Large-Scale Tree Plantations

The external debt is a heavy burden for Southern countries especially for the poorest ones and for the poorest sectors within them. Governments implement IMF/World Bank-promoted structural adjustment programmes in their economies to ensure punctual debt servicing, which divert funds that could otherwise have been devoted to satisfying basic needs of their population, such as food, education, housing and health.

Sweden, Finland and Norway rarely appear in the media. At least not in relation with the North's footprint in the South and even less so in deforestation-related matters. The US, Canada, Japan and many West European countries usually dominate the headlines. And they certainly deserve it, since corporations based in those countries are actively extracting ever increasing resources from the South and destroying the local and global environment in the process.

Located at the Northern limit of the African tropical forest region, Togo still has 1,396,200 hectares of forest cover, which represents 24% of the country's total area. In a landscape dominated by the savanna, forests constitute a very important biodiversity site as well as a fundamental source of livelihoods for local communities. Nevertheless, forest management in Togo has been facing important problems.

Indorayon's pulp and rayon factory (PT IIU) in Porsea, North Sumatra, has provoked a long socio-environmental conflict in the region, where villagers and local NGOs have been demanding its closure -due to the pollution affecting Lake Toba because of the factory effluents, the destruction of the forests of the area and the plantation of tree monocultures to obtain raw material- while the mill's workers want to keep it open in the absence of other job opportunities in the region.

Over the last decade or so Thailand has seen repeated protests against eucalyptus plantations. Villagers have taken part in marches, uprooted trees, set fire to plantations, declared their lands "eucalyptus free" and reclaimed plantation land by regenerating community forests. (See WRM Bulletin no. 8) Despite these protests and the problems associated with eucalyptus plantations, Thailand's two largest pulp and paper producers Phoenix Pulp and Paper Plc and Advance Agro Plc are currently planning large scale expansions.

News about the association of Stora Enso with Aracruz Celulose is certainly bad news for local people in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, dominated by three major pulp corporations: Veracel, Aracruz and Bahia Sul. Veracel will now be jointly owned by Stora Enso and Aracruz (with 10% of the remaining shares in the hands of Brazilian group Odebretch). These three companies own more than 300,000 hectares of fast-growing eucalyptus monocultures, which are having strong negative impacts on water, soils and biodiversity which also impact negatively on local peoples' livelihoods.

 

Destruction of forests to make place to tree monocultures is a well documented fact in many Southern countries. A similar but less known process is also happening in the southeastern region of the USA. The states of Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina have been and continue to be invaded by huge loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations. This species is native to the region, but specifically to the moist piedmont between highlands and the sea, and a stranger to the hills where plantations are mostly being installed. But these aren't just any loblollies.

Vast areas of the southern island of Tasmania in Australia are being planted with tree monocultures as "carbon sinks" and causing concern at different levels (see WRM Bulletin 35). At the same time, the timber industry is also very active in promoting plantations for the production of raw wood material.

Fundación Beteguma is a Colombian NGO, with headquarters in Quibdó at the Pacific coast region, which seeks to promote the social, cultural and environmental development of the Biogeographic Chocó through activities of research, conservation and sustainable production involving local communities. The Chocó is one of the few biodiversity hotspots in the world and is suffering a process of environmental degradation because of illegal logging and mining, as well as abuses to human rights.

As nearly everyone knows, the world is heating up, and one of the main causes of climate change is the use of fossil fuels. Under pressure, the industrialized countries most responsible for this state of affairs made some minimal commitments to reduce their fossil fuel emissions in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. However, some of the most polluting countries are trying to find ways out of their commitments, using potential loopholes in the Protocol which may allow them to plant millions of hectares of trees in Southern countries as a substitute for cutting emissions at source.

South Africa boosts an area of 1.5 million hectares of tree plantations, mostly composed of eucalyptus and pine trees, as well as a lesser area of Australian wattle. These plantations have resulted in an important number of social and environmental impacts, most of which were highlighted during a symposium held last June 10 in Pietermaritzburg, organized by the local NGO coalition Timberwatch.