Pulping the South:
Industrial Tree Plantations in the World Paper Economy
Ricardo Carrere and Larry Lohmann

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Chapter 13

Conclusion: Looking to the Future
The priority of politics

As this book has shown, a great deal of bad or inappropriate science and bad or inappropriate development economics is used to promote large-scale industrial tree monocultures. But these plantations are not established simply out of an i ntellectual mistake. They do not proliferate merely because someone, somewhere, has made a scientific error or perpetrated a fraud in biology, accounting, or risk analysis.

Plantations are established, rather, because they serve certain interests, make sense within certain discourses, and provide a whole range of organizations wi th opportunities to reshape their surroundings, and themselves, in a way which prolongs their survival. Plantations result in real gains for real people _ man y of whom may be found in the institutions described in Chapter 5. These gains almost never 'trickle down' to the people who live where the plantations are es tablished, and are accompanied by long-term degradation of the land and livelih oods of large numbers of communities. But there is little use in denying that t hey exist.

If the institutions of Chapter 5 did not exist, few people would pursue, and st ill fewer would accept, the one-sided science and economics used to promote mas sive industrial plantations. If academic forestry were not so closely confined, historically and institutionally, within the conceptual universe which has gro wn up around the wood industry, fewer foresters would be likely to neglect the issues this book has highlighted, or to make excuses for the industry's depreda tions, or to give short shrift to existing or potential alternatives, and more foresters would be likely to recognize the possibility of finding common cause with more diverse groups. Similarly, if no institution were assigned the job of finding taxpayer subsidies for big, destructive pulp mills, the biased economi cs which justifies the operation would perhaps not need to be promoted so shril ly as 'neutral' social science.

But as long as such institutions enjoy disproportionate power, bad forestry sci ence and bad development economics will continue to be produced in great quanti ties, no matter how 'logically' they may be refuted in scientific papers and ac tual plantations. This flow will hardly be stemmed merely by herding those resp onsible into a seminar room and pointing out a few scientific errors or omissio ns. The interests and institutions which feed it must also be challenged _ and not only in meeting rooms but also in fields and forests _ by political allianc es including those whose resources plantations have stolen.

By the same token, any attempt to promote 'solutions' to the patterns of destru ction outlined in this book is unlikely to bear fruit if it is undertaken exclu sively within the conceptual and political universe of the institutions examine d in Chapter 5. Many practical 'alternatives', indeed, are already well-known, but because they are not particularly friendly to the institutional cultures in volved, they have been neglected.

It is well-established, for example, that for people to be able to continue to use reasonable amounts of paper does not intrinsically require huge machines, l arge technocracies, extensive road networks, intercontinental marketing mechani sms, the mining of vast amounts of raw material in single locations, or the imm ensely water-, energy-, chemical- and capital-intensive installations which cha racterize the mainstream industry today. China, for instance, still supplies it s immense paper needs largely through small local mills which use surplus local agricultural wastes such as straw, support community economies, require no adv anced infrastructure to support them, and, like village bakeries, can safely sh ut up shop temporarily when no one is buying without the proprietors needing to worry about paying off their machinery investments. While little effort has so far been dedicated to effluent treatment, with the result that pollution probl ems are serious, there are no overwhelming technical or economic obstacles to r unning such mills cleanly (Wong 1992).

Paper manufacturing expert A. W. Western (1979), moreover, has argued that in I ndia and other Southern countries, 'detailed comparisons between the large mill and the equivalent capacity in small mills overwhelmingly favour the smaller u nit in economic terms'. According to researcher Maureen Smith (1995), there are no serious obstacles even to current US paper and paperboard consumption being met by a more decentralized network of small- to medium-sized mills using a ra w material base of approximately half waste paper and half non-wood crops inclu ding straw, hemp, or other regionally-appropriate materials.

In addition, a great deal of information is available demonstrating how excessi ve pulpwood use by the North can be avoided. The Rainforest Action Network in S an Francisco, for example, has put out an informative and well-thought out book let entitled Cut Waste, Not Trees: How to Use Less Wood, Cut Pollution and Crea te Jobs (available from RAN at 450 Sansome Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA). Friends of the Earth UK, meanwhile, has produced an outstanding b ook entitled Out of the Woods, which outlines concrete steps for reducing pulpw ood consumption in the UK (available from FoE at 26-28 Underwood Street, London , UK).

None of these paths, however, are likely to be taken by industry, or supported by most governments, without strong social and political pressures for more dem ocratic control of the paper economy being brought to bear _ which is why the l ast-mentioned books have been explicitly designed as part of extended campaigns .

Nor are other, newer paths likely to be found merely by researching 'alternativ es' and experimenting with technical fixes while leaving for others the politic al question of who is to implement them and how. Doing so is likely to lead, by default, to those 'alternatives' being constrained, perverted and deployed by these same institutions in such a way that they are of little use to industrial plantations' most important critics. That would lead, in turn, to a failure to challenge effectively the prevailing unsustainable forestry model. Indeed, onl y when inquiries into 'solutions' are conjoined with concrete efforts to cooper ate with or encourage popular movements challenging the excessive power of the institutions of Chapter 5 does the full range of alternatives which are of most practical use to currently available political forces even become visible.

To be sure, researchers who work closely with industry and shun popular movemen ts will still have incentives to come up with various technical 'solutions' to the 'problems' posed by plantations and paper manufacture. They may explore, fo r example, timber and paper certification, recycling, alternative fibre sources , programmes to plant a greater variety of trees in plantations, schemes to mov e plantations to new locations, biotechnology, compensation programmes, chlorin e reduction, and water-conserving closed-cycle mills (Smith forthcoming; Gallow ay 1994; Dudley, Stolton and Jeanrenaud 1995). And many of these 'solutions' wi ll be accompanied by information and analyses which rural plantation critics an d environmentalists find tactically useful. Yet to advocate them by themselves _ on the ground that only industry-friendly proposals will have an effect on in dustry practice _ is to forget the lesson that another way of influencing the p rogress of the games that industry plays is to refuse to play them.

Seekers of more firmly-rooted, lasting, thoroughgoing, and politically-feasible 'alternatives' to industrial plantations, and the forces which give rise to th em, will thus also involve themselves in movements for broader social change. T hey will not rest content merely with demonstrating, for example, that paper ca n be made from hemp as well as from wood, since without more thoroughgoing chan ges in industrial structure, some of the same social problems familiar from woo d-based papermaking _ expropriation of smallholders, for example _ could also p ersist with hemp. Rather, they will also inquire whether the hemp alternative i s useful as a political tool to rural tree-plantation opponents and investigate , together with those opponents, how a hemp-based paper economy might be conjoi ned with more democratic, decentralized, livelihood-friendly and environmentall y-stable patterns of land use and paper consumption.

Some of the most interesting practical examples of popular movement-aligned res earch into 'alternatives' to large industrial plantations can today be found in Thailand, where villagers and NGOs have joined together to document the sustai nability of systems of stewardship of land and forests based on local power and a respect for local ecological and social diversity. Researchers allied with t he movement of Karen villagers to keep control of their land in North Thailand, for example, are demonstrating the superiority of long-tried systems of commun ally-managed swidden agriculture to industrial plantations in maintaining tree cover and biodiversity in highland watersheds (Jawni 1996). Similarly, cooperat ive 'action research' among villagers and NGOs in the country's Northeast is br inging to public attention the virtues of locally-managed plantings of the nati ve trees on which local villagers have long relied (PRED 1996).

One important conclusion emerging from this research is that, in order to promo te sustainable 'alternatives', certain premises of the industrial system must b e called into question at the outset: for example, that a single tree species m ust be found which is suitable for many localities, or that 'demand' must be me t no matter where it arises or what it is based on. This conclusion is more lik ely to flow out of inquiry closely engaged with the realities of grassroots liv elihood, knowledge, and social action than from the efforts of scientists linke d to the entirely different realities of the corporate world.

Only through close contact with popular movements, too, can investigators and a ctivists interested in 'alternatives' discover which proposals would, if pursue d now, prove counterproductive, and which processes of political alliance might be necessary to the achievement of other solutions. Only through contact with people aware of the actual grassroots-level results of programmes to certify pl antation wood as 'environmentally sound', for example, will NGOs be able to det ermine whether these programmes are not in fact merely shoring up business as u sual, and thus whether it is strategic to participate in them. For those concer ned about the problems of the plantation boom this book has described, therefor e, the first question should not be 'What are the solutions?' but rather 'Who a re we working with to find and press for solutions?'

Hence just as Part One of this book insists on presenting facts about plantatio ns and their problems (Chapters 1, 2 and 4) together with a discussion of the a ctors, interests and strategies which promote them (Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6), so this concluding chapter insists on not divorcing talk about 'solutions' from t he context of the political battles which are necessary to achieve them. Instea d of trying to distill 'policy recom-mendations' or 'position statements' for s tate, international, or private institutions which are assumed to be ready to a ct on them, it puts its emphasis, more realistically, on sketching some of the challenges facing existing political alliances among plantation critics.

Working positions

This is not to deny that this book has 'working positions' on various issues as a result of its analysis of the history of pulpwood plantations in a variety o f countries; it does. These include the following:

* Large monoculture industrial tree plantations are socially and environm entally unsustainable. There is no place whatsoever for them in any social syst em which seeks to nurture soil and people.

* Local people must have the right to veto land uses and manufacturing pr ocesses they do not accept.

* Ways must be found of promoting existing ways of decentralizing pulp an d paper manufacture, making it more receptive to local needs and plans, reducin g its scale and dependency on vast amounts of a single, standardized commodity such as wood, and lowering demand, particularly in the North.

* Large industrial tree plantations cannot be fruitfully discussed in iso lation from the global economic and social realities of which they form a part. The issues they raise are political, not merely technical; the plantations the refore require political action to be stopped.

Such 'working positions' can be useful in many ways. At the very least, they ar e a means of organizing the thoughts of plantation critics in ongoing discussio ns and struggles. They also express conditions which would have to be fulfilled by any international attempt to 'certify' pulpwood timber as environmentally a nd socially sound; and insofar as enforcement of these conditions is likely to be impossible, they tend to call into question the feasibility of certification . These 'working positions' are best viewed, however, not as master plans which dictate in advance every action which is to be taken against plantations, but merely as occupying a small clarifying role in a large practical social dynamic .

Alliances among interest groups

The struggle against large-scale industrial tree plantations is fought in many different social arenas at the same time: in rural areas, newspaper pages, gove rnment offices, informal seminars, test sites, scientific journals, lobbies, co urts, parliamentary corridors and economists' conclaves. In each arena, differe nt things may be at stake and different styles of argument used. Yet it is ofte n important to be able to work in all such arenas. This is for at least two rea sons. First, it is undemocratic to ask all plantation opponents to inhabit the same arena _ to ask rural villagers, for example, to prepare scientific papers proving the chemical effects of eucalyptus or pines on the soil. Nor is it demo cratic to ask plantation opponents to stand by silently while lobbyists or lawy ers pursue their case 'through proper channels'. All critics should have opport unities to express their opposition in arenas of their choice. Second, to restr ict opposition to plantations to only a few social arenas is simply not politic ally effective. Publicity, lobbying, scientific research and grassroots action, undertaken at the right moments as components of a single struggle, will be mo re effective than any one of these pursued alone. Movements which have many are nas in which to act (as in Thailand) tend to be stronger than those which have few (as in Uruguay or Indonesia).

There are, however, no rules of strategy which dictate when it will be effectiv e for plantation critics to take action in one arena rather than another. For e xample, going to court against pulp interests (as has happened in Indonesia), o r promoting new forest legislation safeguarding the rights of local people (as has happened in Thailand), can be useful at certain moments when newspapers are paying attention to a court case, or when the law is in flux _ even when no on e believes that the solutions to plantations' destructiveness will ultimately b e merely legal. At other times or in other circumstances it may be more useful to sit down and debate forestry consultants, publicize local abuses, or present 'alternatives'. This is a matter of political judgment and consensus best exer cised by those closely acquainted with the relevant local and national contexts .

Effectiveness therefore requires alliances between different groups of plantati on opponents with different interests and different skills acquired in struggle s in different arenas. Only through careful discussion is it possible to find o ut what sort of scientific, lobbying, or legal action will mesh most effectivel y with potential or actual struggles in local arenas.

International solidarity

International alliances are both necessary and problematic. While they aim to s trengthen local groups, make possible networks of support and advice, and desan ctify centralization, they also use 'global' tools of communication, such as el ectronic mail and brief international meetings, which seldom foster much cross- cultural understanding. Gaps in understanding may delay effective mutual action until areas of common concern and prior misunderstanding are identified. North ern and Southern groups may differ, for example, even about what a plantation i s, and some Northern groups receptive to criticism of the expropriation and env ironmental destruction associated with plantations in the South may not be as s trongly critical of plantations in the North.

International alliances may be of many kinds. Southern groups may share informa tion and strategic thinking with other Southern groups within a region or acros s the globe. Southern groups may also offer insights and solidarity to Northern movements concerned with the protection of local land and forests, as has happ ened in the Nordic countries, whose growing forest networks have benefited cons iderably from the lessons learned from struggles in the South.

Northern groups, finally, can also play an important supporting role in Souther n groups' attempts to curb the damage done by plantations. They can, for exampl e, monitor the plantation-promoting activities of the bilateral 'aid' agencies, consultancies, commercial development investment agencies and transnational co rporations based in their countries. Northerners can legitimately both question the use of their tax money to subsidize destructive commercial plantations abr oad, and to challenge the practices of companies which use their countries for their home offices. Thus Finnish NGOs such as the Finnish Forest Action Network , in close association with Southern NGOs, held pathbreaking public forums in t he early 1990s in Helsinki at which NGOs from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippi nes, Nepal and other countries criticized Jaakko P"yry and its official helper FINNIDA for interfering in their countries to promote plantations, and called o n the Finnish public to curb the abuses of its government agencies and corporat ions.

Northern groups can also call Northern investors' attention to the destructiven ess and the risks connected with Southern private-sector projects floating stoc k or bond offerings in the North. Thus British activists raised questions about Barito Pacific's operations during its attempts to raise finance in London for its gigantic TEL mill in Sumatra (see Chapter 11). The threat of a boycott of Scott Paper products in Europe and North America, similarly, forced the company to withdraw in 1989 from a scheme for a plantation in West Papua which would h ave displaced thousands.

There is also a great deal of potential for international links between, on the one hand, community and labour groups in the North organizing around issues of contamination with toxics (particularly dioxins) and paper company union-busti ng, and, on the other, Southern groups concerned about pulp mill and plantation expansion. Both the Citizens' Clearinghouse on Toxic Wastes (CCTW) in the US a nd the Women's Environmental Network in the UK have launched campaigns on dioxi ns whose research and activities could benefit, and benefit from, related movem ents in the South.

Of particular potential, perhaps, are links between Southern and Northern regio ns which are threatened in similar ways by the pulp and paper industry's recent expansion outside traditional resource areas. As the industry exhausts the res ources of regions such as North America's Pacific Northwest, after all, it is n ot only establishing Southern plantations, but also logging places like West Vi rginia and Eastern Siberia, and a united front among environmental and social a ctivists in all such regions could help check the advance of the industry in ea ch local area.

Sharing of general information can also be useful, whether it is analysis of th e possible consequences of technological or market shifts, or news on alternati ve land and community forest management systems, or findings about the specific biological dangers associated with pine plantations (Rosoman 1994), or ideas f or keeping the plantation industry away by increasing the cost of capital and t hus the cost of the pulp mills the industry wants to build (Graham 1994). Media for exchange range from news clippings to videos to electronic conferences man aged by the Association for Progressive Communications. These last include the conferences for.paper (in English) for.plantation (in Spanish) and dioxins.info (in English). While such information cannot always be adapted for use in local circumstances, sharing it can often stimulate strategic thinking.

In sum, the powerful alliance of interests described in Chapter 5 requires an e ven stronger opposing alliance which recognizes that people are not helpless pa wns in the hands of large corporations, states and international agencies. Well -informed and well-organized citizens at local, national and international leve ls can find common ground together and put a halt to the global advance of the currently-dominant model of tree plantations and paper manufacture. Indeed, the y are already starting to do so. The aim of this book _ whose authors have reli ed throughout on the views and comments of many people concerned with plantatio ns and their links to the paper industry _ has merely been to lend a modest han d to this alliance by sharing some of this information and analysis. We hope th at it may prove a useful tool.