Large-Scale Tree Plantations

The Lao People's Democratic Republic -the only landlocked country in Southeastern Asia- occupies an area of 236,800 square kilometres with a still large coverage of forests. These forests hold high levels of biodiversity, and provide the livelihoods for much of the 80% of the population that lives in the countryside.

Local indigenous and peasant communities are usually accused of forest degradation and are either evicted from their lands, or repressed, or both. At the same time, logging companies which benefit from deforestation, receive support from those same governments that accuse local peoples of destroying the environment. The following two cases from Mexico constitute but a drop in a sea of many such cases occuring throughout the world.

Bolivia hosts 440,000 sq.km of rainforests, which represent 57% of the lowlands total surface in the country. Deforestation rate reaches 168,000 hectares/year, being the promotion of export crops and logging concessions wantonly granted the main causes of this problem. Environmental NGOs have frequently expressed their concern over the situation of the forestry sector in Bolivia, characterized by the disrespect to indigenous traditional territories and the inefficiency of the government to adequately address the problem (see WRM Bulletin 22).

Following a recommendation of the Privatisation Unit's Board, the government of Guyana is considering a proposal under which Primegroup Limited and Matthews Associates would take over the Wauna Oil Palm Estate in the north west region of the country, on condition that they establish a local company. Primegroup Ltd. is a major investor in oil palm development in Malaysia, ranked as the first producer in the world.

During the past months, Peru has occupied the international news headlines because of the political and institutional deterioration that is affecting the country. In line with such situation, the Peruvian Amazon forest continues to deteriorate. Oil prospection and extraction (see WRM Bulletins 1 and 8) and logging by powerful Malaysian companies (see WRM Bulletin 34) are two main causes of such degradation. The depredatory activities of local loggers, as well as illegal coca cultivation aimed at supplying the international cocaine market, further add to the problem.

In May this year, the WRM held a meeting in the Mount Tamalpais area near San Francisco, California. Among many other important issues, the meeting addressed the increasing pressure to promote large scale tree plantations as a means to "offset" carbon dioxide emissions, and issued a Declaration detailing the reasons for opposing such approach.

Following an existing trend at the global level, oil companies in Argentina have enthusiastically embraced the idea of entering the carbon permits market, as an effective way to increase their profits and revamp their image to the eyes of public opinion: from the bad guys responsible for global warming to champions of forest conservation!

The expansion of tree monocultures in Tasmania -which is paradoxically the centre of origin of Eucalyptus globulus, one of the most widely used species for establishing monocultures throughout the world- under the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol is provoking widespread concern in Australia.

Forestry companies worldwide are enthusiastically trying to implement the idea of establishing tree plantations in Southern countries under the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, allegedly as a way of sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate the effects of global warming ... and of making good profits at the same time. Even if presented as "environmentally friendly", the whole idea of plantations as carbon sinks is based on weak scientific arguments and does not constitute an effective way of reducing CO2 concentrations in the air.

Rainforests in the centre and northern regions of Congo Democratic Republic (ex-Zaire) occupy more than half of the country's total area of 2,345,409 square kilometres and represent 82.5% of the original forest cover. About 47% of the whole dense tropical forests of Africa and 6% of the Planet's forests are in Congo DR.

The Timberwatch Coalition of South Africa is organizing a symposium -that will take place on June 10th in the city of Pietermaritzburg- to discuss the issue of timber plantations. These constitute a cause of concern in that country since they are occupying vast areas of grassland -and are still expanding- provoking negative social and environmental impacts (see WRM Bulletins 7, 22, 23 and 26).

A research recently performed on oil palm plantations in Indonesia studies the past and future trends of the sector, reveals its effects on the country's economy, local communities and forests and proposes recommendations to this regard.