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WRM Bulletin
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OUR VIEWPOINT Plantations campaign: a call for coordinated action Carrying out a campaign against plantations is not easy, particulary in places located far away from the plantation areas. How can you be against tree planting? Doesn't the world need more trees? These are the type of questions we have to face time and time again. We explain that we are not opposing the plantation of trees but a specific type of activity, characterized by being large scale monocultures of exotic trees which usurp local peoples' forests and lands and result in a large number of negative social and environmental impacts. But the task is not an easy one. At the receiving end -in the plantation areas- there is little need for explanations and much need of support to people confronting them, precisely because they know -and suffer- the consequences. In spite of the specific difficulties of this campaign, we believe that we have moved a long way forward and that there is now increased awareness and opposition, particularly to pulpwood plantations. However, some changes have also occured at the other side. In many cases -exemplified by Indonesia- the government's support and the corporations' interest have shifted from pulpwood to oil palm plantations. At the same time, at the global level there is a strong push for the implementation of vast areas of "carbon sink" plantations, using the same type of large-scale monocultures as in the case of pulpwood and oil palm plantations. This implies the need to continue disseminating information and analysis on these issues as we -and many others- have so far been doing, in order to facilitate the task of those working at both the local and international levels to put a stop to this type of forestry. But we also believe that enough groundwork has already been done and that the time has come to carry out a concerted and coordinated effort simultaneously in a number of scenarios, among which the following: - Local level. In most Southern countries there are varying levels of organized opposition to large scale plantations, ranging from weak to very strong. In many cases there are ongoing local struggles which need support. The dissemination of information about such struggles to the general public can greatly assist both in rallying support to them and to increase public awareness and opposition to this type of forestry. - International processes, agencies and actors. Many of these are directly or indirectly promoting plantations while others are playing an ambiguous role in this regard. Some of the more relevant are: the Biodiversity and Climate Change Conventions, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, the Global Environment Facility, the Multilateral Development Banks, the International Monetary Fund, the Food and Agriculture Organization. All of these need to be influenced, because their decisions and actions may either promote the spread of these plantations or assist in halting them. - Government cooperation agencies. Many of these Northern governments' agencies -the Japanese JICA being perhaps the worst but by no means the only one- are actively promoting plantations in many countries as part of their governments' strategy to ensure cheap supplies of wood, pulp, and palm oil to their countries as well as to facilitate their industrial exports (e.g. forestry and pulp-making equipment) or their commitments regarding carbon emissions. - Consulting firms and technology suppliers. In many cases these firms work hand in hand with the above mentioned agencies. In this case, Finland's Jaakko Poyry is the most eminent though not unique example of Northern consultancies. They are extremely influential at the government level and help to prepare the ground for the development of monoculture plantations, which will later need to be harvested and industrialized ... using Northern technology for such purpose. - Southern governments. Ultimately, it is Southern governments which are responsible for the promotion and support of plantations. This may be the result of some arm twisting on the part of some of the above actors, but this does not relieve them for their responsibility in the issue. Governments are however not monolithic. Some agencies and individual public servants have a critical view about this and need to receive support to facilitate policy changes within the government. A halt to plantations will require decisions at the government level and putting pressure on them is therefore crucial. - Northern consumers. The current level of consumption in the North is unsustainable and is destroying people, communities and the environment in the South. Paper consumption has already depleted many of the world's forests and is now the main reason for the promotion of pulpwood plantations in the South. Fossil fuel consumption has resulted in the greenhouse effect. In order to avoid the need to reduce consumption of such fuels, the North has come up with the "brilliant" idea of creating carbon sinks -in the South, of course- in the manner of large-scale fast growing tree plantations. Such destructive consumption patterns need to be radically changed. - Corporations. These are obviously the main beneficiaries of the actions of most of the above processes and actors. While some of them (e.g. pulp or oil palm industries) are clearly perceived at the local level, others (particularly those promoting carbon sinks) may be hidden in the background. Given their size and economic power, they have also an enormous capacity to politically influence other actors -including local governments- to their own benefit. Their large-scale logic generates large-scale social and environmental impacts, which cannot be disguised under their newly adopted "green" and "social" discourse. The above is by no means a comprehensive list of all the possible entry points for people willing to challenge the plantation model, but it highlights some of the many arenas where there is a need to intervene. The time has come to move on and to challenge the plantation model in all the possible arenas. To highlight its destructive character; to point out the contradictions between what intergovernmental agencies have been mandated to do -such as poverty erradication or forest and biodiversity conservation- and their attitude regarding the spread of monoculture plantations; to inform Northern people about what their government agencies and companies are doing in the South; to demand Southern governments to halt the promotion of plantations. We now call on people and organizations from all over the world to carry out a coordinated effort to halt this destructive forestry model. We have focused this bulletin entirely on the plantations campaign to provide you with an overview of all the possible scenarios where you can intervene. We have also included specific suggestions, as a means of highlighting some possible avenues for action, but we look forward to receiving your own ideas and suggestions on the matter. Please get in contact with us so that we can coordinate actions at the different levels. We firmly believe that if we all work together, we can achieve success in changing this destructive forestry model to the benefit of local peoples and their environments.
PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN Opposition to plantations at the root and in the forefront Opposition to plantations is not an academic exercise, but a direct result of the impacts of plantations in many countries. All of the research carried out on this issue is the direct or indirect result of the identification of a number of problems by local peoples who suffer the consequences. What independent research has done is to put the issue in a broader perspective and to explain academically why local peoples are right. This does not mean that such research is not important. On the contrary, it is crucial in assisting local peoples in their struggles, by translating their findings into a language which can be understood and accepted by decision-making circles as well as to disseminate them widely to gain support at the public level. Opposition varies widely according to the different situations. In some cases, it has led to direct actions and even confrontations (e.g. in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela and others). In other cases, opposition has taken place prior to plantations, based on the experiences suffered by local communities in other countries. Such is the case of Hawaii, where local organizations led a successful campaign against planned plantations in the Big Island. In many other countries, opposition manifests itself in various other non violent forms and is gaining increasing strength at the public level, as in the cases of South Africa, Uruguay, Ecuador, Mexico and many others. Opposition is therefore at the core of this campaign. All our efforts are aimed at strengthening local opposition to plantations through the dissemination of information and analysis about their struggles; coordination of actions in the relevant scenarios; providing direct support when so requested; promoting the creation of a broad anti-plantations front and supporting locally-driven sustainable and equitable development initiatives. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Identify if large scale tree plantations are being promoted
in your country
The Biodiversity Convention should take action The impacts of industrial tree plantations on local plants and animals are very well known. They are particularly clear when tree monocultures replace forests -as happens in many tropical countries- and also relevant, even if not so apparent, when plantations are set up on grassland ecosystems. Tree plantations imply a simplification of the previously existing ecosystem, thus resulting in a loss of biodiversity. In 1992, governments agreed in Rio that the Earth's biological diversity was facing major threats. They agreed about the need for a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and approved it. It has since then held four meetings of the Conference of the Parties. During that same time, large scale monoculture tree plantations are being widely promoted and resulting in biodiversity loss and threatening to cover increasing areas in the biodiverse-rich tropical regions. It is clearly within its mandate that the CBD should do something about this. It is equally clear that the rest of the international processes should be in line with that of the CBD. However, none of this is happening. On the one hand, the CBD seems to prefer to turn a blind eye on the spread of plantations. On the other hand, the Climate Change Convention (CCC) seems to be moving in an opposite direction, actively promoting large-scale monoculture tree plantations as carbon sinks. While this happens, the CBD (Bratislava, May 1998), limits itself to blandly and cryptically warn on the potential impacts on forests and related ecosystems' biodiversity resulting from the expansion of carbon sink tree plantations. Additionally, no follow up appears to have occured since then and the CCC continues working in such direction. Additionally, a new threat to biodiversity is appearing within the plantation model: that of "super-trees" produced by genetic engineering. Such monsters, claimed as perfect timber producers because of their ability to produce wood in very short rotation periods, will constitute a real nighmare: the current negative impacts of "standard" fast-growing tree species would be multiplied with the use of these new "trees", with the added threat of the unknown consequences that these genetically modified organisms might have on the environment. Will the CBD do nothing about all this? WHAT YOU CAN DO * Organizations working on the CBD process at the international level: - Stress that monoculture tree plantations constitute a major
threat to biodiversity and that the CBD should take action to oppose them * Organizations working on the CBD process -and on biodiversity- at the national level: - Include in your work the issue of plantations as a major
threat to biodiversity
Carbon sinks or the sinking of the Climate Change Convention? Northern countries, which are responsible for most of the world fossil fuel-related emissions resulting from their unsustainable production and consumption patterns, are seeking to buy a way out of their responsibility in relation to global warming by promoting the use the photosinthetic activity of tree leaves to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Fast-growing species plantations have been given a major role in relation to this issue because of their supposed condition of carbon sinks. Under the so called Clean Development Mechanisms, the Kyoto Protocol promotes such plantations. The result is that the North will continue emitting CO2 to the atmosphere, while vast areas of the South will be used as a deposit for their carbon garbage. Estimates of the are of fast-growing tree plantations required to aborb global emissions of CO2 range from 150 to 300 million hectares. The negative environmental and social impacts of this invasion can be enormous. Plantations are not a solution for global warming, but an additional problem. As a matter of fact, tree plantations are one of the main causes of forest destruction in the tropics, eliminating the enormous carbon reservoirs that mature forests are. In the 1980s, 75% of the new tree plantations in Southern countries in the tropics were made by replacing closed natural forest that had existed there ten years earlier. In the temperate regions, plantations will substitute grasslands that also act as natural carbon reservoirs. Additionally, the scientific basis of the whole idea is very weak. The efficiency of plantations as carbon sinks is under question because it depends very much on the species used and on the local climatic conditions; because it is not clear for how long they are supposed to stay as carbon sinks; and because it depends on what happens with carbon emissions when they are cut down and their wood is transformed into different types of wood products which will decay in relatively short periods of time (particularly so in the case of paper). A real solution for global warming would imply -among other additional measures- that industrialized countries effectively diminish their emissions and that, at the same time, primary forests and grassland ecosystems are maintained as natural carbon reservoirs, while secondary forest regrowth is enhanced to act as real carbon sinks. That should be the role of the CCC. If it continues concentrating on sinks and not on sources, then it will be the CCC itself that will sink. WHAT YOU CAN DO * Organizations working at the Climate Change Convention level: - Challenge the idea of plantations as carbon sinks * Organizations working at the national level: - Include in your agenda the issue of the promotion of
plantations as carbon sinks
The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests: a foresters' forum The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) was established in 1997, being its first task that of promoting and monitoring the implementation of the 135 Proposals for Action agreed by the International Panel on Forests (IPF). The IPF's proposals for action contain a number of contradictions in relation to plantations, which reflect the different interests at stake among the governments involved in the process, and the presence of a strong pro-plantations lobby within the Forum. On the one hand, the IPF's proposals contain some positive aspects, such as stating that social, cultural, economic and environmental considerations should be taken into account in the selection of species, areas and silviculture systems, that native species should be preferred, and that monocultures should be avoided. However, at the same time, the IPF considers that "plantations of fast-growing tress have good and cost-effective results in terms of soil protection", and that they "fulfil a valuable role ... helping to conserve biological diversity", even when exactly the opposite has been proven true. It also adheres to the plantation promoters' view that "the role of forest plantations as an important element of sustainable forest management and as a complement to natural forests should be recognized." Such contradictions need to be underscored, and to stress that the main role of the IFF is to implement existing agreements to protect forests and not that of promoting large-scale monoculture tree plantations, which are in many cases a direct or indirect cause of forest destruction. Perhaps one of the main problems which the IFF faces lies in the fact that governments tend to see it as an expert body on forests, thereby requiring the presence of foresters. We believe this to be the wrong approach. Decisions on forests are political and should include social, economic and environmental considerations. Foresters do not play a major role in these arenas, except for being the implementers of forest policies. Given the type of training foresters receive, few of them are in a position to have a broad overview of the whole scenario -where power plays a much larger role than forestry technical knowledge- while at the same time they cannot be neutral regarding their own corporate interest and their relation with either the state or the forestry corporations. The above may explain the contradictory positions on plantations stated above, as well as the strong pro-plantation lobby from countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Chile, which organized an incredibly biased "expert meeting" on plantations within the framework of the IFF last April in Santiago, with the obvious aim of further promoting plantations. However, the IFF was not created to assist the plantation industry, but to protect the world's forests and it needs to be re-orientated in that direction as well as held responsible if it finally does not comply with the clear mandate it received. WHAT YOU CAN DO * Organizations working at the IFF level: - Stress that the IFF's mandate is forest conservation and
not plantation promotion * Organizations working at the national level: - In accordance with IPF proposals for action, promote
participatory discussions on forest conservation - with the effective participation of
forest and forest-dependent peoples- to feed into the implementation of those proposals
The child of the Food and Agriculture Organization The FAO holds major responsibility regarding monoculture tree plantations, having been the first international organization to actively promote -since the 1950s- the present plantation model. In spite of all the already known negative social and environmental impacts resulting from the Green Revolution in general and from its application in the forestry area in particular, the FAO continues being the main international body promoting such model and providing it with the necessary "expert" support. The FAO is recognized by governments and professionals as the expert body on forestry, thus providing plantation promoters with the necessary "scientific" credibility to counter opposition. It provides the official definitions used wordwide in the forestry field. Although its definitions cannot resist any serious criticism, they are continuously being used by foresters because they are useful for their purpose of presenting forests and "planted forests" as being one and the same thing. Amazingly enough, the FAO's definition of "forest" is different if applied to "developed" or "developing" countries. Additionally, in "developing" countries forests are divided into "natural forests" and "plantation forests", the latter resulting from afforestation in lands without forests as well as from the substitution of "natural" forests by exotic species. This definition ignores that tree plantations are not forests because they essentially differ in their origin, number and types of species, dynamics, uses and relationships to the other components of the environment. Nevertheless, the FAO seems to ignore these basic concepts and defines an area covered with trees -any trees- as being a "forest". The only case in which a plantation could be termed a forest -that in which an area originally covered by forest is reforested with trees and shrubs original to the area- is explicitly not included in the definition of "plantation forests"! Another odd definition is that of "reforestation" as consisting in the "establishment of tree crops on forest land". This does not consider any difference between native or exotic species, and shows a very narrow approach to forests, looking at them as a mere source of wood (crop). Absurd as it may seem -within the current Kyoto Protocol thinking, carbon sink plantations could not be included in this category, because it would not be reasonable to classify them as crops; neither could all those plantations implemented for reasons other than harvesting wood. Last but not least, the term "forest cover" used by the FAO is also incorrect, since it is based on the area covered by the tree canopy and does not consider the difference between forests and plantations. Under this definition, a country could completely destroy its forests and substitute them by tree monocultures without diminishing its "forest cover" or even increasing it -something which is already happening in many countries. The FAO needs to do a lot of rethinking in the area of forests and forestry. One important step in that direction would be to open up and facilitate a discussion on its definitions, with the participation of major groups -particularly forest peoples' organizations- to come up with useful concepts regarding forests and plantations. WHAT YOU CAN DO * Organizations working at the international level: - Facilitate a discussion forum to exchange viewpoints on the
issue * Organizations working at the national level: - Highlight that FAO's definitions serve the purpose of
confusing the public regarding plantations
The World Bank makes plantations possible The World Bank is one of the major actors directly and indirectly promoting industrial tree monocrops in many countries, especially in the tropical region. The Bank directly promotes plantations through: - The provision of technical advice for forestry planning, where models on how to zone land for different uses -including plantations- are set up. - The provision of loans, some of which are currently being presented as national resource management projects, environmental projects, etc., even if many of them are basically focused on monoculture tree plantations. Between 1984 and 1994, the Bank lent 1.4 billion dollars to create 2.9 million hectares of tree plantations and this trend continues. - The promotion of plantations as carbon sinks under the Clean Development Mechanisms established in the Kyoto Protocol. Even if the negotiations related to its implementation are still in course, the Bank is planning to open in November 1999 a Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) for a group of selected investors of Northern countries. The PCF will be an investment fund where carbon tonnes -instead of shares- will be negotiated. Investors will be compensated with credits or licenses to emit an equivalent amount of carbon to the atmosphere or to sell them to other companies or countries. This James Bond licence-to-kill approach could eventually result in the plantation of millions of hectares of carbon sink plantations in the tropics. The Bank also supports large-scale tree plantations indirectly by: - Lending for infrastructure -as highways- that are used to transport roundwood produced in plantations to the ports and to pulp mills. In tropical countries, highways are also the way to penetrate into the rainforests, leading to their destruction through logging and conversion to cattle-raising, agriculture, tree plantations, etc. - Influencing or creating the required conditions through structural adjustment loans, which emphasize the promotion of export products such as wood, pulp and palm oil, thus leading to an increase in the plantation area. In sum, the World Bank is a major actor in making large-scale plantations possible. The current process it is carrying out to review its forest policy -which will include regional consultations- may be a good opportunity to influence it regarding the negative role of plantations and to have it change its policy in this respect. WHAT YOU CAN DO - NGOs monitoring World Bank activities in general can monitor and question the Bank's role in the promotion of plantations. They can also disseminate to relevant organizations those Bank projects related to plantations - NGOs following up the Bank's forest policy can take advantage of the FPIRS process as an opportunity to bring up and question the Bank's role in the promotion of plantations - NGOs working on Bank and climate change issues can denounce the promotion of plantations as carbon sinks through the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) as something that has nothing to do with the Bank's main mandate, which is poverty erradication - At the national level, identify Bank's projects and programmes in the pipeline which can directly or indirectly promote plantations, analyse their possible impacts and put pressure on the Bank to abandon them
Forestry consultancies: business for their home countries Forestry consultancy firms are crucial actors behind the scenes in the implementation of pulpwood plantations. They are in charge of promoting, investigating, planning, designing and setting up pulp and paper mills and plantation activities. Additionally, they play the important role of establishing links between executives, technology and machine providers, and local officials and authorities to make sure the establishment and the continuity of such projects. A paradigmatic example is that of Jaakko Poyry, a Finnish consulting company, which is nowadays the largest forestry and engineering consulting company in the world. In the last two decades it started to expand globally, following and promoting the expansion of tree monocultures and the exploitation of the forests in the South. Jaakko Poyry has offices in 25 countries around the world and employs almost 5,000 people. However, Jaakko Poyry is not alone. Also prominent are Canada's H. A. Simons, Sandwell, Reid, Collins and Associates, and SNC Lavalin; the US's Brown and Root, Babcock and Wilcox, CH2MHill, and Rust Engineering; the Nordic countries' Silvestria, Swedforest and ENSO/Indufor; Switzerland's and Britain's SGS Silviconsult; New Zealand's FORENCO Consultants; Australia's FORTECH; Germany's DFS Deutsche Forestservice; and France's Cirad and Chleq Frote. NGOs can play a major role in countering the activities of these often hidden influential actors. A good example has been provided by NGOs such as the Finnish Forest Action Network, which, in close association with Southern NGOs, have organized public fora in the 1990s in Helsinki, at which NGOs from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal and other countries criticized Jaakko Poyry for interfering in their countries to promote plantations, and called on the Finnish public to curb the abuses of its government agencies and corporations. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Southern NGOs can try to find out if Northern consultancies are active in the promotion of plantation development in their country - Northern NGOs can provide information on their country's consultancy firms and on their activity in different Southern countries - South-North links can be established to exchange information and to carry out concerted actions on a particular consultancy - Northern NGOs can denounce the impacts of these consultancies in their home countries
Bilateral aid agencies: aid upside down There is a variety of bilateral aid agencies. The work of some of them may actually contribute to improve the quality of life of the population of Southern countries and there are people working in those organization who devote their efforts to that goal. However, it is equally important to stress that there is also an important number of such agencies -specifically in the forestry-related sector- whose work results in negative impacts to local peoples and their environments. A number of bilateral agencies have played an important role in the promotion of the present model in the field of plantations and the industrialization of the resulting wood. Such is the case of FINNIDA (Finland), SIDA (Sweden), CIDA (Canada), USAID, ODA (UK). The Japanese JICA is to be underscored for its role in carrying out research, planning and plantation trials in several countries. Others -like GTZ (Germany)- support specific projects where tree monocultures are one of the components, even if they are at the same time involved in projects having a positive social and environmental approach. This kind of international aid has been also strongly criticized because a significant proportion of their resources are provided on the basis that they are used by the receiving countries to buy goods or services from the donor country. This is aid upside down, since people of Southern countries are actually subsidising the industry and the services sector of the North. It is therefore important to make Northern citizens know how their money is being used. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Southern NGOs can try to find out if aid agencies are active in the promotion of plantation development in their country - Northern NGOs can provide information on their country's aid agencies and on their activity in different Southern countries - South-North links can be established to exchange information and to carry out concerted actions on a particular agency - Northern NGOs can denounce the impacts of these consultancies in their home countries - Northern NGOs can monitor the activities of the donor agencies of their respective countries, so that funds are not devoted to the implementation of large-scale plantations - Northern NGOs can disseminate information to the public whenever taxpayer money is being channeled to support plantations - Northern NGOs can also find out if these agencies have a forest policy and analyse if such policy includes the promotion of large-scale plantations. According to the results of such research, the agency could be challenged, either because of having a bad policy or because it is not complying with its own policy.
Southern production for Northern overconsumption The increasing paper and wood demand at the global level, together with the need to preserve the remaining forests, are used to justify the expansion of tree plantations for the production of paper and wood. At the same time, the threat of global warming is used to promote plantations as carbon sinks. But the issue of overconsumption of paper, wood and fossil fuels -which are at the basis of the current crisis- are not included in the equation. The paper industry is constantly and actively promoting new uses of paper for business and household uses. The proclaimed benefits of an increase in paper consumption is an argument frequently used by pulp plantation promoters to justify them and present them as positive for human development. The industry tries to associate paper consumption with literacy, cultural level, access to written information and thus to a better quality of life. But the truth is that a large part of the cellulose produced in the South is not used to supply the populations of these countries, but those of the North. The literacy argument -even understanding it as the mere ability to read and write, and supposing that its rate only depends upon the availability of printed materials- is not as relevant as it would seem: while 40% of world paper production is used for packaging and wrapping, only 30% is used for writing and printing paper. Moreover, a huge part of paper consumption for writing and printing purposes is used for advertising. In sum, a great deal of today’s pattern of environmentally unsustainable paper consumption is socially unnecessary. Increasing wood consumption is also presented as something necessary and the argument goes that plantations can alleviate pressure on forests by supplying the world with the wood it needs without having to cut the latter. But here again the arguments are false. Plantations are not aimed at providing local communities with the wood they need (for housing, firewood, crafts, tools, etc.) but at feeding wood overconsumption in the North. At the same time, forests continue being logged because wood from plantations is not considered to have the required quality to produce a large number of wood products which are therefore still produced from native forests. It is thus false that plantations help to alleviate pressure on forests. Fossil fuel consumption is one of the major causes of climate change. Northern countries emit the highest volumes of greenhouse gases derived from the combustion of fossil fuels. Their "solution" is to plant fast-growing trees -mostly in the South- as carbon sinks, in order to avoid taking actions to effectively counter the greenhouse effect. The real solution should aim at substituting fossil fuels by clean, renewable and low impact energy sources and at an efficient use of energy. Technologies are available, but there is a lack of political will to implement them. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Northern NGOs can implement consumer awareness-raising campaigns, linking overconsumption with the spread of plantations -and their impacts- in the South - The NGO community in general could put pressure on the UN system to limit its paper consumption to a certain level within a certain time (half in two years?), thus giving an example of environmental consciousness to the world - Southern NGOs could generate awareness on the unsustainability of the prevailing consumption patterns which are also being promoted in the South
Southern governments' sad role Southern governments are ultimately responsible for the adoption of the plantation model and for its implementation at the national and local levels. Even when the idea for the promotion of plantations may originate in external actors (World Bank, consulting firms, aid agencies, etc.), it is the Southern governments which need to pave the way to make their implementation possible. The first step usually consists in carrying out viability studies -with funds provided by international funding or bilateral aid agencies- to justify such development. A second and crucial element is the adoption of legislation to promote tree plantations, which centrally includes direct and indirect incentives to make the activity profitable for corporations. These incentives, coupled with cheap land and labour, weak environmental norms, fast tree growth and an enabling environment for national and transnational corporations' investment, constitute the basic premises for plantation development. Forestry Departments are the state agencies in charge of implementing this policy by administrating funds and controlling plantations in the field. They usually carry out the necessary research to support the model. They also disseminate information and propaganda to show the "benefits" of the model and are in the front line to counter criticism from environmental and social organizations. In many cases, the participation of governments in the process is much more brutal. Police and armed forces are mobilized to repress local communities and indigenous peoples when they resist forced migration and land occupation by plantation companies, or pollution caused by pulp mills. It is important to stress that Southern governments do not act alone; a number of other important national and international actors participate actively in convincing the government to adopt the plantation model. While it is very important to recognize such fact, it is equally important to realize the sad role that Southern governments are playing in this respect and that policy changes to halt plantations will need to be finally approved by the government. There is therefore much work to be done to influence it at different levels. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Oppose the large-scale plantation model at all levels - Promote changes in current legislation and policies promoting such plantations - Oppose the passing of legislation to promote plantations - Demand the goverment to carry out social and environmental impact assessments on plantations at the basin level - Identify and promote successful community forest management initiatives as alternatives to this type of plantations
Forestry professionals and academics: the need for change Modern forestry science -silviculture- arose in the North as a result of the Industrial Revolution: forest management was separated from agriculture and cattle breeding and focused exclusively on the production of timber, considering other vital forest goods as "minor products". Plantations constitute the ultimate step in that direction, achieving the total simplification of nature with the aim of producing only one product for industrial purposes. This narrow approach, where forests are viewed as only composed of wood for industry- has been adopted by most forestry technical schools and universities, where professionals are formed. That is one of the reasons which explain why professional foresters are usually unable to see the forest in its entirety and to understand why a plantation is not a forest. Even worse, many professional foresters play the sad role of hired "experts" who justify "scientifically" whatever needs to be justified to favour either the forestry profession's corporate interest or the interests of large forestry corporations, regardless of their relation to reality and sometimes in complete opposition to it. In their view, the knowledge and findings of rural communities and indigenous peoples, who suffer the consequences on water, biodiversity, soils, etc. resulting from the expansion of industrial plantations in their lands, is not to be taken into account, since it is "scientifically unproven". Fortunately, the situation seems to be slowly beginning to change and more academics and foresters are beginning to realize that forestry science's approach is too narrow and that the conservation of forests requires a totally different and holistic perspective, which takes society and the environment as the starting point. Such change in viewpoint needs however to be promoted much further to allow present and particularly future professionals to play a positive role in forest conservation. Foresters need to decide if they wish to be logging and plantation experts at the service of the state and corporations or forest conservation actors at the service of local communities and their forests. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Revalue traditional knowledge on forest management - Identify socially and environmentally sustainable types of forest management - Promote curricular changes in forestry schools, taking the above into account. Such changes need to be promoted both from within and outside such educational institutions. Student associations can play a major role in this - Individual foresters and other academics should put their capacity at the service of local communities struggling against plantations
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Ongoing certification programmes are the result of successful consumer awareness campaigns against the unsustainable exploitation of forests. The public reacted by demanding the possibility of being able to know which products they could buy which had been extracted under socially and environmentally sustainable forest management. Independent certification was therefore required. At the public level, one of the certification schemes which has wider credibility is the FSC, given the direct participation of an important number of NGOs in this process. The FSC includes plantations within its certification activities and makes explicit a number of criteria in this regard in principle 10. We believe that this principle needs to be improved in a number of ways, particularly taking into account plantation company activities in the South, which -in spite of the negative impacts they generate- might nevertheless receive FSC certification because of compliance with principle 10. If such happened, it would strengthen large-scale plantation companies' position and weaken local peoples struggles against them. WHAT YOU CAN DO - NGOs involved in the FSC could open up a discussion on principle 10 and if they reach a consensus on the need to introduce changes to it, to bring up the issue officially for discussion - NGOs involved in the FSC could get in contact with other organizations to incorporate their viewpoints on the issue to the discussion - NGOs not involved in the FSC could also discuss principle 10 and channel their viewpoints to those involved.
PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN Two new briefings The WRM has just published two new plantations campaign briefings ("Pulpwood Plantations: a Growing Problem" and "Ten Replies to Ten Lies") which are available free of charge from the International Secretariat. NGOs, IPOs and community-based organizations can request more than one copy, also free of charge. The first briefing is a summarized version of "Pulping the South" and is also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese. The second briefing counters the 10 main arguments used worldwide by plantations promoters and is also available in Spanish. The aim of these two briefings is to facilitate understanding of the plantations issue by a wider public and can be used to influence journalists (a press release is included), to organize public discussions, to raise awareness within communities facing this forestry model and for other purposes you may think of. Please get in contact with us to request copies. The WRM has prepared a number of other materials to serve as tools for the campaign. Some of them are available in printed format, while others can be accessed in our web page. We will continue producing such materials, but those currently available are the following: Other material in printed format "Pulping the South: industrial tree plantations and the world paper economy.", by Carrere, R. & Lohmann, L. Book. Published by Zed Books, UK. Provides a detailed overview of the pulp and paper industry, the actors supporting it, its social and environmental impacts and case studies in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, Indonesia and Thailand. Available at the publishers. Southern NGOs can also request a copy free of charge from the WRM International Secretariat. "Tree plantations: impacts and struggles." Book. Provides a general overview of plantations worldwide and an extensive number of local struggles in many countries. Contains all the plantation-related articles published in 1997 and 1998 in the WRM Bulletin. Available free of charge from WRM's International Secretariat (also available in Spanish) Other material in the WRM web page "Tree plantations: impacts and struggles." (also in
paper) "Pulpwood plantations: a growing problem." (also in
paper) "Ten Replies to Ten Lies." (also in paper) "Briefing on Finnish Consultancy Firm Jaakko Poyry" "Plantations and the Intergovernmental Forum on
Forests" "The World Bank: a major actor" Apart from the above, the web page contains many other relevant papers and articles, both on general and specific country-related information, which we encourage you to read at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/plantations/material.htm We are planning to continue publishing materials in printed and electronic format, among which briefings on plantation-related issues such as: carbon sinks, the FAO, the World Bank, biodiversity, oil palm plantations, certification.
PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN We believe that apart from the documentation we have produced and will continue to produce, the campaign needs other types of materials to reach a wider public. We would like to know if you would be willing to participate by sending us designs for a campaign sticker, a poster, and a PC wall paper, containing clear and original messages on plantations. Your designs will be posted in the WRM web page and will be widely used in the campaign. Cartoons and photographs are also very welcome and would also be posted in the web site. We are of course open to any other suggestions you may think of (how about a computer game?). We are also planning to produce a video as a major tool for the campaign. Do you know about the existence of any videos which might contain parts which could be included in our video? If so, please get in contact with us as soon as possible. Given that we would like the video to include information on impacts and struggles in as many tropical countries as possible, we depend very much on your assistance in getting hold of already existing videos -which are often difficult to get hold of- in order to be able to show the real extent of the problem and how it affects people and the environment.
PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN In several countries opposition to plantations has been successful. The initial struggles in countries such as India and Thailand showed the way to many other people, who have carried out their own struggles -in accordance with their own realities- many of which are still ongoing. The following are a few examples, from different countries, of some opposition movements and of their efforts to successfully oppose the plantation model. - Hawaii: plantations stopped before starting In August 1997 we received bad news from Hawaii: Oji Paper/Marubeni -Japan's largest paper supplier- was about to receive a lease for 4,150 hectares of public land at Hamakua County to set up eucalyptus pulpwood plantations. Oji/Marubeni was also seeking some10,000 hectares of private land leases on the Big Island and elsewhere to produce eucalyptus for chips that would be later exported to Japan for paper production. The local NGO Friends of Hamakua strongly opposed the project and together with farmers and community organizations formulated an alternative land-use, based on cooperative agriculture for the ex-sugar cane lands coveted by Oji. Local dwellers had already suffered the consequences of the environmentally negative practices of Prudential Insurance-Hamakua timber, another plantation company that had sprayed herbicides and burned large field areas in Hamakua. As a result of their struggle, that included getting international support, local authorities finally rejected the plantation proposal. This can be considered the best possible type of success, since in this case the development of tree monocultures was stopped even before it started. - South Africa: resistance to tree monocultures in grasslands Even if natural forests in South Africa do not occupy more than 300,000 hectares, this country is an important exporter of wood products. They come from pine and eucalyptus plantations that quickly expanded during the last decades. Large corporations -as SAPPI and MONDI- and the South African State itself -through SAFCOL- have been responsible for the expansion of tree monocultures in grasslands. Nowadays plantations have reached 1.5 million hectares and the powerful pulp industry intends to increase the area by 600,000 hectares more. Companies are also aiming at setting up extensive plantations in neighbouring Mozambique. In this period of globalization, MONDI is expanding abroad and in May 1996 became one of Aracruz Celulose's main shareholders. In spite of the propaganda efforts developed by plantation companies, who are trying to show themselves as champions of nature conservation, opposition is increasing. The effects of tree monocultures, causing grasslands biodiversity reduction and water resources shortages are apparent. Air and river pollution by pulp mills has also been denounced. Small peasants are being taken over partially or totally and forced to move their cattle or even to migrate and abandon their lands. People are reacting against this invasion and in some places direct actions have been taken. In the Kwazulu Natal area, 2,825 hectares of plantations were damaged by arson, a type of action that was responsible for most plantation fires during 1997. People are organizing and increasingly challenging the spread of plantations. TimberWatch, a South African network, is currently monitoring the expansion of plantations in that country. Another movement (SAWaC, South African Water Crisis) was formed by a group of individuals who recognize a looming water crisis in Southern Africa and are working to overcome it. SAWaC has denounced that monoculture tree plantations are one of the major causes of this crisis. They have been established mostly in the transitional areas from the coastal lowlands to the high veld, the areas of highest rainfall and very high biodiversity, thereby impacting on these two crucially important resources. - Venezuela: an isolated giant Smurfit Carton in Venezuela, a subsidiary of giant Jefferson Smurfit, is a good (bad) example of how depredatory the activity of a company can be, and of how local people can successfully resist it. In 1994 Smurfit switched its pulp production from sugarcane bagasse to wood and began to plant eucalyptus in Portuguesa State, while at the same time cutting tropical forest to supply its pulp mill with raw material. In 1997 the relationship between Smurfit and local communities was critical since its spraying of herbicides had destroyed 190 hectares of peasants' crops and intoxicated school children. The situation became even worse when the company purchased the estate La Productora, which the inhabitants of adjacents communities Morador and Tierra Buena had expected to receive as part of the government's agrarian reform programme. As a result, they occupied the estate but were brutally repressed by the National Guard and forced to abandon it. Plantations are not only usurping the land, that is a scarce resource for peasants, but also impacting on other vital resources such as water and wildlife. The company tried to change its image by launching a public relations press campaign in local newspapers, carrying articles which highlighted some minor donations to the communities. But it did not manage -in spite of trying - to co-opt local peasants and environmentalists, who went on with their struggle. Local people have carried out numerous actions, among which the blockade of the highway through which Smurfit's lorries transported tropical forest wood to its industrial plant, a letter campaign to the new president, the organization of fora to publicize their case, networking and gaining support from national and international organizations, among others. The result is that now, in spite of its enormous power, the company is increasingly isolated, while the mobilization capacity of local landless peasants has increased. The struggle is not over, but the situation has favourably changed for the local communities. - Chile: a severely questioned model Nowadays pulp plantations in Chile cover more than 2.1 million hectares, 75% of a single species - radiata pine- and the rest mainly composed of eucalyptus. The Chilean forestry model, that originated during the military dictatorship and has been trumpeted as an example of modern forestry development and exported as such to the countries of the region, is in big trouble. Land concentration in the hands of a few logging and plantation companies (such as Forestal Arauco, Forestal Mininco and CMPP), the forced displacement of thousands of peasants and indigenous people, poverty in communities dependent on forestry activities, the destruction of the Southern natural forests replaced by plantations, and the negative impacts on water sources and biodiversity resulting from this model are being severely questioned. Virtues of the model are just myths that companies and the government use as propaganda. In February 1998 the fishing community of Mehuin in the southern X Region opposed the project of Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion -a huge pulp and paper company- to build a pulp mill coupled with a pipeline that would discharge toxic pollutants resulting from the production process in the bay where they live. The mobilization involved the whole population of Mehuin and resulted in the rejection of the project. The strong opposition to the expansion of plantations in their traditional lands is at the core of the defense of the environment undertaken by the Mapuche indigenous communities in Arauco, Malleco and Cautin Provinces in southern Chile. During 1998 and 1999 they have carried out a number of actions. The Mapuche have to face not only powerful forestry companies but also the Chilean State which has subsidised the model -and continues to do so- and at the same time denies in fact indigenous peoples' rights to their land and culture and is using the police and the military to repress them. During the recent months, actions against plantation companies have dramatically increased both in number and intensity, including the occupation by indigenous peoples of lands which belong to them but that are currently in the hands of plantation companies, the destruction of forestry machinery, the organization of a march to the capital city and many others. Companies and the state are becoming increasingly nervous and isolated, while the Mapuche are gaining strength and support. - Indonesia: the struggle against oil palm plantations Indonesia is undergoing an accelerated process of plantation of oil palm. In a process promoted by the government -that wants the country to become the first palm oil producer in the world- and led by a reduced group of powerful companies, the present area of 3.2 million hectares is expected to increase at a rate of 330,000 hectares a year. Since these monocultures invade lands originally occupied by forests and generally inhabited by indigenous peoples and local communities, their expansion brings with it significant environmental and social problems: land degradation, loss of biodiversity -due to the presence of the monoculture in itself and the use of pesticides and herbicides- dependence of the local economy on a single commodity whose price is affected by variations in the international market, etc. Many cases of conflicts regarding the use of the territory and natural resources, and human rights violations, have been denounced. Realizing the need to work and develop plans together for coordinating and strengthening efforts at the local, national and international levels, some Indonesian NGOs initiated in July 1998 Sawit Watch and since then more NGOs joined the initiative. Sawit Watch has been successful in its activities of supporting local and indigenous peoples' struggle against oil palm plantation companies, campaigning against IMF/World Bank's Sectoral Adjustment Loan for liberalizing oil palm plantations, and raising public awareness on the social and environmental impacts of oil palm plantations.
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World Rainforest Movement
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