Large-Scale Tree Plantations

Since the mid 1980's there has been a global trend towards the outsourcing of labour-intensive aspects of the plantation timber production model. In South Africa, the timber industry has openly admitted that its main motive for replacing permanent employment of workers with contract outsourcing was to cut costs.

An article from Jennifer Mourin, deputy executive director of Pesticide Action Network’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), referred to a situation which is hardly unique in the Malaysian oil palm sector: “Rajam worked as a pesticide sprayer on an estate earning a daily wage of RM18. The main pesticide she sprayed was paraquat [herbicide]. She was not provided any protective clothing such as boots, masks, gloves, goggles or apron.

Although the struggle for 11,009 hectares of Tupinikim and Guarani land in the hands of the greatest eucalyptus pulp exporter in the world, Aracruz Cellulose, was a major challenge, the reoccupation of this territory and reconversion of eucalyptus in the zone to other land uses is perhaps an even greater one.  Over the past 40 years, more than 90% of the area has been occupied and exploited by monoculture eucalyptus plantations, causing degradation of countless streams and rivers, killing the fish and contaminating the scant water left for the indigenous people to drink, bathe and wash thei

For over a decade WRM has been gathering, producing and disseminating information and analysis on the social and environmental impacts of fast wood plantations, characterized as large-scale, fast-growth tree monocultures. At the same time, we have been stressing that such plantations should not be certified, focusing on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), this being the scheme certifying most of such plantations.

Veracel Celulose – a joint venture between the Swedish-Finnish company Stora Enso and the Norwegian-Brazilian company Aracruz Celulose - has launched a process to obtain FSC certification for its eucalyptus plantations in the extreme south of the State of Bahia. For this purpose, it has hired the consulting firm SGS.

The book authored by Philip Gain -Stolen Forests, published in 2006- denounces the horrendous consequences of the introduction of plantations —teak, rubber, eucalyptus and acacia monocultures— on Bangladesh’s native forests.

This week, the Tasmanian Parliament will debate Gunns' proposed pulp mill at Bell Bay in Tasmania. If built, the US$1.4 billion project would need four million tonnes of logs a year. It would double Gunns current rate of clearcutting in Tasmania's native forests. The pulp mill would produce large amounts of toxins, polluting the air and Tasmania's Bass Strait. The day before the Tasmanian Parliament started its discussions, Australia's Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a "draft decision" to approve the pulp mill.

Twenty-two women from provinces throughout Kalimantan and Sumatra gathered in Bogor from 22nd to 24th May to discuss the effects that oil palm plantations have had on their lives. Women and development Why women? It is obvious that Indonesian women are stakeholders who have been marginalised by the development process, including the establishment of large-scale oil palm plantations.

Large scale oil palm plantations have proved to be a very bad development for local people in PNG, and especially women for whom they have meant dramatic changes in their lives, work, safety and health (see WRM Bulletin Nº 120).

As member of a group of international observers, invited by the Justice and Peace organization, we had the opportunity to visit an area in Colombia (Curvaradó) where ten years ago the local communities suffered from a violent eviction process and are now returning to their territories.

Professor Ove Nilsson is the star of genetically engineered tree research in Sweden. Nilsson and his research team at the Umeå Plant Science Centre won the race to identify the gene that controls plants' flowering allowing them to produce genetically engineered trees which flower in weeks, instead of years. In 2005, the journal Science declared it one of the most important discoveries of the year.

A new report by German NGO Urgewald on the social and environmental impacts of the pulp industry is now available. The report “Banks, Pulp and People – A Primer on Upcoming International Pulp Projects”, produced by Chris Lang, describes the impacts of the industry, analyses the track records of the companies involved and looks at new expansions in the sector. The report is available on Urgewald's new website: www.pulpmillwatch.org , which documents the problems caused by existing operations and flags upcoming problematic projects.