Here below are the conclusions submitted in a travel report (available in Spanish, at:http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Venezuela/Gira2006.pdf) on the investigation carried out recently by 4 representatives of the Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations in the area where the so called "Uverito plantations" are located. These are some 600,000 hectares of pine plantations in the States of Monagas and Anzoategui. In 2003, SmartWood certified 12 plots covering a total of 139,650 hectares, owned by Terranova de Venezuela (TDV) and which form part of those plantations.
The Green Economy
The Green Economy is a tactic used to “clean up” the image of corporations rather than address corporate capture and capitalism as the true drivers of deforestation. False solutions promoted under the Green Economy include certification, sustainable forest management, ecosystem services, REDD+, the bioeconomy, nature-based climate solutions, and zero net deforestation. Rather than stopping it, these “solutions” support corporate-driven destruction that is causing a deep social and ecological crisis.
Bulletin articles
2 July 2006
Other information
2 July 2006
In South Africa, a thorough research carried out by John Blessing Karumbidza --“A Study of the Social and Economic Impacts of Industrial Tree Plantations in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa”, available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/SouthAfrica/book.pdf -- has identified a host of damaging economic, social and environmental impacts of monoculture tree plantations affecting local communities, water resources and ecosystems.
Other information
2 July 2006
About 9% of Swaziland is now under timber plantations (eucalyptus, pine and acacia). In December 2004 Wally Menne, a member of the South African Timberwatch Coalition made public his research: “Timber Plantations in Swaziland: An investigation into the environmental and social impacts of large-scale timber plantations in Swaziland” (available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Swaziland/Plantations.pdf ).
Other information
2 July 2006
In 1987 legislation was adopted that implied the promotion – by means of tax exemptions and subsidies – of large-scale monoculture alien tree plantations (mainly eucalyptus and pine) for export. It is thus that the country up till then based on agriculture and stock raising, started to convert part of its fertile grasslands into “green deserts” which presently cover over 700,000 hectares.
Bulletin articles
2 July 2006
As one of its Founder members, I am at least partly responsible for having allowed a fatal flaw to be built into the FSC system when it was established: quite simply put, the so-called ‘independent’ certification bodies that are accredited to the FSC are not, in fact, independent at all.
Bulletin articles
2 July 2006
In March 2006, the WRM released the publication “Greenwash: Critical analysis of FSC certification of industrial tree monocultures in Uruguay” (see at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Uruguay/book.html). The report addressed the four main certified plantation companies and included a very detailed critique of the certifiers’ reports, complemented with interviews with workers and people from local communities in the vicinity of the plantation areas.
Bulletin articles
2 July 2006
Ecuador is a country with one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. In this process various actors are involved, not only the major timber companies that typically carry out both lawful and unlawful timber extraction activities, but also companies undertaking deforestation to install vast monoculture tree plantations, ranging from African palms to pine and eucalyptus.
Other information
8 June 2006
By the Alert Against The Green Desert Movement/Brazil
The harshness of capital against life but Aracruz Celulose lost the FSC-certificate!
Bulletin articles
5 June 2006
A computer. That is what the US citizen Paul Lambert, representative of the Tortuga Landing company offered the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) as compensation for having built a 105 metre long and 4 metres wide road and for having eliminated natural regeneration in a forest in the terrestrial maritime area of Quepos, a Central Pacific locality. This occurred during a “conciliation” hearing which took place on 17 February at the Environmental Administrative Tribunal (file No. 184-05-3-TAA).
Bulletin articles
6 May 2006
The experts at the service of transnational corporations have proved to have an unlimited inventive capacity to better serve those who are paying them. Among their most recent achievements is having managed to put up for sale nature itself under the guise of so-called “environmental services.” Expressions such as “oxygen sale” and “sale of carbon sinks” are now common currency, in particular in the countries of the South.
Publications
25 April 2006
By Ricardo Carrere
Other information
14 April 2006
Only available in Portuguese -
Introdução
O FSC-Brasil tomou a iniciativa para organizar um encontro em Belo Horizonte no dia 18 de outubro de 2005 com o objetivo de coletar contribuições para o processo global de revisão dos princípios e critérios de certificação para plantações de árvores pelo FSC.