for new territories.
We know the high cost: increasing
poverty due to destruction of livelihoods, land concentration
and displacement, loss of food sovereignty for local communities,
more carbon emissions from both deforestation and industrial
agrobusiness. Such is the expensive cost of the global trade
architecture. Who will be accountable for the destruction?
(1) “Land grabbing
and the global food crisis,” GRAIN, November 2009,
http://www.grain.org/o_files/landgrabbing-presentation-11-2009.pdf
(2) “PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Indigenous people lose out on land
rights,” IRIN, http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=89322
COMMUNITIES
AND TREE MONOCULTURES
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French economic group Bolloré attempts to intimidate
journalists who expose abusive practices on its plantations
in Cameroon
Targeting the
media
This past May 6, journalist
Benoît Collombat and two Radio France Inter directors
were convicted of defamation in a lawsuit filed by Vincent Bolloré,
CEO of the French industrial group Bolloré. The report
that led to the charges featured Cameroonian civil society activists
who spoke out about the company’s labour practices in
the railway, port and plantation sectors, all of which have
been privatized and turned over to Bolloré group subsidiaries.
None of the group’s representatives had been willing to
respond to the accusations of exploitation of workers, collusion
with the Cameroonian regime, deforestation and pollution in
time for their statements to be included in the radio report.
The court ordered the defendants to pay a fine of 1,000 plus
one euros to Bolloré in damages. It specified, however,
that its decision was based on the statements made in the report
regarding railway and port operations – but not the company’s
management of its plantations.
This coming July 2, it was
supposed to be freelance photographer Isabelle Alexandra Ricq’s
turn to stand trial for defamation. Vincent Bolloré had
filed suit against Ricq and two France Inter directors after
a France Inter interview in which she talked about the problems
she had witnessed on SOCAPALM oil palm plantations and the surrounding
area while working on a photo report (published in Le Monde
Diplomatique and Alternatives internationales,
http://www.isabellericq.fr/socapalm.html). Invited by France
Inter to speak about her experiences, she described the dismal
living conditions of the Bagyeli pygmy ethnic group, the problems
of deforestation and lack of access to land, and the deplorable
conditions faced by plantation workers who, according to Ricq,
“call themselves SOCAPALM’s slaves.” However,
two weeks before the trial was to take place, Bolloré
decided to withdraw the charges. Most likely, he knew he had
little chance of winning, and would also be exposing himself
to the serious threat of having his activities in Cameroon brought
into the public spotlight.
Strategy of
intimidation
Could there be anything
more carefully hidden than the production and commercial operations,
networks of influence and repressive actions of large business
groups? As long as criticism was limited to “fringe”
publications, Bolloré saw no need to react. But when
public radio broadcaster France Inter aired certain discordant
opinions, Bolloré decided that it had had enough and
it was time to “attack” back, in order to “set
an example,” because “you can’t play around
with the group,” as Bolloré second-in-command Dominique
Lafont declared at Collombat’s trial. The fact is, Bolloré
has become very conscious of its image. “In Africa, Bolloré
is a civic enterprise. […] Our strategy is aimed at lifting
the continent out of its isolation” through “sustainable
development,” stated Lafont. As for the critical opinions,
he labelled them as “miserablist” and “otherworldly”
– a reference to the anti-globalization protest movement
whose slogan is “Another world is possible.”
It should be noted that,
in France, Bolloré has other means at its disposal to
influence public opinion in its favour. It is the main shareholder
in the advertising giant Havas, the world’s sixth largest
global communications group and leading advertiser in numerous
publications. Bolloré also owns the television network
Direct 8 and two free newspapers, Direct Soir and Direct
Matin. Obviously, the readers of these newspapers will
learn absolutely nothing about the criticisms aimed at Vincent
Bolloré’s business dealings in Africa, his collusion
with local regimes, the quashing of any protests raised on his
plantations, or the environmental destruction linked with the
Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline… Instead, as far as the general
public is concerned, the activity of this industrial group (one
of the most diversified on the global market) is to be summed
up behind its most presentable face, that of the manufacturer
of the Bluecar, an electric car to be launched in 2011 –
and the group’s main tool to achieve the eco-friendly
“repositioning” of its image.
Who is Bolloré?
The Bolloré group
is currently one of the world’s top 500 companies, with
an annual turnover of more than seven billion euros. Its global
expansion has been largely concentrated in Africa, where it
now operates in 42 countries. Vincent Bolloré –
the 18th wealthiest man in France in 2009 – has built
an empire much more extensive than the former French colonies.
He has gained control over not only plantations and public services
throughout Africa, but also, above all, the continent’s
ports (historically the group’s main business activity
in Africa) and its oil industry. The Bolloré group has
had no qualms about working closely with dictators like Denis
Sassou Nguesso, Omar Bongo or Charles Taylor. Vincent Bolloré
is also a personal friend of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
After winning the presidential election, Sarkozy took a vacation
on the industrialist’s yacht and declared that Bolloré
“does honour to the French economy.”
By buying up former colonial
companies and taking advantage of the wave of privatizations
spurred by the “structural adjustments” imposed
by the IMF, Bolloré has inevitably become a key player
in the economic structure and political life of many African
countries. His control of strategic sectors and the transfer
of part of his African profits to tax havens like Luxembourg
or the Channel Islands provide him with the financial capital
needed to back his stock market dealings and expansionist strategy.
Bolloré's
plantations in Cameroon
Cameroon, a former French
colony, continues to be governed by an oligarchy that cares
more about serving its own interests and those of France than
the public interest of its own population (Transparency International
ranked Cameroon as the most corrupt country in sub-Saharan Africa
in 2009). Many Cameroonians view the control of strategic sectors
by large French companies as a form of neo-colonialism. It is
not unusual to see Bolloré group executives swanning
about in public with President Paul Biya, his wife Chantal or
top government officials. For Pius Njawé, director of
the newspaper Le Messager, the Bolloré group’s
interference in the political life of Cameroon is beyond doubt:
“It is a sort of state within a state… a perfect
example of so-called Françafrique” (a
pejorative term coined by combining the French names for France
and Africa).
In Cameroon, the Bolloré
group controls vast oil palm and rubber tree plantations, either
directly through SAFACAM (which operates 8,400 hectares of plantations),
or indirectly through SOCFINAL (which administers 31,000 hectares),
together with the two families of the Rivaud group (acquired
by Bolloré in 1995): the Fabri and Ribes families. Bolloré
holds close to 40% of the shares in SOCFINAL, one of the various
Rivaud holdings listed on the Luxembourg stock exchange. One
of its subsidiaries, Intercultures, runs SOCAPALM (Société
Camerounaise de Palmeraies), the company implicated in the two
lawsuits mentioned above. Of SOCFINAL’s total annual profits,
no less than 45% come from SOCAPALM. Established through a government
programme in 1963 with the support of the World Bank, SOCAPALM
was privatized in 2000 and taken over by the group.
SOCAPALM has been a constant
source of serious social and environmental problems, as reported
by WRM on numerous occasions (Bulletins 112, 116 and 134 and
WRM Series on Tree Plantations No. 13). When it was owned by
the state, it confiscated lands that were historically the property
of local populations without any sort of compensation. Today,
it continues to expand without regard for neighbouring ecosystems,
thus seriously endangering the food sovereignty of those same
populations. In addition, the agrochemical products used on
its monoculture plantations and the waste effluents discharged
by its factory in Kienké have drastically contaminated
the area’s waterways. On the plantations, living and working
conditions are abominable: insalubrious living quarters and
shared latrines, lack of regular access to water and electricity,
mostly temporary employment at miserable wages, etc. Hundreds
of workers work six days a week, in some cases from 6:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m., with no social security coverage or adequate protection,
for approximately 1.6 euros a day, as long as the subcontractors
don’t forget to pay them. This situation has given rise
to numerous strikes and protests, but in 2007, when a resistance
movement against these labour practices emerged, its leader
was immediately arrested by the police, and the authorities
let him know that “if he kept it up he was going to get
killed.”
Bolloré's
plantations in other parts of the world
The Bolloré group,
through SOCFINAL, has a number of other rubber tree and oil
palm plantations in Africa and Asia. Many of them give rise
to similar problems with their workers and neighbouring communities.
In Liberia, for example, SOCFINAL owns the country’s largest
rubber tree plantation. In May 2006, the United Nations Mission
in Liberia (UNMIL) published a report that described the dire
human rights situation on the plantation: child workers under
the age of 14, the massive use of sub-contracting, the use of
carcinogenic products, the quashing of trade unions, arbitrary
dismissals, the maintenance of order through private militias,
and the eviction of peasant farmers obstructing the expansion
of the plantation area.
In Cambodia, the situation
is not much better (see WRM Bulletin No. 142). After several
months of wavering, the government granted a concession for
a rubber tree plantation to SOCFIN KCD, a company in which SOCFINAL
holds majority ownership. In December 2008, tensions rose to
such a height that hundreds of peasant farmers from the Bunong
ethnic group joined together to protest against the company,
which had already begun clearing the forests and fields near
their communities. During the protest, the demonstrators damaged
and burned company-owned vehicles. Following this incident,
nearly a thousand families from seven neighbouring communities
declared that the land belonged to them, since they had been
working it for centuries, and that their collective rights,
as indigenous peoples, were protected by the country’s
Land Code. The community members also accused the authorities
of taking the company’s side because of its promises of
employment, hospitals, schools and housing. The conflict has
still not been resolved.
Conclusion
The subject of the social
and environmental impacts of large industrial groups is becoming
ever more untouchable, as demonstrated by a new investigative
report released by Reporters Without Borders, “Deforestation
and Pollution: High-Risk Subjects”. The verdict of the
Parisian court in May 2010 bodes poorly for freedom of the press.
It will discourage journalists – and civil society in
general – from undertaking critical investigations, while
encouraging companies to make increasing use of the legal system
to silence any attempt to expose their frequently scandalous
practices. Along with other large groups like Wilmar and Unilever,
Bolloré is now pursuing the development of agrofuels,
supposedly “ecological” substitutes for petroleum-based
fuels. Will we be facing a situation in which, the more reasons
there are to investigate these activities, the greater the efforts
to intimidate those who attempt to do so? In any event, there
is no doubt that these industrial groups will be anxious to
nip any criticisms in the bud and keep them from taking root.
For further references,
background information and pictures on this case we encourage
you to visit the following special section that WRM has created
on its web site: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Cameroon/Bollore.htm
-
Cameroon: Refuting ten lies about SOCAPALM plantations
After French industrialist
Vincent Bolloré filed two lawsuits against Radio France
Inter, both for alleged defamation regarding plantations operated
by SOCAPALM (Société Camerounaise de Palmeraies),
photographer Isabelle Alexandra Ricq and researcher Julien-François
Gerber addressed ten lies typically used to defend Bolloré,
one by one.
France Inter was sued for
broadcasting two programmes that were critical of plantations
operated by SOCAPALM. The company is a subsidiary of SOCFINAL,
in which Bolloré controls around 40% of shares (see the
related article in this same bulletin). Can it legitimately
be claimed that SOCAPALM plantations bring prosperity and development
to local populations? That the environment has not been seriously
degraded or polluted because of SOCAPALM? Can it be said that
the plantation workers are exaggerating when they call themselves
slaves, since they all have satellite dishes?
At a moment when the Bolloré
group is aiming its considerable weapons against journalists
who are overly critical of its activities in Africa, this analysis
clearly demonstrates, through conclusive documentary evidence,
that all of the multinational’s arguments can be shot
down one by one.
The full article in French
is available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Cameroon/Dix_reponses.pdf
-
Uruguay: A new opportunity for much-needed debate on the pulp-plantation
model
Over the last few years,
Uruguay has gained international attention as a result of the
drawn-out conflict with Argentina over plans for the installation
of two “mega” pulp mills in Uruguay, one by the
Finnish company Botnia and the other by ENCE of Spain.
The background to the conflict
dates back to 2002, when the Uruguayan government, in keeping
with its policy of promoting “forestation” through
large-scale monoculture tree plantations, began to encourage
foreign investment in the pulp production industry. The incentives
already enjoyed under the 1987 Forestry Law by companies that
established plantations in Uruguay (subsidies, tax exemptions,
soft credits, highway construction, maintenance and repair of
rural roads damaged by heavy logging trucks, etc.) were further
complemented by the signing of investment protection agreements
and the granting of free zone status for sites where pulp mills
were to be built (exempting them from all existing or future
taxation requirements).
As a result, eucalyptus
and pine plantations began to spread over areas formerly covered
by grasslands, the main natural ecosystem in Uruguay, generating
severe social and environmental impacts: displacement of the
rural population, impacts on water and soil quality, the occupation
of land suited to cattle farming and agriculture, and impacts
on flora and fauna, among others. These problems have yet to
be seriously assessed by the successive governments that have
continued to promote this pulp-plantation model. Another outcome
has been the growing concentration of land ownership by transnational
corporations. Three companies alone – UPM-Botnia (Finland),
Weyerhaeuser (United States) and Montes del Plata (Sweden-Finland-Chile)
own a combined total of 600,000 hectares of land.
The approval granted to
ENCE and Botnia to build pulp mills on the Uruguay River, which
is shared with Argentina, sparked a heated conflict between
the two countries. One of its most radical manifestations was
the prolonged roadblock on the San Martín international
bridge, which links Uruguay and Argentina across the Uruguay
River, by the Environmental Assembly of Gualeguaychú,
Argentina (an action that involved the participation of thousands
of Argentine citizens). This locally adopted measure spurred
the Argentine government to join in the opposition to the installation
of the pulp mills. When it proved impossible to reach an agreement
with the Uruguayan government, Argentina took the case to the
International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Eventually, ENCE opted to
relocate its pulp mill plans further south, to a site on the
Río de la Plata (River Plate). After the recent global
financial crisis, it sold its shares to Montes del Plata (a
Swedish-Finnish-Chilean consortium) in 2009. In the meantime,
despite the fierce opposition mounted by Argentina, Botnia went
ahead with the construction of its pulp mill on the Uruguay
River; it began operations in November 2007.
As noted in a recent press
release from the Uruguayan organization Grupo Guayubira, “the
blocking of the international bridge raised the conflict to
such heights that the real focus of attention and of much-needed
debate was lost. We went from analyzing whether or not the installation
of a pulp mill of this kind was actually beneficial for the
country to a fierce confrontation pitting Uruguayans against
Argentines, in which inflamed nationalist sentiments left no
room for analysis or for asking ourselves questions that are
fundamental for our future as a country, such as: Was it is
good for Uruguay to open itself up to foreign investment like
this, which means continuing to export raw materials, and in
addition, under tax-free conditions? Do the benefits obtained
justify the mega pulp mill currently operating in Fray Bentos
and the hundreds of thousands of hectares of eucalyptus trees
that now occupy our countryside?
For Grupo Guayubira, “this
undertaking implies not only the operation of a pulp mill larger
than anything ever seen in our country – which according
to the company itself consumes 86 million litres of water and
uses 400 tons of chemical products ever day – but also
the utilization of thousands of hectares of land for large-scale
monoculture eucalyptus plantations.”
On top of all the conflicts
provoked by the presence of this transnational corporation,
it should be stressed that after two years of operations, the
promised benefits of the pulp mill have yet to seen. Grupo Guayubira
recalls that “the interviews and forums held by Botnia
to present the project focused on publicizing the benefits it
would bring to the country and its people if it was approved.
One of the main promises – aimed at seeking public and
political support – was that it would create thousands
of jobs.” Two years after the pulp mill began operations,
the department (province) of Río Negro, which is where
the pulp mill is located, as well as one of the departments
with the largest concentrations of monoculture plantations,
has the highest unemployment rate in the whole country, as well
as the highest rates of domestic violence.
In March 2010, José
Mujica took office as the president of the Uruguayan people,
and has met on various occasions with Argentine leaders in an
attempt to heal relations between the two countries. This created
the conditions that led the Environmental Assembly of Gualeguaychú
to lift the roadblock on the international bridge, in exchange
for shared monitoring of the pulp mill and water quality in
the Uruguay River.
It is on the basis of this
gesture – and now that the pressure of the international
conflict has been lifted, and the pulp mill has already been
established – that Grupo Guayubira is now addressing the
public with the following message: “Rather than continuing
to take for granted that more and ever larger pulp mills will
be built, we should stop and assess whether the first and so
far only pulp mill in our country has actually benefited the
lives of Uruguayans, from an economic, social and environmental
point of view.”
Based on a press release
issued by Grupo Guayubira on June 24, 2010. The full text (in
Spanish) is available at:
http://www.guayubira.org.uy/celulosa/evaluemos.html
-
Chile: Professional foresters denounce violations by company
certified by CERTFOR and FSC
Tree plantations owned and
operated by Forestal Valdivia S.A., a subsidiary of the Arauco
group, have not only been granted certification by the Chilean
sustainable forest management system CERTFOR (backed by the
international Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification
or PEFC label), but also chain of custody certification from
the FSC (SGS-COC-005376).
According to CERTFOR’s
website, “This standard allows forest owners [or rather,
plantation owners] to demonstrate that the management they have
applied meets the social, economic and environmental performance
requirements that the relevant stakeholders demand.” For
its part, FSC certification is meant to promote “environmentally
appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management
of the world's forests [including plantations].”
Therefore, certification
by both organizations would seem to be a double guarantee for
socially conscious consumers, who want to make sure that the
products they buy have not caused any harmful impacts on other
people or on the environment. However, a press release recently
issued by the Association of Foresters For Native Forests (AIFBN)
in Chile casts serious doubts on the validity of this assumption.
Since 2008, a team of experts
from the AIFBN have conducted a series of reconnaissance flights
over the Andes and Coastal mountain ranges in the regions of
Los Ríos and Los Lagos in order to assess the state of
conservation and possible destruction of native forest areas.
The AIFBN revealed that,
“Based on the analysis of the data gathered, areas with
evidence of illegal forest clearing were identified, leading
to the detection of 23 irregularities committed on different
properties, which were reported to the National Forestry Corporation
(CONAF) in July of last year. This state agency investigated
all of the reports filed, and confirmed that breaches of current
forestry legislation had been committed in every case.”
Among the worst offenders identified in the study is the doubly
certified Forestal Valdivia.
When consulted, forester
Cristián Frene (listed as the contact person in the AIFBN
press release) commented: “If this monitoring was repeated
in the regions farther north (Bío Bío, Maule and
Araucanía), I can assure you that the panorama would
be even worse, but unfortunately no one does this kind of work
in those areas.”
Referring specifically to
the reported breaches committed by Forestal Valdivia in the
commune of Lanco, the press release stresses that “the
properties harvested through clearcutting by the above-mentioned
company are part of a mountain that provides water to five communities
located within the commune of Lanco, where at least 700 people
are affected by the harvesting of plantations and subsequent
burning of NATIVE vegetation with highly toxic chemicals.”
In addition, the note adds, “in the northern area of the
mountain… there are currently 45 legally recognized Mapuche
communities with a total of 1,258 Mapuche families, according
to figures from the 2002 census.”
This combination of the
confirmed destruction of native forest alongside the serious
impacts of the company’s management of its plantations
led the AIFBN to denounce to the National Forestry Corporation
“the extremely serious breaches of environmental legislation
committed by the company Forestal Valdivia, a subsidiary of
the Arauco Group, in the commune of Lanco, in the northern portion
of the region of Los Ríos.”
The press release adds that
these breaches “additionally imply a total lack of social
conscience, through the lack of respect for the sources of water
for Mapuche communities in this region. Since February of this
year, the company has sent subcontractors to eliminate existing
NATIVE vegetation with highly toxic chemicals. These chemicals,
when applied to the vegetation, remain in the soil and are washed
by rainwater into the surrounding waterways, which supply water
to hundreds of families in the locality of Antilhue.”
In view of all this, what
do CERTFOR’s guarantee of the fulfilment of “social,
economic and environmental performance requirements” and
the FSC’s guarantee of “environmentally appropriate
and socially beneficial management” really amount to?
In this case, at least, the answer is clear: a ploy aimed at
deceiving consumers.
This article is based on
a press release entitled “Una historia de no respeto a
los bosques nativos y la ley forestal”, issued in May
2010 by the Agrupación de Ingenieros Forestales por el
Bosque Nativo (AIFBN). Contact: Cristián Frene cristianfrene@bosquenativo.cl
http://www.ecoportal.net/content/view/full/93312
GLOBAL
EUROPE: IN THE QUEST FOR SOUTHERN MARKETS
-
Free Trade Agreements with the European Union in Latin America:
A path to the loss of sovereignty and territories
A group of Latin American
social organizations (1) met in Montevideo to examine the Free
Trade Agreements (FTAs) that the European Union (EU) signed
last May with Central America, Colombia and Peru. Not only are
these FTAs a serious threat to the food sovereignty of the peoples,
the forests, the region’s main ecosystems and to artisan
fisheries, but they will also worsen climate change. The organizations
warned that the MERCOSUR (2) countries run the same risks following
their decision to re-initiate their negotiations with the EU
at the end of June.
These FTAs are part of a
strategy called “Global Europe,” implemented by
the EU since 2006 aimed at strengthening its large transnational
corporations worldwide.
The sectoral analysis of
FTA impacts show that they have put food sovereignty on the
rack and that they affect small-scale agriculture, artisan fisheries,
forests and other essential ecosystems and worsen the climate
crisis. These trade agreements with the EU are just as
dangerous or even more dangerous than the ones signed by the
United States with Colombia, Peru and Central America, and have
the same objective: to step up trade liberalization in wide
sectors of Latin American economies to the benefit of European
corporations.
Some of the instruments
included in these FTAs are the liberalization of investments
and the service sector, the opening up of the agricultural sector,
the elimination of export barriers (both tariff and non-tariff
barriers), the strengthening of Intellectual Property Rights
(patents) and free access to State Purchases by European purveyors.
One of the examples mentioned
at the meeting was the case of the recent flooding of the market
in Colombia by European dairy products and the lethal consequences
this has had, particularly for small Colombian farmers.
The European Union had demanded for the dairy sector relief
from all tariffs for large quantities of European powdered milk
and cheeses. The new regulations also apply to Peru and the
Central American countries. In the case of Costa Rica, for example,
acceptance of this provision would be very damaging to the sector
“as presently it has ‘zero imports’ of dairy
products.” (3)
“These measures
will increase the presence of large corporations in the agricultural
sector. Industrialized agriculture with heavy machinery and
the use of agro-toxic chemicals will be further enhanced and,
added to seed patents, will be detrimental to family and peasant
farming. Food policies controlled by the international market
will continue to benefit corporations and damage the peoples’
food sovereignty and their possibility to determine their local
and national food practices,” stated the Latin American
social groups present at the event.
They also pointed out that
the FTAs promoted by the EU will increase momentum in the global
South of timber extraction activities, agrofuels, agribusiness,
extensive stock-raising and monoculture tree plantations, which
have devastated forests and other important ecosystems such
as grasslands and also displaced local communities, particularly
those of indigenous peoples. The European race to access all
types of natural resources and seize biodiversity, added to
unrestrained economic activities, threatens to eliminate the
continent’s remaining forests.
The social organizations
warned that small-scale artisan fisheries, which are essential
for food sovereignty and for feeding the people, also run risks.
The large European corporations already occupy dominant positions
in the Latin American fisheries and fish-farming sector, controlling
the trade of such species as shrimps, tuna, and tilapia. Their
absolutely unsustainable trawling is already serious today and
the trade measures defending the fishing corporations are detrimental
to the possibilities of small scale fisher-folk who capture
fewer and fewer fish.
Finally, the Latin American
groups pointed out that the conditions imposed by the EU during
the negotiations strengthen the increasing implementation of
false solutions to climate change in our countries: development
of transgenic plants, agrofuels, projects for the Reduction
of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD),
together with tree plantations to trap and store carbon, and
dams. These measures divert attention away from what is really
necessary to face the climate crisis: the radical reduction
by industrialized countries of green-house gas effect emissions.
Furthermore, these agreements
are incompatible with the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of the Indigenous Peoples and with the International
Labour Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples, because the requisite of prior consultations
with the indigenous communities has not been fulfilled. This
was denounced by the Andean Coordinator for Indigenous Organizations
(Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - CAOI),
adding that the governments of Colombia and Peru had issued
no information during the whole negotiation process.
“The FTAs that
the EU is promoting in Latin America are another turn of the
screw to ensure security for its corporations and the abusive
consumer patterns of its countries. The beneficiaries in our
region will be a few economically powerful groups and the disadvantaged
groups will be our peoples. The Central American, Colombian,
Peruvian and MERCOSUR parliamentarians are still in time to
curb this serious European advance against our future as sovereign
peoples,” stressed the organizations present in Montevideo.
(1) The Colombian
“Grupo Semillas”, the Ecuadorian Mangrove Network,
the Andean Project for Peasant Technologies in Peru, the Brazilian
CEPEDES, the World Rainforest Movement and REDES-Friends of
the Earth in Uruguay.
(2) The Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) comprises Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay while Bolivia, Colombia, Chile,
Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela are Associate States to the bloc.
(3) Taken from one of the documents prepared by REDES for this
event.
Article based on information
from Redes – Friends of the Earth Uruguay. The documents
may be requested from Jose Elosegui, e-mail: jelosegui@gmail.com
CARBON
TRADING
-
What is carbon trading for?
Patrick Birley, the
Chief Executive of the European Climate Exchange, knows a thing
or two about carbon trading. He should do. He claims that about
95 per cent of all the carbon traded globally is traded through
his exchange. So when he talks about carbon markets, we would
do well to listen.
Here’s what
he has to say about carbon trading: “It doesn’t
reduce a single tonne of carbon going into the atmosphere. It’s
got nothing to do with it. It’s all about the cap. The
cap is the mechanism that produces a declining amount of carbon
over the long term going into the atmosphere.”
This isn’t an
anti-market, anti-globalisation anarchist speaking. It’s
the head of the European Climate Exchange, talking
in November 2009, at an event in Ireland, organised by the Institute
of International and European Affairs. But if carbon trading
does not reduce carbon emissions, what on earth is it for?
Unfortunately, on
this point Birley’s presentation was a little more vague.
“There are people making and losing money,” he explained.
Of course, he’s one of those who is making money. “I
am certainly a profit making company aiming to make as much
profit as possible for my shareholders and I’m unashamed
about that.”
But carbon trading
is not only about making money. After repeating that his company
does nothing to reduce the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere,
Birley said, “We are helping those who are reducing their
carbon to manage the associated risks.”
On one of his presentation
slides, titled “Who is the market?”, Birley lists
four groups: hedgers, investors, arbitrageurs and speculators.
Anyone remember sub-prime? Wasn’t it triggered by precisely
these groups of money-makers managing other people’s risk
with other people’s money?
Earlier this year,
I interviewed Jeff
Horowitz, founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners, a US-based
organisation that is lobbying for forest offsets to be included
in US climate legislation. I asked Horowitz why he favoured
trading in forest carbon credits when they do not, and cannot,
reduce emissions. In five long paragraphs, his only answer to
this question was to argue that “without the ability to
leverage credible and environmentally robust REDD offsets, the
reduction targets achievable by policy makers would be significantly
scaled back.” Patrick Birley also hopes that carbon trading
“will make industry more able to accept a steeper decline
in terms of the cap.”
But when we look at
the cap, there is little or no evidence to support this argument.
During the fiasco at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen
at the end of last year, the US and a handful of other countries
presented the world with the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord mentions
REDD, but the writers of the Accord took the already flimsy
cap from the Kyoto Protocol and shot it so full of holes that
it’s barely recognisable as a cap. An analysis by the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research published in the
Journal Nature in April found
that: “The current national emissions reduction pledges
accompanying the Copenhagen Accord will not limit global warming
to two degrees Celsius. In fact, they imply a global mean temperature
increase of more than three degrees Celsius this century.”
Polluting industry
is, at least sometimes, very honest about their motivations
for supporting carbon trading. American Electric Power (AEP)
is the biggest burner of coal in the USA. In 2008, Diane Fitzgerald,
AEP’s managing director of environment and safety, explained
to Time
magazine, “We’ll compare forestry offsets to
projects like renewable energy, and we have to make the best
financial decision.”
A year later, Michael
G. Morris, AEP’s chief executive, told the Washington
Post, “When Greenpeace says the only reason American
Electric Power wants to do this is because it doesn’t
want to shut down its coal plants, my answer is, ‘You
bet, because our coal plants serve our customers very cost-effectively.’”
Industry wants carbon trading so that it does not have to reduce
emissions. At the same time, polluting industry can create the
appearance of doing something by buying carbon credits.
This trade in a commodity
that no one can see is expected to be a US$3 trillion market
by 2020. That’s if the market doesn’t collapse completely
before then. The US$7 billion dollars in fraud
that was recently uncovered in the EU illustrates the potential
for organised crime to get involved. Trading carbon won’t
reduce emissions, but it will allow industry to lock in polluting
technology.
If we could see meaningful
emissions reductions, an end to exploration for new fossil fuels,
an end to new coal-fired power plants and a structural shift
to renewable energy production then perhaps the carbon trade
would be an irrelevant side-show. As it is we can’t see
any of these three things happening and the carbon trade is
helping industry continue with business as usual. That, and
making money, is what carbon trading is for.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
