Special
Bulletin Nº 146 - September 2007
(complete version)
This WRM bulletin
is a contribution to the activities to be carried out on September
21st, International Day Against Tree Monocultures. It is important
to stress that the choice of this date is rooted in peoples’ struggles
against plantations. The date was first chosen by local networks
in Brazil, who in 2004 decided to establish this date as a day of
struggle against tree monocultures. Following their lead, the date
was immediately adopted by a large number of communities and organizations
struggling against plantations in their own countries and internationally.
Since then, more and more people have joined in by carrying different
activities on this date, thereby helping to raise awareness about
the social and environmental impacts of plantations.
Special
Bulletin Nº 124 - November 2007
(complete version)
Climate change is not only already happening
and impacting on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people,
but is set to accelerate if actions to address the problem are not
urgently implemented. The resulting extreme winds and temperatures,
floods, droughts and rise in sea levels will affect increasing numbers
of people, millions of which will be forced to migrate and become
environmental refugees.
Bulletin
Nº 101 - December 2005 (complete
version)
Large-scale monoculture tree
plantations are being promoted in the South by a broad array of
governments, international institutions and corporate actors. Local
communities are being impacted by those plantations and are fighting
back to regain control over their territories. Given the negative
social and environmental impacts these plantations entail, the WRM
organized an International Meeting on Plantations (together with
FASE-ES and GJEP) which was held on 21-25 November 2005 in Vitoria,
Espirito Santo, Brazil. The meeting brought together experiences
from people working in different countries and issues related to
plantations. In this bulletin we include a summarized version of
most of the meeting’s presentations as a means of sharing
information and analysis with all the bulletin’s readers.
Bulletin
Nº 25 - July 1999 (complete version)
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.
Bulletin
Nº 13 - July 1998 (complete version)
Large-scale tree plantations are having
grave social and environmental impacts in many countries of the
world. While governments and international organizations promote
this forestry model, more and more people rise in opposition against
it. Its promoters' real aims (power, profits) are hidden under a
"green" guise: the plantation of "forests" in
a world facing deforestation and climate change. This environmental
discourse, which has little or no influence on the people living
in the plantation sites, is aimed at uninformed -mostly urban- audiences,
which constitute the main potential support for the plantations
industry.
