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Issue 137 - December 2008
Tree Plantations in the Mekong Region
THE FOCUS OF THIS ISSUE: TREE PLANTATIONS IN THE MEKONG REGION
Eucalyptus, oil palm, rubber and jatropha monoculture plantations are expanding onto local communities’ lands and forests in the Mekong region’s countries. Promoted under the guise of development, poverty alleviation and even climate change mitigation, such plantations are resulting in severe social and environmental impacts. In spite of the difficult political scenarios in which they are established, local peoples are resisting through whichever means are available to them, ranging from broad alliances against plantations (such as inThailand) to nascent clusters of local resistance against plantations in Cambodia and Laos. The aim of this bulletin is to provide a broad picture of the on-the-ground reality of plantations in the region’s six countries –Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam- as a means of generating awareness on the issue and, more importantly, to assist in making local peoples’ voices heard. At the same time, we hope that the information contained in this bulletin will serve as a useful tool for strengthening resistance against these types of plantations, both within and outside the Mekong region.
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WRM Bulletin
137
December 2008
OUR VIEWPOINT
PLANTATIONS IN THE MEKONG REGION – OVERVIEW
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15 December 2008The inter-meshing of the six economies in the Mekong Basin since the 1990s has been fostered under the Greater Mekong Sub-region economic cooperation programme. This was aimed at increasing the flow of cross-border investment from countries with considerable economic might such as China, Thailand and Vietnam into neighbouring countries such as Laos PDR and Cambodia, which have a ‘doors wide open’ approach calling for foreign companies to come to invest. Extensive land and cheap labour have been used as an incentive for drawing in investors to develop commercial tree plantations in the form of hundreds of large-scale land concessions in the period of the last 4-5 years.
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15 December 2008Just outside the climate change conference in Poznan this morning, Friends of the Earth held a demonstration against the World Bank's funding of coal-fired power plants. World Bank figures on stilts wearing black suits fought against polar bears, throwing pieces of coal at them. "This is a typical example of how European NGOs just don't get it on climate change," someone behind me said. It turned out he worked with the Asian Development Bank in the Bank's climate change unit. He told me that climate change is going to be decided in India and China, where we need to develop "clean ways of burning fossil fuels". By this he meant carbon capture and storage - and he admitted that no such technology exists today.
PLANTATIONS IN THE MEKONG REGION – BY COUNTRY
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15 December 2008Since 2002, when all forest management concessions were suspended, the Cambodian Government has moved to granting Economic Land Concessions to private companies, primarily for the development of agro-industrial cultivation of crops such as rice, cassava, rubber, acacia and agro-fuels. These plantations are intended to not only generate state revenue and develop intensive agricultural activities, but also reduce poverty by promoting local employment opportunities. However from the very beginning these large-scale plantations have failed to adequately meet these objectives and as a result, the Government has been under pressure to better regulate and monitor their operations.
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15 December 2008China’s growing pulp and paper market is being the world's fastest. Although per capita paper consumption is less than ten per cent of the amount consumed in the US, China accounts for 14 per cent of global paper consumption. Jaakko Pöyry has estimated that paper consumption in China would increase at 4.4 per cent a year between 2000 and 2015. Much of that “consumption” is used in packaging of goods for export, which means that real per capita paper consumption in China is actually much lower.
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15 December 2008Investments by foreign companies in commercial tree plantations in Laos PDR increased sharply increased during 2004-2006. Large scale plantations are promoted through state land concessions. Currently, an area of 167,000 ha has been transferred to foreign companies under large scale land concessions in the central and south regions of Laos. Of these, 48% or 80,000 ha are dedicated to rubber, and 28% of 46,600 ha are allocated to growing eucalyptus. However, the total area for growing rubber throughout the country has increased to 182,900 ha. (Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Land Management Authority of Champasak province)
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15 December 2008Since 2006 the small landlocked South East Asian nation of Laos has seen an explosion of small, large and medium scale plantations, particularly rubber, eucalyptus and biofuel crops. This increase in industrial tree plantations has not come about by itself however, but has been promoted by IFI's over the past decade as a means to increase Lao GDP. Foremost among the promoters of plantations development in Laos is the Asian Development Bank. Despite being one of the most corrupt countries in the world (Laos ranked 163 out of 171 in 2007 on transparency internationals Corruption Perceptions Index), the Asian Development Bank has been fervently promoting agro-forestry investment for many years.
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15 December 2008Rubber is one part of life of the people of the South, related both to the culture and economy of the last 108 years. The monoculture production system has replaced a traditional system of rubber forests, where rubber used to be grown in amongst fruit orchards and natural forests known as a suan somrom or “integrated garden”. Rubber plantations have been promoted through the government’s Welfare Fund for Rubber Plantations.
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15 December 2008Thailand is making big plans, in particular for the next ten years, to boost agrofuel production particularly through expansion of oil palm plantations. However, the plans are not going anywhere yet due to the price volatility of agrofuel feedstock like palm oil and sugar as well as growing environmental concerns. Thailand has two types of agrofuels: gasohol (mixture of gasoline and ethanol) and biodiesel. Gasohol made by mixing gasoline with 10% ethanol is called E10 (Gonsalves 2006). Close to 90% of ethanol in Thailand comes from molasses (a fermented by-product of sugar manufacture) and the remaining from cassava. In 2007, Thailand’s ethanol production was 192.8 million liters (APEC 2008).
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15 December 2008Every year for the past decade or so, Vietnam has faced paper shortages. This year is no exception. In May 2008, Vietnam's newspapers reported that publishing houses and printers were facing difficulties in buying supplies. The shortages were happening even though the country's two biggest pulp and paper mills, Bai Bang and Tan Mai were operating at full capacity and paper imports had increased sharply during the first months of the year.
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15 December 2008Ask any Cambodian what s/he considers to be the foundation of society and life in Cambodia and the answer is likely to be “land.” Land is livelihood. But equally, land is valued as an emblem of rootedness, belonging and stability, and is widely regarded as the very basis of social organisation in the country. A family's attachment to its piece of land has particular significance in a society that over the past hundred years has hurtled through successive periods of civil conflict, war, massive displacement, forced collectivisation and genocide, and finally into an unregulated, capitalist, market economy.
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15 December 2008In December 2005, Burma's Senior General Than Shwe ordered the start of a nation-wide campaign to plant Jatropha curcas for biodiesel production. The country was to plant eight million acres [3.2 million hectares], or an area the size of Belgium, within three years. Each of Burma's states and divisions, regardless of size, were expected to plant at least 500,000 acres. In Rangoon Division, 20% of all available land will be covered by jatropha.