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

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Chapter 4

Impacts on People and their Environment

Nearly every human activity has some impact on society and its environment, positive, negative or both. Agricultural crops are no exception. While such crops are neither negative nor positive in themselves, their cultivation can be defined as basically positive if it turns out to be sustainable in the long term, if the process it begins is reversible, and if it benefits local people. On the other hand, it can be defined as fundamentally negative if it is not sustainable in the long term, if it sets in motion processes which are not reversible, or if it results in losses for local communities.

In recent years, eucalyptus, because it is planted so extensively, has become a symbol of large-scale tree crops in the South. However, it would be wrong for analyses of the impacts of such plantations to centre on the botanical or ecological characteristics of eucalyptus. The problem lies not in any particular species and its unique biological features, but in how it is used. The issue would not be substantially different if any other tree _ native or exotic _ were planted on a large scale to supply industry. As shown in Chapters 8 (Chile) and 10 (South Africa), problems generated by industrial pine plantations are very similar to those created by eucalyptus.

Unfair to tree plantations?

Many foresters and plantation owners claim that environmentalists have unfairly highlighted the defects of tree plantations while paying less attention to other crops that _ according to them _ do just as much to degrade the environment. Brazilian forester Walter de Paula Lima (1993) states, for example, that 'it is interesting to observe the duplicity normally encountered when comparisons are made between agricultural crops and forest trees'. The Uruguayan pulp firm Fabrica Nacional de Papel (1992) puts forward the same criticism, saying that 'it is worthwhile showing the moral double standards which seems to have been established to judge agricultural crops'. Assuming that this accusation is made in good faith, it requires several responses:

• It is false that environmentalists have been especially harsh in their treatment of tree crops. On the contrary, the environmental movement has traditionally concentrated on deforestation, indiscriminate use of toxic chemicals in agriculture, the disappearance of biodiversity, the impacts of large dams and nuclear power stations, and other themes, only recently turning to tree plantations. Indeed, many Northern environmentalists, far from being too harsh, still automatically assume that all tree plantations must be good.
  
• Where environmentalists have taken an interest in the problems of large-scale tree crops, this has been motivated largely by the complaints of local affected peoples. Where investigations have been carried out, they have tended to confirm the existence of deleterious effects, a fact which is increasingly accepted by governments and businesses alike.
  
• The Green Revolution _ of which the type of forestry development we discuss in this book is one part _ has been studied and denounced by many environmentalists on both ecological and social grounds. Criticism of tree crops in many ways merely follows on from criticism of the Green Revolution _ which, of course, is mainly directed at non-tree crops. Over the years, environmentalists have thus paid at least as much attention to the problems of non-tree monocrops as they have to tree plantations.
  
• Large-scale industrial monocultures, by virtue of their extent alone, can generate large-scale problems, both environmental and social. Given the current worldwide promotion of such plantations, disseminating information about their potential impact should be an important priority.

The two libraries

Scientific research on tree plantations falls into two libraries. On the one hand, a variety of scientific work has been conducted to prove that monocultures of eucalyptus, pine and other species do not have large negative effects, some even maintaining that they have positive consequences for society and its environment. A great deal of equally important scientific work, on the other hand, has concluded that such plantations do substantial damage, both social and environmental.

Why this divergence of views? Is it that one or the other group of scientists is doing bad science? If so, in what sense? Or is it that they are all incapable? Or is it rather that we should not expect silviculture to be able to provide all the answers to questions about the biological or social effects of plantations? Several reasons may perhaps be given for the existence of the two libraries.

First, modern science is not an objective, monolithic construction located outside society. Any scientific work is coloured by the experience of the author and linked to her or his scale of values and vision of the world. In some cases, scientific research may even be reasonably suspected to have been directly affected by the material interests of the author. Walter de Paula Lima (1993), following extensive research on the environmental impacts of eucalyptus, concluded that eucalyptus has no important negative effects on water, soils, flora or fauna. Although Lima's book is accompanied by the obligatory disclaimer that it does not take any 'stance of defence or attack, as fits true scientists, making an impartial and sensible analysis of the issue', it was in fact made possible only through the collaboration of Brazil's National Association of Pulp and Paper Producers, 'with valuable financial support' from almost 40 companies, including major powers in pulp and paper such as Aracruz, Bahia Sul, CENIBRA, Champion, Monte Dourado, Votorantim, Riocell, Norcell, Ripasa and Klabin. Khon Kaen University scientists in Northeast Thailand, similarly, found clear evidence that, even under artificially favourable conditions, the use of pulp mill wastewater for irrigation would damage plant growth severely and necessitate large investments in techniques to fertilize and remove salt from the irrigated soil. Yet the scientists concluded, contradicting the data they had themselves collected, that the use of such wastewater for irrigation was 'feasible'. The research was supported by the Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company, Ltd. _ a firm eager to find new ways of disposing of its water-borne effluents (Jirasak et al. 1993).

A second reason for the existence of the two libraries is that silviculture (which traditionally focused on wood production for the market) cannot by itself offer a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of plantations. The problem rests not with the discipline of silviculture specifically. Rather, it lies in the reductionism of modern science in general, which divides reality into so many isolated parts that the larger picture remains obscure, yet insists on identifying some of these parts with the whole (Shiva 1993). Any research on the impacts of plantations needs the participation of many agents, social and scientific, to arrive at serious conclusions. Some knowledge forms part of the cultural heritage of local peoples. Other knowledge can be arrived at by external agents (environmentalists, natural and social scientists, forestry experts, and so on). Uncoerced interaction between both groups of agents is more likely to result in realistic, fruitful conclusions than 'scientific' studies conducted in isolation from the community.

Third, because pressures to establish plantations operate worldwide, monoculture tree crops are grown today in a wide variety of environments influenced by differing social, political, economic and environmental factors, and under different management regimes. The results of studies of plantations' effects on biodiversity or soils in a single location thus cannot automatically be generalised. The same is true of social impacts.

Finally, scientists studying plantations often do handle data in a remarkably unscientific fashion. Totally dissimilar circumstances, for instance, are often compared as if they were similar. It would seem to be a mark not only of scientific caution but also of common sense to assume that a native eucalyptus forest in Australia cannot be compared with a plantation of the same species outside its native habitat, that patches of trees planted in agroforestry systems are not the same as large scale monocultures; and that an intensively-managed industrial plantation of fast-growing species will not have the same characteristics as an unmanaged and unexploited plantation. Nonetheless, all these comparisons are regularly made, and the conclusions presented as scientific evidence, with the result _ whether intended or unintended _ that the public becomes confused.

This chapter aims to avoid this error. It will rely not on studies of plantations on degraded soil, or studies of small plantations, or studies of agroforestry systems, or studies of narrowly-focused laboratory interactions. Instead, it will be based on real-world observations of large-scale tree monocultures planted to supply industry. There is already sufficient evidence concerning this type of monoculture in many different locations to draw some firm general conclusions, and it is these that constitute the core of this chapter. At the same time, however, the chapter will not pretend to deal with all of the impacts of plantations, nor claim to decide in advance which are the most important, since the effects of plantations which are most important to local communities vary from one place to another. The chapter aims, rather, at offering some observations which may help clarify the issues.

Impacts on water

Tree crops have been publicised as performing functions similar to those of a forest in the maintenance of the water cycle. Some plantation proponents have even gone as far as to state that the tree plantations in prairie ecosystems help to regulate the water cycle (JICA 1987). Such affirmations are groundless.

Changes in the water cycle

The water cycle can be described as follows: part of the rainfall is intercepted by the vegetation and evaporates, while the rest falls to the ground and either runs off superficially or filters into the subsoil. Part of the water absorbed is used by plants and returned to the atmosphere; another reaches the underground water table and circulates internally toward water courses or springs and the rest evaporates (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1987).

In ecosystems which have not been radically modified recently, the naturally-occurring vegetation possesses characteristics which ensure long-term balance in the water cycle. The morphology and physiology of the component species of the local ecosystems tend to be adapted to make most efficient use of available rainfall. Large-scale tree plantations, however, modify all of the following:

• The ratio between the amount of water intercepted by the foliage and the amount of water reaching the ground. The foliage of a plantation differs from that of a natural forest, a savanna or a prairie, in biomass, height, form of cover, and shape and distribution of leaves and branches. Plantations also generally lack undergrowth. These characteristics change the quantity of water intercepted and evaporated. Thus, the soil will tend to receive either more or less water than that received under the original vegetation. 
  
• The ratio between the amount of water which runs off the surface and the amount of water which infiltrates the soil. This is affected by factors such as the type of humus generated by the plantation and the quantity of accumulated leaf litter, which facilitate or complicate the absorption and infiltration of water which reaches the surface. The volume of water which crosses the canopy also affects this ratio. Soil compaction after the use of heavy machinery, in addition, impedes infiltration, encouraging evaporation.
  
• The ratio between the amount of water evapotranspired and the amount of water which infiltrates through to the subsoil water supply. This ratio depends largely on how much water is used by the species planted. There is a direct relation between trees' rate of growth and their water consumption. In plantations that use the fastest-growing genotypes of fast-growing species, water consumption tends to be extremely high.

To begin with, then, we can be almost certain that a plantation will introduce changes in the water cycle. The type and degree of changes will not only depend on the species planted and its management, but will also be affected by the local climate (volume of rainfall, seasonal changes, droughts, temperature, winds), topography and soil type.

Hydrological deficits caused by plantations can result in a number of impacts such as:

• Reduced availability of water for other livelihood and industrial activities. In Espirito Santo, Brazil, for example, over 150 lakes and numerous rivers are alleged to have dried up as a result of eucalyptus plantations, depriving local people of fish and reducing farm yields (IAD 6/7.1992). In the Tarawera River in New Zealand, lower flows resulting from big pine plantations 'are creating problems for downstream users, including ironically, the Tasman pulp and paper mill where toxic discharges have less water available for dilution' (Rosoman 1994).
  
• Problems of water supply for hydroelectric generation systems, such as that being faced by Electricorp in the MacKenzie basin of New Zealand (Rosoman 1994).
  
• Discontinuity in the flow of watercourses in low periods. In South Africa, for instance, during the growing season, flow frequently ceases in areas where plantations have replaced natural, non-forest vegetation such as shrub or bush (Wicht 1967, cited by Sawyer 1993).
  
• Increased impacts of droughts. In the climatically drought-prone zone of the coast of the Maule and Talca in Chile, for example, excessive water consumption by rapid-growth tree plantations has been noted to deplete the groundwater reserves (CODEFF 1994). Caroline Sargent (1992) states that 'where there are downstream water shortage problems, the excess water transpiration of fast growing plantations . . . is likely to be deleterious, reducing net flow and contributing to drought potential'.
  
• Less water for local communities and urban centres. In Chile, houses and agricultural plots have had to be abandoned for lack of water and the town of Angol began facing serious water supply problems eight years after plantations were established in the area (Cruz and Rivera 1983). As a general rule, where trees replace non-forested land uses, 'the overwhelming evidence from catchment research is that following reforestation, groundwater levels are lowered and stream yields are reduced, both effects being more pronounced during the dry season or growing season' (Hamilton and King 1983).
  
• The modification or destruction of other natural ecosystems, such as wetlands. In Natal, South Africa, Porter (1990) points to industrial plantations as one of the principal threats to the St Lucia Wetland Park, and in northeast Thailand plantations have damaged fish spawning grounds in seasonally-flooded riverine environments.

Rejecting empirical observations

Faced with a lack of agreement between their theoretical models of plantation water use and some of their empirical observations, some foresters have chosen to disregard the empirical observations. In Chile, for example, plantations of Pinus radiata have in some cases caused springs and other natural sources of water to dry up, while at the same time rendering the flows in rivers irregular, with valleys being inundated during the rainy season. In the area of Concepci"n, the flooding of the river Andal!en has forced people to abandon most of their farms. In the same area, the river Mininco now floods roads and homes of local people (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Faced with such observations, one soil professor and forestry expert stated that 'the pine was brought in as a high yield product and it needs sufficient water to produce wood. Nonetheless, I would doubt that a pine forest consumes a quantity of water much higher than a natural forest does'. He then contradicted himself by affirming that 'in terms of consumption, as the pine is a rapid growth species and has a greater biomass, it would be expected to have water consumption several times higher than the native forest' (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Less confused were the simply-expressed observations of a Chilean farmer from Rere. Having inherited an area of eight hectares, nearly totally planted with pines, the farmer found that he could get no water even for household use. As the plantation matured it was sold, with all the pines being cut and only a small copse of oak in a ravine being conserved. To his surprise and that of his neighbours, a dried-up stream then reappeared (Cruz and Rivera 1983). Precisely parallel observations of the recovery of streams, wells, and nong _ standing bodies of shallow water crucial for water buffalo and other livestock _ have been made by northeastern Thai farmers following the harvest of eucalyptus plantations (PRED 1996).

A useful function for science, in such cases, would be not to deny that the disappearance of sources of water was a result of the plantation but rather to look for the mechanisms involved. For example, had the Chilean pines or the Thai eucalyptus used an excessive amount of water? Had water failed to trickle through to the subsoil in Chile because of the covering of needles? Was there excessive evaporation from the foliage or soil in either country?

A similar instance of scientific denial occurred in Uttar Pradesh, India, where Mahashweta Devi, an elderly forest guard, told of his experience: 'We felled mixed natural forests of this area and planted eucalyptus . . . Our handpumps have gone dry as the water table has gone down. We have committed a sin' (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1987). Instead of supporting investigations into such occurrences, Tewari, the President of the Indian Forest Research Institute simply denied them, writing in a contribution to a special issue of Indian Forester:

Of late in India a lot of controversy has arisen over the water consumption behaviour of Eucalyptus planted in forestry programmes in social forestry. It has been alleged that Eucalyptus plantation consumes large quantities of water to the extent that they deplete local water resources such as streams, wells, etc. This notion does not appear to be correct as no experimental data in support has so far been presented . . . There is no scientific basis in the popular fallacy that Eucalyptus lowers the ground water table (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1987).

In Spain, similarly, 'experts' have sometimes ignored the testimony of farmers such as Constancio Romero, from Aroche, who noted that on this farm there were irrigated crops and livestock, but once the Eucalyptus was planted in part of the hills, the waters reduced and we couldn't keep working here . . . With the Eucalyptus everything was left devastated: no grass, no animals, no nothing. There is a lot of land in the lower part of Tariquejo which was left without water. . . . It is very sad that people with animals find themselves without water because of the Eucalyptus (PSOE 1979).

In Thailand, meanwhile, many plantations are situated on water tables and ground water sources of local villages, especially in the dry Northeast. The eucalyptus tree absorbs and reduces the ground water so much that the villagers cannot irrigate the rice fields. This environmental damage is greatly resented by many farmers, and is one of their main reasons for complaining against the eucalyptus reforestation policy (Van Ginneken 1993).

Yet instead of taking this opposition seriously, technicians have sometimes promoted eucalyptus trees in the Northeast 'precisely because of their high water uptake. By lowering the water table, they [are held to] reduce the risk of salinity in paddy fields' (Van Ginneken 1993).

Accepting reality

Forestry experts, of course, are not always in the position of having to discount empirical observations. In New Zealand, the electricity company Electricorp faced up to the possibility that plantations of Pinus radiata had reduced the flow of water into reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams, thus threatening power generation. Research showed that a possible reduction of 25-30 per cent in water levels would result if pine plantations were substituted for local grasslands. These were not mere speculations. In the MacKenzie basin, where tree crops had been planted (pine trees now covering 31 per cent of the catchment), flow reduction of the Tarawera river has been calculated at 27 per cent for the period 1964-1992, and in Moutere Catchment, Nelson, 55 percent of surface runoff and 70 percent of the water feeding the underground water table had disappeared (Rosoman 1994).

South Africa is perhaps the country where research into the effects of industrial plantations on water regimes has been carried out over the longest time. Technicians there agree wholeheartedly with farmers that large plantations are voracious water consumers. As one South African forester affirms, 'commercial timber plantings use larger quantities of water than shorter vegetation types such as scrub, herbs and grass', concluding that 'afforestation tended to deplete substantially both the total annual water yield and the base flow in the dry season' (Le Roux 1990). As a result, in 1972, the Forest and Water Department established a limit for the area that could be covered by tree plantations in each water catchment area or subdivision thereof. Plantations were permitted to reduce the surface water runoff by no more than ten percent. Even so, there is still concern that 'the indiscriminate planting of trees may seriously affect the viability of the springs and wetlands in many catchments' (Le Roux 1990).

Finally, even the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which has been _ and still is _ one of the main promoters of monoculture tree crops, is beginning to accept that the 'plantation of extensive areas of eucalyptus in any deforested water catchment area substantially reduces the water production of this source, and the felling of the trees will increase it':

The effect of the eucalyptus on the reduction and production of water is probably less than that of pine and more than that of other hardwoods; but all tree species reduce the production of water to a greater proportion than scrub or grass. Consequently, when the water production of a water catchment area or the state of the water table in the low-lying adjacent territories is affected, the situation must be considered very seriously before large scale planting or felling projects are carried out (Poore and Fries 1985).

Conclusions

Monoculture tree crops have had negative effects on the water cycle in widely differing areas. Although this conclusion does not imply that such negative effects will occur in and around all plantations, it is sufficient to justify obligatory environmental impact assessments wherever such plantations are planned. The problem, it can also be concluded, is not with any particular tree species, but with high-yield industrial production, which tends to consume quantities of water in direct proportion to rapid growth. Added to this is the issue of the large scale of industrial plantations, which makes the problem more severe at the basin level, with serious repercussions on the economy, society and the environment.

Impacts on biodiversity

According to the international Biodiversity Convention signed at the Rio de Janeiro 1992 Earth Summit, biodiversity includes 'diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems'. All of these types of biodiversity are threatened by industrial plantations _ which are often supported by the same governments which signed the convention.

Human activities affect biological diversity in many ways, whether by substituting one ecosystem for another, exterminating or decreasing the numbers of certain species, consciously or unconsciously encouraging the explosive development of others, or helping certain characteristics predominate within one species. One of the main ways in which human activities reduce biodiversity is through the deliberate replacement of diverse ecosystems by homogenous ones through agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing and forestry.

Tree monocultures and biodiversity

Any industrial plantation affects not only ecosystems, but also local species and genetic variety. These plantations are constituted by a dominant species (normally exotic), which grows in extensive homogenous blocks under intensive management. This management involves soil preparation, fertilisation, herbicide use, clearing of undergrowth, elimination of diseased trees, thinning, persecution of animals which can damage the trees, and periodic logging. All these factors cause profound changes in the flora and fauna of local ecosystems, which can affect the region as a whole.

Industrial plantations may replace crops, prairies, forests or any other ecosystem. Given their scale, they generally include both areas in which there has been a great deal of production-related human interference and areas in which there has been relatively little.

In many cases the biggest impact of plantations on biodiversity is made before a single tree is planted. In many countries, native forests are destroyed _ legally or illegally _ partly in order that they may be replaced with plantations (see chapters 7, 8, 11 and 12). Postel and Heise (1988, cited by Sawyer 1993) have calculated that at least 15 per cent of all plantations in tropical countries were established at the cost of natural closed forests. Native hardwoods themselves have been used, or are slated to be used, as pulp raw material in Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Chile and other countries (Dudley, Stolton and Jeanrenaud 1995).

The reduction in biodiversity in such cases is enormous. In 1993, for instance, Veracruz Florestal was accused of cutting down Brazilian Mata Atlantica forests to give way to eucalyptus plantations. The Mata Atlantica holds a record in biodiversity; a recent survey found 450 species of trees in only one hectare of forest (Faillace and Miranda 1993). In densely-settled areas, meanwhile, especially in the tropics, big plantations frequently displace large numbers of farmers. Such migrants are often forced to clear areas of natural forest elsewhere to establish new farms (see the case studies of Part Two, especially Chapter 12). In this case, plantations have a powerful indirect impact on biodiversity.

The changes plantations bring about in soil and water cycles also affect plants and animals. Such changes occur preponderantly within plantation boundaries. However, changes in water supply can have far broader impacts as well. The high water consumption of plantation trees can severely modify adjoining wetlands, or even cause them to dry up, along with local watercourses. This results in the disappearance of, or reductions in, plants and animals dependent on these habitats. Even when these extremes are not reached, changes in hydrological systems brought about by plantations can affect any species dependent on local watercourses.

Impacts on plants

Industrial plantations begin with preparation of the soil. Most local plant species are removed. Pioneer species which return are destroyed either by mechanical clearing or by herbicides. Once the plantation trees attain a certain age, they impede the development of most other plant species as a result of increased shade, accumulation of leaf litter and dead branches on the ground, competition for water and nutrients, the cumulative effects of certain changes in the soil, and the allelopathic effects of some species which produce chemical substances that negatively affect the growth of other species (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1987, Rosoman 1994, Barnett and Juniper 1992).

The few species which do manage to survive in the plantation or in fire-breaks are periodically eliminated to reduce the risk of fire. The ecological characteristics of the plantation species themselves, together with the intensive management and felling carried out when the trees reach the appropriate size for processing, bring it about that various flora which might otherwise be associated with such trees (epiphytes, parasites, climbing plants, and so on) cannot develop. As will be suggested below, the impact of this reduction of plant biodiversity on local livelihood can be severe. In a single community in Yasothorn province in northeast Thailand, for example, eucalyptus' destruction of local grass cover deprived local cattle and water buffalo of grazing, forcing a dozen families to abandon their homes (PRED 1996).

Photographs are sometimes shown of plantations with extensive undergrowth (an example is in Lima 1993). Such cases, however, are typically not industrial monocultures, but abandoned or unmanaged plantations in which local pioneers have begun to move in, occupying, in particular, spaces which open up between trees in old plantations.

It is sometimes claimed, too, that in some cases plantations increase local plant growth, as for example when they replace non-forest communities. Two FAO consultants, for example, claim that plantations 'create a forest environment which normally produces a beneficial result'. They admit, however, that it is 'improbable' that plantations 'encourage the species characteristic of the previous unpopulated terrain' (Poore and Fries 1985), and another FAO study concedes that 'when indigenous plant communities (forest, woodland or grassland) are converted to monospecific or polyspecific plantations of native or exotic species, with the main purpose of wood production, generally there will be a reduction in both habitat and species diversity at that site' (FAO 1992).

Some of the governments and companies involved in large-scale industrial tree plantations have been forced, as a response to public pressures, to adopt the opposition's discourse and to embellish the monotonous plantation landscape with some patches of native forest or plantings of native trees. These changes, however, are necessarily merely cosmetic, since the main purpose of the plantations _ to provide huge amounts of uniform industrial raw material _ remains unaltered. As Philip Fearnside of Brazil's National Institute for Research in the Amazon remarks, modifications which bring in a 'mix of a few species, including some that are not exotic, do not substantially change the impact of very large-scale plantations from the standpoint of biodiversity' (Fearnside 1993). Such changes, however, do sometimes serve the purpose of confusing the public and dividing the opposition. The Brazilian case (see Chapter 7) is particularly revealing in this respect.

Plantations have an ecological impact on flora outside plantation boundaries as well:

• Some species commonly used in plantations, when put into suitable environments, reproduce beyond the plantation and become pests to the local vegetation. Such biological pollution occurs in some cases on a massive scale, as with Pinus patula and Acacia melanoxylon in South Africa (Bainbridge 1990, Rosoman 1994) and Pinus pinaster in Uruguay (Carrere 1994).
  
• Some diseases or pests that did not exist in the plantation region may begin to affect native vegetation. In India, a fungus which developed on an exotic pine (Pinus radiata) is now threatening the survival of the native pines P. roxburghii and P. wallichiana. In Kenya and Malawi, an aphid which began by attacking the exotic cypress Cupressus lusitanica moved on to Malawi's national tree (Widdringtonia nodifolia) and another local tree (Juniperus procera) (Barnett and Juniper 1992).
  
• Fires originating in or linked to plantations can seriously affect flora over immense areas. As Cavieres and Lara (1983) note, the presence of the copihue, Chile's national flower, has in one study area of that country 'seriously diminished as a result of the fires, with only a few scarce weedy examples now existing'. In northern Thailand, too, fire used to simplify the structure of plantations has entered neighbouring areas of forest and threatened non-tree plant growth used by local villagers for various purposes.
  
• Fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides carried by wind or water may have impacts far beyond the plantation area. These chemicals contaminate soil, waterways and the atmosphere, and affect people, plants and wildlife (Rosoman 1994). In Brazil, the inhabitants of the fishing community of Caravelas went to the courts to demand an investigation into a recent reduction in crabs and other species which they linked to the use of agrochemicals by Bahia Sul's plantations (CEPEDES/CDDH 1992).

Impacts on animals

For most local animals, a plantation is a desert, lacking food, shelter and opportunities for reproduction. The species commonly used in plantations are exotic, and their principal advantage stems from the near absence of 'pests and diseases' in the new environment at the time they are planted. Yet however positive this may be for the forest investor, it is not so for the local fauna whose habitat is replaced.

For some species, plantations provide shelter from predators, but this can lead to a drastic reduction in the predator population and uncontrolled increases in the prey population. In many regions of Chile, for example, plantations have caused a drastic reduction in fox numbers and a related increase in numbers of rodents and rabbits, which in turn affect the pines in the plantations (Schlatter and Mur#a 1992).

Imbalances generated by plantations affect a very wide group of species, the majority of which are unobserved by non-residents and non-specialists. The enormous variety of life forms existing within the soil (including bacteria, viruses, fungi, small insects, and worms) can suffer large impacts from the combination of changes in leaf litter and other decomposing vegetable matter and changes in the chemical composition and structure of the soil. The use of agrochemicals also importantly alters soil flora and fauna (Rosoman 1994).

Industrial plantations are characterised by intensive management, based fundamentally on calculations of economic yields. Trees never reach full maturity, but are felled when they attain optimum sales dimensions or their growth slows. Plantations thus harbour few of the mature, diseased or dead trees which serve as microhabitats for fungi and insects, which in turn serve as food for other animals. Epiphytes and climbing plants which support other fauna also tend to disappear (Barnett and Juniper 1992).

A small group of species manages to adapt to newly-created plantation environments. Even some of these species, however, are exterminated because they impede plantation development. In Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, for example, leaf-cutting ants _ one of the few insects which can feed on pine and eucalyptus plantations _ have to be poisoned. The contamination which results, of course, can affect other animals which are inoffensive to the plantation trees. The few species which manage to adapt themselves to plantation ecosystems, moreover, suffer the destruction of their new habitat every few years when harvest time comes round. In the case of eucalyptus this happens every six to ten years, and with pine, every 12 to 20.

The impact of a plantation on animals, like that on plants, goes beyond its boundary, as species benefiting from the plantation increase in number and those harmed by it decrease. Fires beginning in plantations spread into surrounding ecosystems, while agrochemicals 'affect aquatic flora and fauna within and outside plantations when waterways become polluted with . . . minerals or chemicals' (Sawyer 1993) (see examples in Chapters 7, 8 and 10).

How imbalances affect plantations themselves

The homogeneity of extensive tree plantations constitutes a serious problem for the plantations themselves. The great initial advantage of exotic trees _the absence of local fauna accustomed to using them as food _ can become an Achilles heel in the long term, when predators adapted to this species do begin to appear. At that point the food desert becomes a feast for one species, which can expand exponentially and seriously damage or annihilate whole plantations. Such was the case in Uruguay with Pinus radiata, which had to be abandoned due to serious attacks by the pine shoot moth Ryacionia buoliana. A similar fate befell Gmelina arborea in Brazil, and monoculture tree plantations established by the Paper Industry Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) have been plagued by pests for the same reason.

Agrochemicals developed for agriculture, moreover, are often awkward to use on plantations, particularly once the trees have canopied, and can contaminate wide regions. It is extremely difficult to apply chemicals effectively to dense stands of trees, and if airplane spraying is used, the amount of pesticide needed to guarantee coverage is enormous. These chemicals, sprayed from well above the level of the trees themselves, are necessarily partly carried away by the wind to contaminate large areas outside the plantation itself. In New Zealand, more than 30 brands of herbicide, pesticide and fungicide are used on tree plantations . . . , including highly toxic and persistent organochlorines. Large areas are sprayed with different chemicals. For example, around 10 per cent of plantations are sprayed on average 3.5 times for Dithistroma control. This amounts to about 90,000 hectares sprayed every year over the past 14 (Rosoman 1994).

Even though other methods of control are being developed in silviculture _ for example, density control (controlling the number of trees per hectare to make the plantation less hospitable to certain pests or diseases) or biological control (introducing a predator of the pest population) _ it is certain that the more monoculture pulpwood plantations spread, the greater the risks will be (Davidson 1987, cited by Sawyer 1993) finds that numerous pests now affect eucalyptus plantations in Brazil, whereas almost none were reported early this century. Second and third rotation pine plantations in South Africa are also suffering new infestations (Evans 1986 and Ball 1992, cited by Sawyer 1993).

Conclusions

By definition, forestry development based on monocultures affects biodiversity. The internal logic of the monoculture plantation concept _ carried to extremes by the Green Revolution in agricultural crops, which influenced later developments in forestry, fishery and dairy farming _ implies the substitution of the diversity present in nature with the homogeneity of the industrial process. In forestry, today's large-scale plantations are the paradigmatic expression of this concept. There, genes, seeds and plants alike are controlled for industrial gain; the recycling of nutrients is replaced by the adding of fertilizers; competition is removed by the use of herbicides; and growth is controlled by spacing, thinning out, and so on. The contemporary plantation has been defined as the 'roofless factory': at one end raw materials (genes) are introduced, other elements and energy are applied along the way, and out the other end out comes a homogenous product fulfilling predefined conditions.

The extent to which this process undermines biodiversity depends on plantation species, plantation scale, and management methods _ but that it has a negative impact on biodiversity can hardly be questioned. On a global scale, biodiversity cannot be conserved by attempting to fence off a few untouched areas in the middle of an increasing sea of homogeneity. As Vandana Shiva puts it, 'not until diversity is made the logic of production can diversity be conserved' (Shiva 1993).

Impacts on the soil

Many existing studies of the impacts of industrial tree plantations on soils confuse the issue by citing irrelevant research. For example, a recent FAO publication notes that the effects of uncropped eucalypts on soil quality have been compared with [those of] other species and . . . treeless areas. The studies were mostly in India and the Mediterranean and are fairly recent. Eucalypts were found to have a beneficial effect on soil structure and compared favourably with pine and Shorea robusta (sal, a local tree). On treeless sites eucalypts improved soil fertility through decayed leaves and litter (FAO 1990).

This quotation is used to suggest that, in general, eucalypts improve soil quality. Yet the example refers to unharvested plantations, while large monospecific plantations of any species are normally planted to be harvested and not to improve the soils. Moreover, in the real world in which investors are bent on obtaining high yields, large-scale plantations tend not to be established on degraded soils of the kind the FAO appears to describe, where trees grow poorly. When discussing the effect of real-world commercial plantations, it is more relevant to examine a later passage in the same work, which says that, in managed and harvested plantations, the 'nutrient capital changes considerably because nutrients are removed from the site'.

Once such confusions are cleared up and the discussion is concentrated on industrial monocultures, plantation proponents are forced into a final argument, which relies on a comparison between industrial tree crops and the agricultural crops of the Green Revolution model. Industrial plantations, the argument goes, should not be the subject of special environmentalist concern since they are much less degrading to the soil than such crops. For example, the FAO cites a study showing that 'the amount of nitrogen taken in by the cereal crop is two and a half times more that the amount taken by the eucalypt plantation, and 15 times more in the case of phosphorus' (FAO 1990). Green Revolution-style silviculture, in other words, can defend itself only by saying that it is not quite as bad as the movement from which it draws much of its inspiration. This defense, in addition to being ineffective against critics of the Green Revolution in agriculture, implicitly abandons the premise that one of the main points of tree cultivation is to foster non-agricultural, forest-like environments.

The nutrient cycle

Trees obtain nutrients needed for growth from the soil. As Rosoman (1994) explains, in natural ecosystems many of the same nutrients are used again and again in a relatively closed cycle. Tree roots draw out minerals dissolved in water from the soil and carry them to the leaves, where they are transformed into organic material and used for the tree's vital functions. Leaves, branches, flowers and so on then fall to the ground, where various organisms decompose them and liberate the minerals that can then be taken up again by the roots. The tree itself then dies and decomposes in the forest, adding more nutrients to the cycle.

Even cycles which are relatively closed in this respect, however, have some inputs and outputs of nutrients. Inputs come mainly from the atmosphere (as salts or other materials deposited on the leaves and which reach the soil with rainwater), from the decomposition of the rocks from which the soil originates, from watercourses (particularly where floods occur), and from the droppings and decomposing bodies of animals. Outputs leave the system through wind and water erosion, through the percolation of dissolved nutrients to the underground water table or to layers of the soil inaccessible to plants, and through animals which extract organic matter from the system and deposit it outside the area.

Nitrogen, in addition, can enter the system through the action of certain bacteria present in the roots of some plants or through rainfall. It can leave the system, meanwhile, through oxidation of organic material or through processes which liberate it in a gaseous state.

Trees need some nutrients in relatively high quantities, while they use only a little of others. The former are called macronutrients and consist principally of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The latter are known as micronutrients (boron, copper, zinc and others) which, though not required in great quantities, are just as indispensable for tree growth.

Plantations and the soil

In ecosystems little affected by human (especially industrial) interference, nutrient cycles tend to be in relative balance between incomings and outgoings. Not so for intensive monoculture tree plantations. Moreover, plantations with fast-growing species and rapid-rotation felling bring about much more important modifications in the soil than do unmanaged or unexploited plantations.

The direct impacts of such plantations on soils derive from the presence of the trees themselves, and include changes in the recycling of nutrients and in chemical and physical soil composition.

In the majority of commercial plantations, an imbalance arises between the nutrients taken up by the roots and those given back to the system by dead organic matter. Because trees such as eucalyptus and pine tend to reduce the action of decomposing agents such as fungi and bacteria, nutrients contained in the leaf litter are not freed up in a form which would allow them to be taken up easily by roots. Chemical changes such the acidification of the soil and the introduction of new chemical compounds make life more difficult for many decomposers, and changes in humidity, temperature, and light have an additional impact. The leaf litter of such pulpwood trees themselves contain tannin, lignin, oils, waxes, and other substances which are difficult to digest or even toxic for soil flora and fauna. Many decomposers not able to adapt simply disappear. As a result, the leaf litter decomposes very slowly and accumulates on the soil. A study in Nigeria showed, for example, that while leaves from native forests decomposed in two to seven months, leaves from introduced plantation pines took three to six years to do the same (Barnett and Juniper 1992). In non-commercial plantations, this problem is less serious, as a balance is eventually reached. Nutrients are not exported, litter eventually decomposes and the plantation as a whole stops growing. In some cases, indeed, non-commercial plantations can help enrich soils by reintroducing nutrients which had previously been located in deeper layers of the soil where the roots of native trees, shrubs or grass did not reach. In commercial plantations, however, the soil becomes poorer in direct relation with growth rates and the felling rotation of the trees. Fast growth combined with slow litter decomposition implies that trees are extracting nutrients faster than they are replacing them.

Tree plantations can also lead to greater acidification of the soil and to changes in its physical properties. According to Rosoman (1994), acidification is produced by the combination of two factors. One is the reduced pace of decomposition of organic materials which is characteristic of plantations. The other is the export of nutrients. Trees take negatively charged ions (cations) from the soil, while leaving positively charged ions such as those of hydrogen and aluminium. In ecosystems subject to little industrial interference, the cations are eventually returned to the soil when the trees die and decompose, while in industrial plantations many of them are removed at the moment of harvest. Other cations remain locked in non-decomposed organic matter.

Impacts of planting and management

Industrial plantations begin with large-scale preparation of the soil. This adds to the danger of erosion, especially in areas with pronounced slopes. After the trees are planted, weeding is carried out manually, mechanically or with herbicides, to prevent other plants from competing with them. This destroys some or all of the native vegetation which has survived the initial planting. Thus the soil is left unprotected from erosion for a relatively prolonged period _sometimes as much as two or three years. Erosion can attack not only the surface soils of the plantations, but also areas where runoff collects. This has been the case in, for example, Galicia, where terracing for planting eucalyptus has resulted in serious erosion (Ruiz 1990).

When plantation trees are harvested, moreover, more erosion results, together with the wholesale export of nutrients from the plantation site. Three methods exist for harvesting plantations: (1) extracting whole trees, (2) extracting trunks together with their bark, and (3) extracting stripped trunks only. According to the method adopted, the export of nutrients from the system will be greater or lesser, though export occurs in all cases. In a study carried out in Brazil, the nutrient content of various components of a four-year-old Eucalyptus saligna plantation with 38 tonnes per hectare of aerial biomass was analysed as in Table 4.1. When only trunks were taken, nearly half of the phosphorus contained in the trees was removed, along with almost a quarter of the potassium and smaller percentages of the magnesium, nitrogen and calcium. When trunks were removed together with their bark, the export of phosphorus increased to 58 per cent, the magnesium to 44 per cent, the potassium to 39 per cent, calcium to 35 per cent and nitrogen to 20 per cent. Removal of the entire tree, of course, was the worst option.

TABLE 4.1
Nutrient content of Eucalyptus saligna plantation (I)

table under construction

Source: Poore and Fries 1985.

If these percentages are converted into kilogrammes per hectare, the figures in Table 4.2 result. It is worth remarking that at a normal commercial harvest age, even more nutrients _ between four and five times the amount shown in the table _ would be removed from the soil. Even without whole-tree harvesting, it has been estimated, three pine rotations on infertile soil will remove as much phosphorus from the soil as 20,000 years of natural processes (Adams 1978). (See also Holt and Spain (1986) and Jordan (1985) for depletion of soil carbon and nitrogen in Araucaria cunninghammii and Gmelina arborea plantations.)

TABLE 4.2
Nutrient content of Eucalyptus saligna plantation (II)

table under construction

Source: Poore and Fries 1985.

In sum, the higher the rate of growth, the higher the rate of extraction. The greater the amount of exported biomass, moreover, the more rapidly existing nutrients are exhausted, particularly when whole trees are harvested. This depletion of nutrients entails either that the plantation must be abandoned at some stage, leaving impoverished soil behind, or that chemical fertilizers must be applied. This second option is the one promoted by modern silviculture. Experience with agricultural crops, however, proves not only that chemical fertilizers do not provide a long-term solution, but that they also have other negative effects such as contamination of the above-ground and underground water supplies and impoverishment of soil microflora and fauna (Rosoman 1994).

This nutrient depletion occurs with both eucalyptus and pine, as is admitted even by studies done for active promoters of industrial plantations such as FAO and Shell:

The short-rotation harvesting of eucalyptus, especially when the whole tree is used, leads to the rapid exhaustion of the reserves of nutritive elements in the soil. The above is a direct consequence of their rapid growth . . . Certain evidence exists to show a greater removal of nutrients in pine plantations under similar conditions (Poore and Fries 1985).

[W]hole-tree harvesting and short-rotation forestry does remove much of th[e] pool of nutrients, not only reducing soil fertility, . . . but also acidifying the soil (Good, Lawson and Stevens 1993).

Short-rotation plantations, in addition, require more frequent management interventions, which make the soil more prone to erosion and other forms of nutrient loss. Heavy machinery compacts the soil, making it difficult for water to infiltrate, also promoting erosion. Log extraction, meanwhile, breaks the soil's surface, leaving it exposed to the erosive action of rain. The growing tendency towards increased mechanisation, and the replacement of chainsaws by large harvesting machines, is likely only to intensify damage to soils.

It is therefore absurd to suggest without qualification that any sort of tree planting protects or improves soil quality. All evidence shows that, on the contrary, industrial plantations degrade soils, and that their functions can in no way be compared with those of natural forests.

Industrial pollution

The type of plantations analysed in this book are geared to the modern pulp and paper industry, which has historically been one of the most contaminating industries, emitting 'some of the most toxic effluent that any industry can produce' (Kroesa 1990). Chemical pulping involves the use of sulphur-based chemicals, whose recovery gives the mills _ and their surroundings _ the smell of rotten eggs. Kraft pulping releases sulphur dioxide _ a major contributor to acid rain _ to the air at a rate of one to three kilogrammes per tonne of pulp, while sulphite pulping emits some five kilogrammes per tonne. Aluminium salts used in kraft pulping are highly toxic to certain fish and 'accidental spills, which occur frequently, can have disastrous effects on aquatic life downstream' (Kroesa 1990). Mechanical and chemi-thermo-mechanical pulping meanwhile results in the release of organic sulphur compounds, which, together with resin acids and other wood wastes, come to make up a highly toxic effluent, very difficult to degrade, and dangerous to fish.

The lignin contained in pulp gives it a brown colour, which in conventional bleaching is removed through the use of chlorine gas. The pulp is further whitened using chlorine dioxide or hypochlorite. On average, between 50 and 80 kilogrammes of chlorine is used to produce every tonne of conventionally-bleached kraft pulp. About ten per cent of this chlorine ends up combined with organic molecules from the wood and is discharged in the effluent from the mill. This produces toxic chlorine compounds called organochlorines, which tend to go directly into lakes, rivers and oceans. Extremely stable chemically, such compounds may be spread hundreds of kilometres from a single pulp mill, and are likely to accumulate in particularly dangerous amounts in animals high in the food chain.

Among these chemicals, the chlorinated ethers known as dioxins are among the most potent toxics known. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), people regularly eating fish caught near pulp mills have 1,000 times more chance of developing certain cancers than control groups. In addition to being carcinogenic, the EPA has found, dioxins may have adverse effects on development, reproduction and the immune system in humans at levels close to those to which millions of people are already exposed. Tests conducted on animals show that dioxins can cause severe birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, and the feminization of males and masculinization of females (ES&T 29 (1), O'Brien 1990, Hocking 1991, Floegel 1994, Greenpeace International 1994, Kroesa 1990).

Pulp and paper mills also create a variety of other environmental and health problems. In the US, the EPA has reported, the paper industry is the third largest source of toxic pollutants. Mills generally release chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide into the air as well as organic residues and aluminum and other mineral salts into the water. In Webuye, Kenya, the Pan African Paper Mills' air and water pollution is believed to be responsible for a number of health problems; more than 60 per cent of the children born in Webuye during the last 15 years since the mill began operations in 1974 have had breathing problems between the ages of one to five. Effluents from the mill have contaminated the Nzoia River, affecting people who used to earn a living through small-scale fishing (Ong'wen 1994). The pattern is very much the same elsewhere (see Chapters 7, 11 and 12). Research in Canada and the Nordic countries has meanwhile documented a staggering variety of fish disorders near mills, including skeletal deformities, reproductive problems, gill erosion, and deformed embryos (Dudley, Stolton and Jeanrenaud 1995).

Although, due to public pressure, some factories and companies have made strides recently in pollution control, by, for example, reducing or eliminating the use of chlorine, the industry is yet far from meeting reasonable safety standards. Worse, it is moving much pulp manufacture _ where most pollution occurs _ to the South, where controls are less strict and production therefore cheaper. While in Germany 20 per cent of the total installation costs of a pulp plant need to be earmarked for environmental protection, that percentage drops to 5.6 in the case of Bahia Sul Celulose in Brazil (CEPEDES/CDDH 1992).

Other socioeconomic impacts

Most large-scale commercial forestry plantations in the South are promoted and established in inhabited locations by government agencies, national and foreign businesses, multilateral banks, or other organizations external to the area. Although their aim is not to improve local quality of life, but to obtain large amounts of timber in the shortest possible time, both businesses and governments usually try to publicise locally the advantages that plantations supposedly will bring to local people. On a national level, too, it is often claimed that much of the economic and social future of a country depends on plantations and pulp, which are said to generate both direct and indirect employment, increase exports and support the country's development.

Experience demonstrates, however, that the environmental problems of large-scale industrial plantations tend to be social and economic as well, and on both local and national levels.

Local effects

Plantations normally replace crops, grasslands, or old-growth, secondary, or scrub forests. Due to commercial necessities, they are rarely established on degraded soil, as their objective is short cycles of rapid growth requiring a certain level of fertility and water supply (see Chapter 6) (Bazett 1993). Hence they typically occupy areas already being used in various ways by local people.

In some areas, the population is sparse and land tenure is both clearly defined legally and little-contested. In other areas, where the population is dense and many landholdings are undocumented, local people's farms may be threatened when the state cedes land to forestry companies. In still others, plantations may usurp lands traditionally used by the community as a whole. These lands can include both communal fields and pastures, whose disappearance can force local people into overexploiting adjacent lands or forests (Lohmann 1991).

Large-scale, fast-growing tree plantations threaten local agriculture in less direct ways, too. They may, for instance, usurp water needed by other crops or by livestock. In South Africa, the Natal Agricultural Union is concerned that 'large scale afforestation of river basins is having a detrimental effect on the hydrological cycle of many of Natal's rivers and is creating hardships for riparian farmers downstream' (Fourie 1990), and similar concerns have been expressed in Chile (Cruz and Rivera 1983), Brazil (CEPEDES/CDDH 1992), Spain (PSOE 1979) and many other countries as well.

Species whose numbers had previously remained small, meanwhile, can rapidly become economic pests when large monocultural plantations are introduced. Such pests, which range from mammals, birds and insects to fungi and viruses, can affect both the plantations themselves and neighbouring agricultural crops and even livestock. In Uruguay, for instance, plantations have benefitted populations of parrots (Myiopsitta monachus), foxes (Pseudolopex gimnocerus) and the introduced wild boar (Sus scrofa), all of which can affect crops, poultry and sheep (Panario et al. 1991, Carrere pers. obs.).

Finally, the roots of plantation trees, especially eucalyptus, because they extend several metres horizontally, can also threaten neighbouring crops by competing for their water and nutrients. In northeast Thailand, villagers say that Eucalyptus camaldulensis is 'selfish' in its nutrient use (Lohmann 1991). Acknowledging this fact, some countries, such as Uruguay, have enacted laws requiring that a plantation's outermost line of trees must be at a certain distance from neighbouring land (Carrere 1993). Fast-growing trees, of course, can also cut off sunlight to crops planted in or near plantations. All these impacts are especially serious in densely-populated rural areas, where a reduction in production, however small, may have catastrophic effects, both threatening subsistence and raising food prices.

Plantations' takeover of forests can also lead to severe social, economic and cultural problems. Forests often supply water and compost for crops, fodder for livestock, and vegetables, game, honey, fruit, mushrooms, fibre, firewood, building wood, and medicine for local communities, and in addition are frequently a source of spiritual values. Where they disappear, diets, health, housing and incomes alike may suffer.

Where local people's land or forests are directly contested, they have reacted in a variety of ways. In Thailand, for example, farmers have petitioned responsible government officials, publicized their grievances through the press, mobilized marches on government offices, set up roadblocks, felled trees within plantations and even burned entire nurseries (see Chapter 12). Repression has often resulted, with death threats, arson, and false arrests common.

Of course, plantations often also create conflicts within local societies between those who oppose and those who assimilate to them, or, to use the rhetoric of many central authorities, between 'backwardness' and 'progress'. The construction of associated pulp mills, in addition, can burden local communities with thousands of migrants seeking work. The enormous economic clout wielded by large pulp and plantation firms meanwhile tends to distort local politics. As whole regions become almost totally dependent on the industry, local and regional governments are forced to bend their policies to suit its needs (see Chapter 7).

In some social contexts, large-scale industrial plantations can create local employment, and this is one of the main arguments wielded everywhere both by state and corporations to convince local communities to accept the projects. However, 'very often plantation development results in a long-term net loss of employment' (Morrison and Bass 1992). Although figures vary widely from place to place and source to source, on the whole there appears to be agreement that industrial plantations cannot employ as many people as conventional agriculture, particularly family agriculture. The cases in which large-scale plantations have generated more employment than was already locally-available, as in Uruguay, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The jobs created, moreover, are mainly for seasonal casual labourers, in particular during the plantation phase. Few climates allow planting to be carried out year round. On the whole, working conditions vary from bad to terrible (see Chapters 7-10).

National-level impacts

The local social impacts of tree plantations, when aggregated, can give rise to national-level problems. For instance, the displacement of thousands of people by big plantation schemes _ imposed or voluntary, direct or indirect _ can swell shanty towns in the big cities of the South, giving rise to increases in poverty, crime and prostitution and leading to land disputes with other communities. In the most extreme cases, as in South Africa, such dispossession can lead to violent inter-ethnic confrontations (Albertyn 1994).

The agroexport development model on which large-scale tree plantations in the South are usually based can also create economic problems on a national scale. One problem is concentration of wealth. Occupying large areas of fertile land, industrial plantations require state support and heavy, long-term investments varying from 600 to several thousand US dollars per hectare. In the vast majority of cases, they need tax exemptions, soft loans from foreign creditors, forestry research, road construction, improved port installations, and other subsidies which are extracted from a nation's people as a whole. In some cases a country's people also has to underwrite the construction of stupendously expensive modern pulp plants. Yet while these costs have to be met by all citizens, very few reap the profits. In Chile, for example, one of the most 'successful' cases of large-scale plantation development, ten years of government subsidies contributed to a state of affairs in which, in 1985, just three Chilean corporations held 70 per cent of the planting grants, plantation areas, and timber exports _ a very uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of plantations (CODEFF 1991, cited in Sargent and Bass 1992).

Concentration of wealth implies concentration of power and disposses-sion of local communities. In Thailand, for example, industrial plantations have been 'an exceptionally efficient device allowing interests responsive to the world economy to annex supposedly "marginal" areas, smash the remaining local-oriented noneconomic or semi-economic pattern of livelihood and nature conservation there, and convert the fragments into "resources" for global exchange. As land is concentrated and transformed into a substrate for eucalyptus, local villagers are cut loose to seek niches as producers, consumers, recyclers or commodities in the world economy' (Lohmann 1991).

A further problem is the risk of national dependence on a commodity prone to wild tumbles in price (see Chapter 2). Indiscriminate planting of pulpwood trees or any other crop can lead to a glut of raw materials which, however beneficial it may be for paper manufacturers and users, makes their cultivation progressively less profitable. Indeed, tree crops on the whole are already chronically unprofitable in strict market terms, as otherwise they would not need so many state subsidies. But new risks are being added by the planting of millions more hectares of tree crops around the world in the next few years, which may put pulpwood into the bracket of other Southern primary commodities whose prices have fallen to persistently uneconomic levels (Editores Tercer Mundo 1989). Yet Southern countries which have committed themselves to pulpwood exports, as to other commodity exports, are likely to have to continue exporting at ever-lower prices, competing among themselves for industrialized-country buyers. Indeed, the situation is even more serious for pulpwood than for annual crops, since it is not only much more expensive to cut trees prematurely than to plough a crop which has not yet matured, but also more difficult to return land to agriculture after trees _ particularly eucalyptus _ have been planted on it. In addition, the tree plantations in question may have been occupying the land for a number of years, raising financial losses even higher. A landscape of 'tree cemeteries' _ masses of uncropped industrial plantations like those described by Prez Arrarte (1995) _ may be a real possibility in certain locations in the future.

Similar risks, of course, afflict pulp _ the commodity which appears to be replacing pulpwood. Here price drops are likely to be especially serious for huge exporters such as Brazil and Indonesia, who have had to invest the same immense amounts in mill equipment as their Northern competitors, but who hold less capital to cushion potential losses when the market turns. Pulp production, like the large-scale industrial plantations with which it is associated, is likely neither to bring profits to the majority of a country's people nor to decrease vulnerability to economic domination by the industrial North.

Conclusions

Large-scale industrial tree plantations undoubtedly help the international pulp and paper industry secure stable supplies of raw materials. They are also capable of periodically making sizable profits for the huge conglomerates which plant them. They are not designed, however, to benefit Southern countries as a whole, their people or their environments. Although they normally destroy more employment than they create (see Chapters 7 and 8), they nevertheless rely on subsidies extracted from large numbers of people to generate their profits. They do not help preserve land, forests, grasslands, or water sources, but rather exploit local natural advantages ruthlessly.

Neither Southern countries nor their local communities, therefore, should hope to benefit from the presence of huge plantation and pulp firms producing for export. On the contrary, they must be on their guard against the damage these corporations can wreak. While plantation tree roots may be within national territory, it is very unlikely that the roots of such companies will be.