***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

World Rainforest Movement Bulletin--Anti-Plantation Campaign

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

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 <HELEN@zedbooks.demon.co.uk>

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) <rmalc@laneta.apc.org>

************************************************************ 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

************************************************************

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

This document is for general distribution. All efforts are made to

provide accurate, timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for

verifying all information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia

Forest Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/

Networked by Ecological Enterprises, gbarry@forests.org