World Rainforest Movement Bulletin--Anti-Plantation Campaign
8/10/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
Following is the World Rainforest Movement's excellent newsletter
which you can subscribe to by emailing them. This issue takes a long,
hard look at industrial plantation forestry. In my opinion,
plantations will certainly have a role to play in providing timber and
fiber while helping to sustain natural forests. However, plantations
are not forests, they are tree farms. Done improperly and at an
inappropriate scale, they can be devastating to the environment and
society. And the full range of replanting efforts from mono-crops (as
currently done), to more mixed native species, to restoration ecology
(particularly to expand and link small remnant native forests) are not
being pursued. While I may not agree with every argument presented
below, a compelling case is made for a reexamination of industrial
plantation development.
g.b.
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: World Rainforest Movement Bulletin #13
Source: World Rainforest Movement
Status: Distribute freely accredited to source
Date: July 27, 1998
**WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
MOVIMIENTO MUNDIAL POR LOS BOSQUES
International Secretariat Oxford Office
Instituto del Tercer Mundo 1c Fosseway Business Centre
Jackson 1136 Stratford Road
Montevideo Moreton-in-Marsh
Uruguay GL56 9NQ United Kingdom
Ph +598 2 409 61 92 Ph. +44.1608.652.893
Fax +598 2 401 92 22 Fax +44.1608.652.878
EMail: rcarrere@chasque.apc.org EMail: wrm@gn.apc.org
**
=================================
W R M B U L L E T I N # 13
JULY 1998
=================================
*************
In this issue:
- The launch of the anti-plantations campaign
- Plantations are not forests
- Chile: an unsustainable forestry model
-Indonesia: a depredatory economic "miracle"
- Brazil: the paradigmatic case of Aracruz
- South Africa: the ways of the powerful pulp industry
- The World Bank: a major actor
- Plantations and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests
- Jaakko Poyry: more than mere consultants
- Available material on tree plantations
- The Montevideo Declaration. June 1998
*************
- The launch of the anti-plantations campaign
Large-scale tree plantations are having grave social and environmental
impacts in many countries of the world. While governments and
international organizations promote this forestry model, more and more
people rise in opposition against it. Its promoters' real aims (power,
profits) are hidden under a "green" guise: the plantation of "forests"
in a world facing deforestation and climate change. This environmental
discourse, which has little or no influence on the people living in
the plantation sites, is aimed at uninformed -mostly urban- audiences,
which constitute the main potential support for the plantations
industry.
The World Rainforest Movement has for many years been supporting the
struggles of local peoples against these industrial-scale tree
monocrops and building knowledge and alliances to launch an
international campaign against it. In June this year, the WRM
organized an international meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, to focus on
this issue. The meeting, attended by concerned people from 14
countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, North America and
Oceania, resulted in a unanimous decision to launch a campaign against
this destructive model. The aims of the campaign will be:
1) To support local people struggling against plantations 2) To
support local livelihoods
3) To create awareness on the problems generated by plantations and on
the actors which promote them
4) To change conditions which make plantations possible
To facilitate the discussion, some people were invited to make
presentations on some country situations which hold some of the
largest plantations on earth, which are having important negative
impacts: Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and South Africa. At the same time,
presentations were also made about some important actors which can
either promote or destimulate plantations: the influential Finnish
forestry consultancy Jaakko Poyry, the World Bank and the
Intergovernmental Forum on Forests.
What follows are brief summaries of the different cases and issues
presented and discussed at the meeting.
************************************************************ -
Plantations are not forests
The expansion of tree monocultures, especially in the South, is
favoured by the combination of inexpensive land, low labour costs,
fast tree-growth, subsidies, support from international "aid" agencies
and multilateral development banks, technology provided by northern
suppliers and advice by northern consultancies.
Plantations are not forests. Plantations are uniform agroecosystems
that substitute natural ecosystems and their biodiversity, either in
natural forests (e.g.: Chile, Brazil, Indonesia) or in grasslands
(e.g.: Uruguay, South Africa). When natural ecosystems are substituted
by large-scale tree plantations they usually result in negative
environmental and social impacts: decrease in water production,
modifications in the structure and composition of soils, alteration in
the abundance and richness of flora and fauna, encroachment on
indigenous peoples' forests, eviction of peasants and indigenous
peoples from their lands, loss of livelihoods.
Pulpwood plantations
Industrial tree plantations occupy more than 100 million hectares
worldwide. This production model is not based upon the material or
spiritual needs of local people, neither aimed to favour them or their
environment. Their goal is to provide the global paper industry with
cheap raw material mainly from eucalyptus- to assure the present
overconsumption of paper and paper products, particularly in the
North. Already 29% of the fiber used in the paper industry comes from
fast-growing plantations and this figure is increasing.
Local people and social organizations from Brazil to Hawaii and from
Spain to Congo have organized against this model. Nevertheless we need
to be aware of some difficulties: generalized public opinion that
planting trees is a good thing for the environment and for the
preservation of natural forests, increase of paper consumption shown
as associated to education and literacy in underdeveloped countries,
lack of serious environmental impact assessments, proposal of
alternatives to the dominant model, etc.
Timber plantations
The production scheme and consequences of timber plantations -pine,
teak or other species- are similar to those of pulpwood plantations,
with some differences in management, since they aim at the production
of timber.
Oil palm plantations
Among non-timber plantations, oil palm is especially important. Global
consumption of palm oil products increased 32% in the last five years.
In Malaysia -the major palm oil exporter in the world- and in
Indonesia, natural forests are being felled or set on fire to clear
land for these plantations. Peasants are deprived of their lands and
resources. Oil palm companies were responsible for fires that
destroyed 80,000 hectares of forests in Indonesia this year.
Plantations are expanding in Ivory Coast, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras,
Ecuador and other countries with similar negative environmental
impacts.
Carbon sink plantations
Even if OECD countries are responsible for 77% of the world fossil
fuel-related emissions of CO2 -whose increasing concentration in the
atmosphere is one of the main causes of global warming- they advocate
for a "solution" that consists on using the photosynthetic activity of
tree leaves to capture CO2 and retain carbon in the wood. These so-
called "carbon sinks" are fast-growing species' plantations to be
installed in the South. The model is simple: the North will continue
emitting CO2 to the atmosphere and the South will be responsible of
capturing it through the new installed "forest cover". They call it
"joint implementation" and is the most recent argument used by
plantation promoters to justify their activity. According to one
calculation, 300 million hectares of fast-growing trees are required
to absorb the annual global emissions of CO2 if the present rate of
emissions continues, as is expected. There is no scientific evidence
of their efficiency, since their capacity to capture CO2 can be much
influenced by climate change.
The above named four types of plantations have commonalties:
- All of them are large-scale
- They are all monocultures that correspond to an industrial scheme,
aimed at the production of an export good or service obtained at low
cost in a Southern country.
- They result in strong negative social and environmental impacts -
Their implementation is the result of top-down oriented decisions that
see reality only at a global scale and are focused mainly -if not
exclusively- on the retention of economic benefit.
- Local people and national societies are ignored at decision-making
levels. They are just used to provide cheap labour force and their
land and related resources are directly or indirectly appropriated by
powerful national or foreign agents.
*************- Chile: an unsustainable forestry model
Forests cover about 30 million hectares in Chile while plantations
occupy 2,1 million hectares. Chilean forests -with more than 100
native species- are one of the most biodiversity-rich temperate
forests in the world. In marked contrast, 80% of the plantations are
composed by radiata pine and 12% by eucalyptus monocultures.
The Chilean forestry model -based upon plantations in spite of the
vast and rich forests existing in the country- has been trumpeted as
an example for developing countries and one of the factors of the
Chilean economic boom. Such model is being promoted in different
countries, from Uruguay to Mozambique. Albeit its negative side is not
publicized.
The promotion of vast monocultures in Chile began with the military
dictatorship in the 70s. In line with the imposed economic model,
subsidies and taxes breaks benefited a few powerful economic groups.
Nowadays only two groups -Angelini and Matte- own respectively 470,000
hectares and 340,000 hectares of plantations, involving more than 50
forestry companies in Chile as well as in Argentina, Paraguay and
Peru. In the meantime, peasants are expelled from their lands,
progressively occupied by plantations or affected by their effects on
water and biodiversity. Recent independent studies have revealed that
plantations have not helped to alleviate poverty in rural areas and
local communities oppose them.
One of the more publicized arguments for the promotion of industrial
tree plantations says that fast growing plantations help to alleviate
the main pressures on native forests and consequently help to preserve
them. This argument has been proved false in Chile. The annual
deforestation during the 1985-1994 period reached an annual average of
36,700 hectares, 40% of which were deforested to make way to
industrial tree plantations. In the southern VII region -which
concentrates the majority of tree plantations- from 1978 to 1987 30%
of the Coastal Andean forests were clearcut and substituted by radiata
pine plantations.
The pulp industry -closely associated to the plantation scheme- is a
relevant polluting factor. Five of the six pulp industries existing in
Chile cause strong negative impacts on the environment, while only one
is adopting a less harmful production process. The fishing community
of Mehuin in the X Region, for example, is opposing the project of
Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion S.A. (CELCO) -a huge pulp and paper
company- to build a pulp mill coupled with a pipeline that would
discharge toxic pollutants resulting from the production process in
the bay where they live, affecting the population of fish that is the
livelihood of this community, and their own health.
Some of the main consequences of tree monocultures in Chile have been
the destruction of native forests, a decrease in water yields, loss of
biodiversity and livelihoods of local communities, rural-urban
migration, soil erosion and industrial pollution on the one hand and
in the concentration of land and wealth on the other. Obviously not a
model which can be described as either socially or environmentally
sustainable.
************************************************************ -
Indonesia: a predatory economic "miracle"
Indonesia's forests occupy about 120 million hectares. Although at
least 2-3 million families of indigenous peoples live in or around the
forests and many of the 220 million inhabitants of the country depend
directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihood, the
governments approach has been to consider forests as "empty" land.
Logging and plantation companies are responsible for the high
deforestation rates (1 million hectares a year according to the World
Bank, but 2,4 million according to Indonesian NGOs). The predatory
activities of such companies are a token that Indonesia's economic
"miracle" has been driven by ruthless exploitation of natural
resources and by the use of cheap labour.
In the last 20 years logging and associated industrial plantations -
for pulp, plywood and palm oil- have been increasing in Sumatra,
Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Moluccas and West Papua. The whole of the
timber, pulp and oil palm industry has been closely tied to the
political situation. Former President Suharto, his family and the
military have controlled the economy and benefited from it.
According to the Industrial Plantation Scheme (HTI) companies are
supposed to establish plantations in degraded forest areas. But what
really happens is that once they get the concession they clear
forests, extract the valuable timber, set fire to the rest and then
plant introduced species, as acacia, eucalyptus and pines. The
government itself has recently accused several logging-plantation
companies for the destructive fires that affected the country's
forests this year. The present crisis in South Asia has diminished the
international demand for Indonesian timber, plywood, pulp and
minerals. But in the long run, the economic crisis can mean that more
people are going to be pushed into becoming spontaneous migrants,
relocate in other islands and possibly establish tree plantations to
supplement their incomes.
During the 1990s there has been a boom in the creation of oil palm
plantations as Indonesia plans to replace Malaysia as the first South
East Asias producer in the XXI century. Private palm oil plantations
are dominated by big conglomerates. The economic crisis is pushing
smallholder transmigrants to establish oil palm plantations hoping to
receive the benefits of the so called Nucleus Estate Smallholder or
PIR-trans System.
The case of Indonesia shows clearly that the much publicized myth that
plantations help to alleviate pressures on native forests and
consequently helping to preserve them is totally false. On the
contrary, they are a major factor for their destruction. Forests are
actually being cut and set on fire to make way for pulpwood and oil
palm plantations. From an environmental point of view, the increasing
substitution of forests by plantations means a loss of biodiversity,
in this case coupled by the atmospheric pollution produced by the
heavy smoke arising from forest fires. Socially, plantations are
having the effect of destroying indigenous and forest-dependent
peoples' livelihoods, by usurping their land and undermining their
means of living derived from their biodiverse forests. For many other
Indonesian people, forests have always been a valuable survival
resource in times of crisis. In the current situation, where many
people are suffering from a crisis they are not responsible for, much
of the original forests have been depleted, many of them to make way
for monoculture plantations, which provide practically nothing in
terms of useful products for survival.
The changes that occurred in May 1998 -which led to Suharto's
resignation- could mean the beginning of a reform period. Indigenous
peoples and local communities openly oppose plantations. A recently
formed alliance of NGOs is calling to stop any new plantations and to
carry out a review of the social and environmental impacts of the
existing ones and of the concessions already granted. However, the
problem of industrial plantations is part of the wider issue of land
reform, that can possibly be discussed in the near future, and
therefore it is expected that plantations will be analysed under such
wider approach.
*************- Brazil: the paradigmatic case of Aracruz
Up to the decade of the 50s the Brazilian government provided
subsidies for the import of pulp. With the military government,
beginning in 1964, a forestry policy was set up trying to promote tree
plantations and large export-oriented pulp companies by means of
subsidies and loans. Eucalyptus for pulp is grown in Brazil with
rotation periods of only 7 or even 5 to 6 years.
Nowadays there are more than 250 pulp and paper companies all over the
country, with a total planted area of about 3 million hectares of
eucalyptus. According to estimates, the total area of tree plantations
reaches 7 million hectares, 30% of which are for pulp and paper
production. Its main objective is the international market and 90% of
pulp exports are concentrated in 5 major companies, mostly integrated
with foreign capital: Aracruz Cellulose in Espirito Santo, CENIBRA,
Bahia Sul Cellulose, Riocell and Monte Dourado in northern Brazil. The
present total planted area of these companies comprises 350,000
hectares, but new projects are under way.
The tendency of the companies is to expand more and more and to
establish alliances in order to maintain their competitiveness in the
world market. Being land availability a crucial issue in this
strategy, companies forcefully extend their land holdings.
Some people gain and some others lose with plantations. Pulp
companies, which receive strong support from the government, are
obviously the main winners. Consulting companies for the modernization
of mills and plantations, as well as a restricted number of industrial
workers have also profited of this process. In front of these few
winners, there are many losers; as a matter of fact, most of the
Brazilian people.
The case of Aracruz Cellulose is paradigmatic of the social and
environmental impacts produced by a plantation and pulp production
megacompany that acts under a "green cover". Being the biggest
producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp in the world, it earned 3 billion
dollars between 1989 and 1995. Due to tax breaks, Aracruz saves
annually U$S 88 million at the expense of the state government of
Espirito Santo. Water supply problems originated in the region are
similar to those reported in other parts of the world. Water analysis
performed at the laboratories of the company are not reliable and
agrochemicals are producing a negative environmental impact on waters.
The area chosen by Aracruz to establish its plantations and pulp mill
was not empty; it was part of the Tupinikim indigenous peoples'
ancestral lands. The Tupinikim already occupied a vast territory -
currently part of the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espirito
Santo, Minas Gerais and Bahia- when the Portuguese arrived in the
sixteenth century. The presence of the Tupinikim in the area was also
recorded in reports of 1912 and 1919 by the Indian Protection Service.
Since 1934 the Brazilian Constitution guarantees the rights of
indigenous peoples to the possession of their traditional lands, which
cannot be handed over to third parties. In 1967 -the same year when
Aracruz began its operations in the area- a group of Guarani joined
their Tupinikim brothers and sisters and stayed there, considering it
"the land without evil". Aracruz Cellulose chose to ignore history as
well as the Brazilian Constitution when in 1967 it began to occupy the
indigenous lands, advocating that it was a degraded and empty
territory.
A long struggle began since then. Due to the expansion of eucalyptus
plantations following deforestation by Aracruz Cellulose, the
indigenous peoples have been forced to abandon part of their ancestral
territories.
They claimed during four years for a further 13,579 hectares, situated
next to their present reserves. In March 1998 the Brazilian Ministry
of Justice decided to demarcate only 2,571 additional hectares for the
Tupinikim and Guarani, ignoring all the studies previously done by
FUNAI, which supported the indigenous peoples' claims.
"Coincidentally", this was the same proposal that Aracruz Cellulose
had put forward in February 1998.
It is thus clear that the authorities acted defending the interests of
the company. The indigenous people, supported by social and human
rights organizations, reacted against the judicial decision and began
the demarcation of their lands by themselves. But they and their
supporters were intimidated and repressed by the military and the
police, in an action similar to those common during the dictatorship
period. Driven to a no way out situation, they were forced to accept
an "agreement" according to which they exchange the limits of their
traditional lands -occupied by Aracruz Cellulose- for a 20-year
financial assistance. Concern for the consequences of such an
agreement is growing.
For the time being, Aracruz seems to have eliminated one of its main
problems. However, in the long run this may become a boomerang,
because all the efforts that the company has invested in creating an
image of a socially and environmentally responsible corporation may
have been thrown down the drains through this dictatorial-type of
forced agreement.
************************************************************ - South
Africa: the ways of the powerful pulp industry
Timber plantations have been a part of the South African landscape for
more than a century. Colonial settlement brought a wide range of
exotic tree species. Not all were successful, but it soon became
clear that Australian acacias and eucalyptus were well suited to
conditions in the Eastern part of South Africa.
It has always been accepted that these trees, together with Pine
species introduced more recently, play an important role in the local
economy. As natural forests had been seriously depleted during the
nineteenth century, it was considered necessary to obtain alternative,
fast-growing trees to meet the growing demand for building timber,
mine-props, packaging material and of course more recently, to feed
the local paper mills. This situation soon began to change when it was
realised that external demand for timber products could stimulate
exports from South Africa.
A Rayon mill was built by an Italian company at the coastal town of
Mkomazi around 1950. Effluent from the mill was pumped directly into
a river which entered the sea a few kilometres downstream. This gave
South Africans their first taste (and smell) of serious atmospheric
and marine pollution.
Subsequently the SAPPI mill was built on the Tukela River at the town
of Mandeni. The smell of this mill was detectable up to 50 km away,
and liquid effluent was sprayed onto a large tract of land near the
mill.
Only after the giant SAPPI mill at Ngodwana, and the MONDI mill at
Richards Bay, were put into production did people start to take a more
serious view of the situation. Environmental awareness helped people
to make the connection between respiratory disease and atmospheric
pollution.
A serious effluent spill at the Ngodwana Mill put shocking pictures of
dead fish on the front pages of newspapers and people started to ask
questions about the true impacts of these mills.
As raw timber was desperately needed to feed the hungry mills, the two
companies already mentioned, SAPPI and MONDI, together with a number
of smaller players, went on a buying spree, paying very high prices
for land in close proximity to their mills so that they could
consolidate their operations into vast estates and take advantage of
lower transport costs.
In their hurry to plant up all this new land, very little
consideration was given to environmental impacts -trees were planted
in wetlands and streams and estate managers were paid bonuses to
maximise production in these areas. Even public land including road
reserves and commonage was ruthlessly planted to trees with no thought
given to the consequences.
At about this time the South African government decided to
"commercialise" the state-owned timber plantations and SAFCOL (South
African Timber Company Ltd) was born. Before very long they (SAFCOL)
too had jumped onto the bandwagon and got busy with planting more
trees into all the natural grasslands that had been excluded
previously due to their ecological sensitivity.
The ways of Corporate tree-planters
It has been estimated that the larger corporate entities responsible
for the expansion of pulpwood plantations in South Africa spend more
money and effort on propaganda than on actual environmental protection
and restoration. Their reaction to public criticism of their actions
is to spend more money on advertising in journals and newspapers.
They sponsor a wide range of "Environmental" projects -from bird and
flower books to education and waste recycling.
In recent years it has been part of the timber companies strategy to
employ "environmentalists" to interface with their critics. In many
cases these people are recruited from government conservation agencies
who appear to be easily tempted by prospects of employment in the
corporate world. These paid "environmentalists" are used as
spokespeople -making statements to the media- speaking at schools
and clubs, spreading the false message that their employers are
actually improving the environment by planting millions of exotic
trees. At shows and fairs, pine tree seedlings are given to
schoolchildren as part of the brainwashing exercise. Poorly informed
people are duped into believing that all trees are good.
In order to defuse public anger over loss of natural surface water
caused by plantations they install boreholes in the affected areas.
People who previously had clean water virtually at their doorsteps are
then forced to carry water over long distances to their houses and
gardens. Areas where crops such as bananas, potatoes, cabbages and
many others could be grown without irrigation before are now too dry.
Cattle and goats are forced to overcrowd the few remaining natural
springs and rivers -damaging rivers and stream banks- trampling and
polluting springs and ponds, making this water unfit for human
consumption.
The two large pulpwood producers have embarked on promoting "community
woodlots" on an extensive scale in rural areas. MONDI has claimed
that their scheme is part of the RDP (Government Reconstruction and
Development Program), to fool the community.
The companies provide seedlings and basic information on how to
establish the woodlot, after persuading subsistence farmers that they
will become wealthy when their trees are ready for harvesting in seven
or eight years time!
What they fail to do is to inform prospective "woodlot" owners of the
environmental and social consequences of their actions.
- They do not warn them not to plant in wetlands or close to rivers
and streams.
- They do not tell them that they will have to find other land for
their livestock to graze on.
- They do not warn them about loss of income from their land for the
next seven years at least.
- They are not warned that their water supply may be affected
negatively.
- They are not told that there is no guarantee that the company will
buy their trees when they are ready.
- They are not adequately informed about the costs of services
provided by the company.
- They are not told how difficult and expensive it will be to convert
their land back to pastures or other crops.
Claims of creating employment for local people do not explain what
happened to people previously employed on the land. With the
expansion of the plantation companies landholdings, many people who
were employed in vegetable, sugar cane or livestock farming are
ejected from homes and land they have occupied for many years. It is
the policy of the plantation companies to consolidate smaller farms
into large "blocks" which can be managed by a single "forester". Farm
houses, sheds and staff accommodation cottages are demolished to make
way for contiguous plantations. People who may have lived on these
farms all their lives are forced to relocate to overpopulated tribal
areas where they have to build new houses -relocate their children to
already overcrowded schools- look for new jobs in sectors where they
lack appropriate experience and know-how.
To make matters worse, most of the work opportunities created by the
timber companies is sourced out to contractors who are not obliged to
offer normal fringe benefits associated with permanent employment.
Many of these contractors prefer to use desperate illegal immigrants
who are prepared to work for lower wages and cannot belong to a labour
union.
State complicity in the development of the industry
Pulp and paper mills in South Africa have benefited from massive
financial incentives, both directly through assistance from the IDC
(Industrial Development Corporation) and indirectly through access to
cheap water and electricity, free pollution, and very favourable tax
laws.
This gives the industry a significant advantage, together with its
ability to manipulate the price of roundwood through its own extensive
plantations. By holding the raw log price as low as possible, it is
possible to ensure that maximum profits are accrued to the mills.
Both MONDI and SAPPI have acquired mills in Europe and other northern
countries. The simple explanation for this is that they need a
guaranteed outlet for the products of their South African operations.
The less obvious explanation may be that these investments are a way
of laundering the surplus accumulated profits made at the expense of
South Africas environment and people.
Planned expansion of plantations
It is the stated intention of the industry to increase the area in
South Africa by 600,000 hectares more -which would add to the existing
1.5 million- and they also aim to establish extensive plantations in
Mozambique.
What is of serious concern is that intensive research into the
development of cold-resistant strains of eucalyptus species is being
undertaken. If this research is successful it could mean that vast
tracts of the interior which presently consist of grasslands and grain
production farms, could fall victim to tree plantations.
The grassland areas inland of the sub-tropical coastal belt are vital
to water production in South Africa. They are able to absorb rainfall
in the summer which is then released slowly to feed rivers and streams
during the dry winter. If extensive tree plantations were to be
established in these areas, it would jeopardise the supply of water to
farmers and townspeople situated downstream as well as exacerbate soil
erosion.
Computerised mechanical harvesting machines have been imported by
MONDI. These machines operate 24 hours a day, felling, pruning,
debarking, cutting and stacking. Three eight-hour shifts employing
three people as opposed to an estimated 200 workers using manual
methods -leaving 197 workers made redundant by a single machine.
Most plantation operators have also converted from labour-intensive
weed control methods to using herbicides applied by specialist
contractors. Once again resulting in fewer people being employed
directly by the industry.
In sum -as elsewhere else- this forestry model is clearly showing
that, although highly beneficial for large corporations, its social
and environmental impacts make its unsustainable in the long run.
People in South Africa are already organizing oposition and its
environmental and social impacts are becoming clearer as the industry
expands over larger areas of the country and even to neighbouring
countries.
*************- The World Bank: a major actor
The World Bank has been and still is an active and influential
promoter of industrial scale tree monocrops using different
mechanisms. The first one is providing technical advice for forestry
planning. The Bank has carried out dozens of forest sector plans for
various countries, which include models on how to zone land and how
should land be allocated for different uses, including particularly
for plantations. This was a process that the Bank tried to
institutionalize -as a global response to deforestation- through the
Tropical Forestry Action Plan in the 1980's, which received very
strong criticism, particularly from the World Rainforest Movement,
which was actually created during that struggle. That is still one of
the major ways through which the Bank influences and lays the ground
for plantations.
The Bank also supports specific forestry projects. Some of these
projects are now known under other names, such as national resource
management projects, environmental projects and so on. But basically
many of them have forestry and plantations as a focus. Between 1984
and 1994, the Bank lent 1.4 billion dollars to create 2.9 million
hectares of plantations.
Additionally, the proportion of money lent does not really reflect the
scale of its influence. Many of its loans trigger other institutions
into committing money into projects, because the Bank provides them
with some kind of guarantee. This creates an attractive environment
for other investors, so for every dollar that the Bank invests, many
other dollars follow.
Apart from helping to establish industry around the plantations, the
Bank also funds "social forestry programmes", which provide
outsourcing for paper mills. An example of such a programme is in
southern India, where eucalyptus plantations are promoted on farmers'
land, leading to the displacement of many farm workers.
In terms of industrial scale tree monocrops for pulp, the Bank also
funds --and has funded for decades-- so-called small holder nucleus
estates, which are set up by and large to furnish the para-statal
industries with tree crop material such as palm oil and so on.
Billions of dollars have gone to Indonesia to promote these
plantations and some of these are linked to the transmigration
programmes, whereby the workers are relocated to the Outer Islands -
again financed by the World Bank- to furnish labour to these small
holder nucleus estates (the nucleus is the industrial plantation). The
small holders are then trapped into a near monopolistic relationship
with the company to provide the tree crop products. When the Bank got
criticised for actually supporting the export of labour to the Outer
Islands, it subsequently invested most of the money in so-called
second stage development. The agricultural model was failing on many
of these ressettlement sites and so it encouraged the settlers to
switch to tree crops, again as a way of providing material to the
mills.
Plantations are also supported through agricultural sector loans in a
whole range of kinds, included providing credit to agricultural banks.
In Papua New Guinea, for example, all the coastal plantations are
funded by the Multilateral Development Banks.
It is also necessary to bear in mind that the Bank influences or
creates the conditions for promoting plantations through structural
adjustment lending. The basic objectives of structural adjustment
lending being to promote foreign direct investment, to create a better
fiscal climate for overseas investments, and to promote an export-
based economy. Guyana is an example where promotion of the forestry
sector for export is now leading into plantation companies coming in
as a natural follow up to logging. The loggers come in, log the forest
saying that they are doing selective logging, but all along they
actually admit that they are coming in to do oil palm plantations.
That is something which is starting there, and that has come up very
explicitly in the context of structural adjustment programmes.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC, part of the World Bank
Group), invests directly in projects linked to plantations. Bahia Sul
Celulose in Brazil, for instance, has the IFC as one of its
shareholders, In Kenya, while the World Bank lent money to promote
tree plantations, the IFC was investing money in the Kenyan pulp,
paper and packaging industry.
The Global Environment Facility, which is a grant facility where the
World Bank is the main implementing agency, has also provided money to
set up plantations under the guise of carbon sinks, at least in
Ecuador and Kenya.
The World Bank is therefore one of the major agents in the promotion
of industrial-scale tree monocrops and much effort will need to be
directed in order to make it introduce changes, not only into its
forestry sector loans, but to the whole range of those of its
activities which result in the substitution of native ecosystems (both
forests and grasslands) by monoculture tree plantations.
************************************************************ -
Plantations and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests
In 1995, the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development established an
Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) to address a wide range of
forest-related issues. The IPF produced a final report in early 1997
containing a set of 135 proposals for action, that governments have
agreed to implement. This package of proposals was formally endorsed
at the June 1997 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the
implementation of Agenda 21.
As a follow-up to the IPF, at UNGASS, governments established the
Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) to promote implementation of
the IPF proposals for action, to monitor such implementation; and to
address matters left pending by the IPF. The first meeting of the IFF
took place on 1-3 October 1997 in New York, and will be followed by
three more meetings before reporting back to the CSD in the year 2000:
August 1998, May 1999 and another one sometime later that year.
The IFF is now an extremely important forum, where governments talk
about forests together. It is being assisted by the Inter-agency Task
Force on Forests, integrated by: the Centre for International Forestry
Research (CIFOR), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO).
the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the
United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable
Development (DPCSD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank. So
the whole complex of the IFF is an important discusion forum among
governments about forests.
The IPF and tree plantations
The IPF's proposals for action, whose implementation is now going to
be promoted by the IFF, contain a number of contradictions as respects
to plantations, which reflect the different interests at stake among
the governments involved in the process. Some of them seem to wish to
preserve native forests, others want to replace them by plantations;
some wish to create extensive plantations, others want to simplify
existing forests, converting them into something similar to
plantations; some are interested in the continuing provision of raw
material for the pulp industry, others are focused on plantations as
carbon sinks. The result of the ensuing discussion, influenced by
other actors such as industry, bilateral and multilateral agencies,
NGOs, indigenous peoples' organizations, and others, has been a very
confusing set of proposals. This confusion has also been influenced by
the FAO's definitions, which includes plantations under the term
"forests". Although the IPF's proposals for action do differentiate
between natural forests and plantations, the terms used allow for
confusion ("natural" forests and "forest" plantations) and therefore
pave the way for them to be used as sinonyms, for the benefit of the
promoters of plantations.
The first time plantations are mentioned is in paragraph 22, which
says: "Both sustainably managed natural forests and forest
plantations, as components of integrated land-use that takes account
of environmental and socio-economic concerns, fulfil a valuable role
in meeting the need for forest products, goods and services, as well
as helping to conserve biological diversity and providing a reservoir
for carbon. The costs, benefits and benefits of different types of
forest management, including forest plantations, need to be appraised
under different social, cultural, economic and ecological conditions.
The role of forest plantations as an important element of sustainable
forest management and as a complement to natural forests should be
recognized."
That paragraph contains a number of conceptual errors:
1) Plantations are not forests
2) Plantations do not provide for most of the services provided by
forests
3) Plantations do not help to conserve biological diversity
4) Plantations are not a durable reservoir of carbon
5) Plantations in many cases conspire against sustainable forest
management, by replacing forests
6) Plantations are seldom a complement to natural forests.
At the same time, it contains another major contradiction in that it
declares that "[T]he costs, benefits and disbenefits of different
types of forest management, including forest plantations, need to be
appraised under different social, cultural, economic and ecological
conditions", but immediately recognizes (with no appraisal whatsoever)
"[T]he role of forest plantations as an important element of
sustainable forest management and as a complement to natural forests .
. ."
The above paragraph is reinforced by paragraph 28, through which the
"Panel urged countries:
(a) To assess long-term trends in their supply and demand for wood,
and to consider actions to promote the sustainability of their wood
supply and their means for meeting demand, with a special emphasis on
investment in sustainable forest management and the strengthening of
institutions for forest resource and forest plantations management;
(b) To recognize and enhance the role of forest plantations as an
important element of sustainable forest management complementary to
natural forests;
The above clearly shows a wood supply approach to forests. In spite of
all the international processes which have taken place particularly
after the Earth Summit, forests are here still being basically
considered as wood producers. In that context, obviously plantations
make sense, to ensure an ever increasing consumption of wood and wood
products. However, they do not make sense from a social and
environmental perspective, where local people and local environments
suffer the impacts, either of "sustainable" logging or of plantations,
and usually from both: the latter following the former.
Paragraph 43 states that in "some countries" [without specifying in
which] plantations of fast-growing trees have had good and cost-
effective results in terms of soil protection." Given that in many
cases the opposite has been proven true, this should be brought to the
attention of the IFF in order to avoid a wrong generalization of this
type.
On the positive side, the document at least mentions that plantations
should be implemented preferably with native species and should not
replace natural forests. Paragraph 58 (b ii) urges "countries with low
forest cover:
(ii) To plan and manage forest plantations, where appropriate, to
enhance production and provision of goods and services, paying due
attention to relevant social, cultural, economic and environmental
considerations in the selection of species, areas and silviculture
systems, preferring native species, where appropriate, and taking all
practicable steps to avoid replacing natural ecosystems of high
ecological and cultural values with forest plantations, particularly
monocultures;"
We obviously strongly support the last part of the paragraph (avoiding
the replacement of natural ecosystems by tree monocultures), but at
the same time it raises some questions:
1) Why does this recommendation only apply to "countries with low
forest cover"? Shouldn't all countries avoid replacing forests
(whether with high ecological and cultural value or not) with
plantations and shouldn't all not avoid monocultures?
2) Who is going to "plan and manage" those forest plantations": the
local communities, the Forestry Department? Is the "provision of goods
and services" aimed at the local community or at the international
market? How are the decisions going to be made? What does "paying due
attention" mean?
3) From a Western forestry science point of view, plantations of
native species are seldom "appropriate", either because their wood
production is slower, or because they don't have a market value, or
because when planted in closed stands they tend to be affected by
"pests and diseases" (animals and plants which make part of the local
ecosystems). So "preferring native species, where appropriate" seems
to be only wishful thinking, to appease environmentalists.
In sum, as respects to plantations, the IPF's proposals for action
appear to be more a problem than a solution. However, there seems to
be room for influencing their implementation and one of the campaign's
main targets should be to generate awareness on the drawbacks of
plantations, particularly the social and environmental effects that
they have at the local level. The awareness-raising activities should
obviously focus on IFF participants, but should at the same time aim
at a much wider audience which will itself also influence decision-
makers, both within and outside the IFF process.
************************************************************ - Jaakko
Poyry: more than mere consultants
Jaakko Poyry is one of the actors involved in creating the conditions
for establishing plantations. This consulting company was born in
Finland 40 years ago. It grew up together with the boom of
Scandinavian forestry after the war, when Finland, Sweden and Norway
became one of the superpowers of industrial forestry. Jaakko Poyry was
there, helping them to do it. It's role was to provide special
expertise about planning pulp mills, paper mills, plantations,
logging, how to plan industrial operations. At first its clients were
Sweden, Finland, Norway and the rest of Europe. In the last couple of
decades it started to expand globally and this has followed the
pressures to expand plantations to the South, the pressures to exploit
the forests of the South. This is a result of that but it is also one
of the things that has facilitated this move to the South. Because as
a consultancy, Jaakko Poyry plays an important role to get the land
together with the machines, to get the officials together with the
executives, to get the consultants together with the Forestry
Department, so that the land can be converted to something which will
support industrial forestry for pulp and paper.
Its role in the South especially --although obviously in the North as
well-- is essentially political. They advertise themselves as
technicians, but their role is largely networking, getting people
together, getting the industry together with the officials, selling
pulp and paper machinery, selling forestry machinery from Scandinavia
and other countries, getting together the technology with the
political infrastructure in each country.
That's basically what they do. They have offices in 25 countries
around the world and employ almost 5,000 people.
Indonesia provides a clear example of Jaakko Poyry's work. First hired
by the World Bank to do surveys, assessments and planning for the
entire forestry sector in Indonesia, this later resulted in contracts
to help the specific private firms who were involved in plantations
and industrial forestry in Indonesia, where many pulp mills are now
being built..
In 1988 Jaakko Poyry did a study of Indonesia's timber resources for
the Asia Development Bank and this was to identify sites for the
development of the pulp industry in that country. As a result of that
there are now 65 big pulp mills planned for Indonesia, with another 15
with permission to operate. Since then, the Finnish government
agencies have provided guarantees, bank loans, technical advisors and
equipment for the pulp and paper development in Indonesia and this
includes setting up the plantations and then setting up the pulp
factories which work from that. A number of other Finnish agencies and
companies benefitted later from this.
Jaakko Poyry did the feasibility study for Indorayon in the North of
Sumatra, and advised and supervised the plantations, the nursery and
the equipment that went into that. It was also involved in Indah Kiat,
which is another huge development in Riau, including pulp mills and
paper production and in the Riau Andalan plant as well, where
UPM/Kymmene (from Finland) is now involved. The PT TEL pulp mill also
included Jaakko Poyry involvement, as well as the Finantara Intiga
project in West Kalimantan, which is a joint venture between ENSO (The
Finnish forestry state agency) and the Indonesian cigarette company
Gutam Garang, who established a large plantation and there's a factory
due for construction there in East Kalimantan.
Those are just some examples within the whole pulp industry and the
plantations on which they depend, that are a result of Jaakko Poyry's
work. These pulp mills are at the moment using native forests because
the plantations are not yet mature. In the case of Indorayon the
plantations are mature now, but to create those plantations they
destroyed the forest.
The only example where mills have not been built first and then the
plantations set up is the case of Finantara Intiga, where they have
set up the plantations before they even built the mill. But the
general pattern is the other way round: they build the mill, they get
a timber concession, clear-fell and then establish the plantation.
In spite of all the above -which are only some examples in one single
country- Jaakko Poyry is now trying to promote itself as a "green"
consultancy. However, its activities are being challenged, not only by
the people directly affected, but also by Finnish NGOs, who have
organized a number of seminars to show this to the Finnish public, on
whose support the company depends to a large extent.
************************************************************ -
Available material on tree plantations
Individuals and organizations interested in obtaining information on
the issue of large-scale tree plantations can access it in the WRM web
page: http://www.wrm.org.uy. Additionally, for those who wish more in-
depth information and analysis, the WRM has produced a book (Pulping
the South: Industrial Tree Plantations and the Global Paper Economy),
which has been published by Zed Books. Orders can be requested by
sending a message to Helen Salmon
The same book has been published in Spanish (El papel del Sur:
plantaciones forestales en la estrategia papelera internacional) and
can be obtained at RMALC (Red Mexicana de Accin frente al Libre
Comercio)
************************************************************ The
Montevideo Declaration. June 1998
-A call for action to defend forests and people against large-scale
tree monocrops-
In June 1998, citizens of 14 countries around the world gathered in
Montevideo, Uruguay out of urgent concern at the recent and
accelerating invasion of millions of hectares of land and forests by
pulpwood, oil palm, rubber and other industrial tree plantations.
Such plantations have little in common with forests. Consisting of
thousands or even millions of trees of the same species, bred for
rapid growth, uniformity and high yield of raw material and planted in
even-aged stands, they require intensive preparation of the soil,
fertilisation, planting with regular spacing, selection of seedlings,
mechanical or chemical weeding, use of pesticides, thinning, and
mechanized harvesting.
As people from six continents engaged in fighting such industrial
monocultures and near-monocultures have testified, the resulting
radical conversion of the landscape, together with the disruption of
social and natural systems, can threaten the welfare and even survival
of local communities.
The following are the most frequently cited environmental impacts:
* reduced soil fertility
* increased erosion and compaction of the soil * loss of natural
biodiversity
* reduced groundwater reserves and stream-flow * increase in fires
and fire risks
These effects frequently extend far outside plantation boundaries,
with nearby or downstream areas being affected by erosion, desiccation
and radical, sometimes irreversible changes in the local flora and
fauna. All these impacts damage local peoples' lives and livelihoods.
Industrial tree plantations have in many cases been preceded by firing
or clearcutting of native forests and have therefore become a new and
major cause of deforestation. In agricultural areas, industrial tree
plantations have undermined food security by usurping productive
cropland and pastures, thus contributing to local poverty. In many
cases they have resulted in forced displacement or forced resettlement
of local people, in widespread human rights abuses and in violation of
local peoples' land rights. Nearly everywhere they have been
established, industrial tree plantations have destroyed people's
livelihoods in agriculture, fisheries, animal husbandry and
gathering. The pitiful number of jobs they create -- insecure,
seasonal, badly paid frequently dangerous, and susceptible to market
cycles -- cannot compensate for the loss of employment that they
cause.
Pulpwood plantations can be particularly huge. The scale of these
plantations --most often of eucalyptus, pine or acacia-- is
influenced by the immensity of the factories which process the trees
they grow. A $1 billion pulp mill may produce a half million to a
million tons of pulp a year and divert an entire river through its
machines as it squats amid sixty thousand hectares or more of
plantations. The cost of reengineering and simplifying landscapes in
this way can be paid only through massive direct and indirect
subsidies-- including tax breaks, government handouts, infrastructure,
research and suppression of labour organization-- captured through the
exercise of political power. The power exercised by the industry
locally tends to result in further subsidies, further expansion,
political repression, hostility to democratic procedures, and
contempt for local needs and landscapes.
The plantation industry is increasingly moving to the South, where
cheap land, labour and water, fast tree growth, and loose
environmental controls result in lower production costs. This
encourages the current pattern of excessive and growing paper
consumption in the North and parts of the South.
Assisting or underwriting the spread of industrial tree plantations is
a set of supporting actors ranging from the World Bank and bilateral
"aid" agencies to research institutions and university scientists.
Money badly needed to support the development of local livelihood
security (including the development of small-scale, locally-
appropriate and environmentally-responsible paper production
techniques using locally available raw materials) is directed into
forestry research supporting the use of fertilizers, herbicides,
pesticides, biotechnology, cloning and a Green Revolution-like
package of techniques which has proven to be detrimental to local
environments and livelihoods. In the name of "development", other
public monies are diverted to forestry consulting firms, pulping
machinery manufacturers, and pulp and paper companies which are often
also involved in logging native forests.
To counter growing resistance, the industry is attempting to "green"
its image by presenting tree monocrops as "planted forests" and as
carbon sinks. Although tree plantations have little in common with
forests and although most of the carbon stored by plantations will be
released to the atmosphere again within five to ten years, such myths
are sometimes accepted by uninformed audiences.
In view of these concerns, we pledge our support to an international
campaign to:
* support local peoples' rights and struggles against the invasion of
their lands by these plantations
* encourage awareness of the negative social and environmental impacts
of large-scale industrial monocrop tree plantations, and
* change the conditions which make such plantations possible.
We therefore commit ourselves to joining the movements opposed to such
plantations --movements which have already achieved significant
successes.
We are confident that the struggle against the industrial forestry
model will at the same time help enable local communities to implement
local solutions to local problems --solutions which will
simultaneously have positive impacts on the global environment, and
whose continuing evolution we also pledge ourselves to support.
Montevideo, June 1998
Yoichi Kuroda
Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN) Japan
Witoon Permpongsacharoen
Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA) Thailand
Marcus Colchester
Forest Peoples Programme
UK
Patrick Anderson
Greenpeace International
The Netherlands
William Appiah
Third World Network
Ghana
Larry Lohmann
The Corner House
UK
Chris Hatch
Rainforest Action Network
USA
Saskia Ozinga
FERN
UK
Wally Menne
Timberwatch Coalition
South Africa
Liz Chidley
Down to Earth
UK
Hernan Verscheure
Comite Nacional pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora-Codeff Chile
Rosa Roldan
Instituto Brasileiro de Analises Sociais e Economicas Brasil
Elias Diaz Pena
Sobrevivencia
Paraguay
Goran Eklof
Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) Sweden
Chad Dobson
Consumer's Choice Council
USA
Silvia Ribeiro
Red de Ecologia Social/Friends of the Earth-Uruguay Uruguay
Roberto Bissio
Instituto del Tercer Mundo
Uruguay
Hilary Sandison
Imagenes
Uruguay
Raquel Nunez
Red del Tercer Mundo
Uruguay
Liliana Medina Cocaro
Voluntad Internacional de Defensa Ambiental (VIDA) Uruguay
Ricardo Carrere
World Rainforest Movement International Coordinator Uruguay
*************