Large-Scale Tree Plantations

The Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the Cultural Revolution had thwarted in China the establishment of high yield timber plantations put forward in the late 1950s by the Chinese Ministry of Forestry. However, since 1980s, along with the implementation of the reform and open-door policy (namely China's entry to the global market arena), the existing imbalance between wood demand and supply was altered. This seems to be not very different from the process undergone by other countries which end up engulfed by the global commerce and its packaging demand.

Advance Agro, one of Thailand's largest pulp and paper companies, markets its "Double A" brand paper as environmentally friendly. The company's advertising explains that the raw material comes from plantations and thus relieves pressure on remaining forest areas.

Genetically engineered trees represent a global threat to native forests and biodiversity as a whole. Traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content coupled with the inability to maintain sterility virtually assure devastation of forest ecosystems. The purpose of Action for Social and Ecological Justice (ASEJ)'s campaign against GE trees (see WRM Bulletin Nº 69) is to achieve an international ban on the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment including test sites and commercial applications.

A letter with over 50 signatures from Brazilian NGOs, churches, movements and trade unions was sent to investors of the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) on 26 March 2003, urging them not to buy carbon credits from the controversial Plantar project in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The letter (available at www.sinkswatch.org, also see WRM Bulletin 65) states that Plantar is neither clean nor sustainable development, that the company has continuously violated labour laws, and does not possess an EIA, though required according to the law.

In these times of increasingly fast processes linked to technological development, we are also witnessing an equally vertiginous loss of natural resources due to over-exploitation enabling a way of production, consumption and lifestyle that closes a vicious circle.

In nearly all countries, large scale monoculture tree plantations have been imposed and implemented once the laws of each country have been changed in such a way as to enable national and foreign companies to obtain all kinds of benefits, such as direct and indirect subsidies, tax breaks and even soft loans and refunds for large-scale plantations.

On March 31, in the Italian port of Ravenna, Greenpeace activists uncovered a shipment of rainforest "conflict timber", a term defined by the British-based NGO Global Witness as "the timber that has been traded at some point in the chain of custody by armed groups, be they rebel factions, regular soldiers or the civilian administration, either to perpetuate conflict or take advantage of conflict situations for personal gain".

Recently, an article on the major "threat" posed to South African indigenous forests by illegal gatherers of medicinal plants has been widely disseminated. Michael Peter, Director of Indigenous Forestry Management of the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, said that "The medicinal plant trade is the single largest cause of indigenous forest degradation in South Africa".

Women are more than half --around 30.000-- of the workforce in Malaysian plantations, and have been historically employed as unskilled, temporary contract workers doing the most menial and underpaid jobs. Urbanisation and industrialisation has pushed men and the young to work in the new industrial zones while women stay on and continue to take on any job so that they can have a house and basic amenities provided by the plantation company, which are otherwise beyond their reach. Thus, women have played the dual role of providing cheap labour and social stability.

Genetic engineering is racing ahead to provide genetically tailored trees designed for commercial plantations with traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content in trees for commercial convenience.

The forestry plan promoted by the Government --based on large monoculture tree plantations of eucalyptus and pine-- promised large profits to the country, among which employment generation. Not only has this objective not been accomplished, but it has also been seen that the scant employment generated is usually temporary and under working conditions that in general leave much to be desired. The events that took place at the beginning of this month are a clear demonstration of what environmental organizations have long been denouncing.

Official figures from the PNG Forest Authority show that between 1993 and 2001 a total of 20 million cubic meters of logs were exported from PNG. If all those logs were laid side by side they would stretch for over 1,000 kilometres. If they were laid end to end they would stretch for 7,000 kilometres. In the last 10 years most of the logs have been taken from West New Britain but now those forests are almost gone. Now the logging companies in PNG --most of them Malaysian-- are getting most of their logs from Western and Gulf Provinces.