Bulletin Issue 18 – December 1998

One of the main reasons which explains why large-scale industrial tree plantations can be promoted at the global level while they are being strongly opposed at the local level, is the manipulation of concepts and information to feed the uninformed public. Trees -any trees- are presented as sinonimous to forests and forests are rightly perceived by most people as good and necessary to humanity. The fact that plantations have nothing in common with forests is not that easy to be understood by the general -particularly the urban- public.

Not according to British researchers James Fairhead and Melissa Leach. Their recent book 'Reframing Deforestation, Global Analysis and Local Realities: Studies in West Africa', published by Routledge Press, uses extensive historical evidence from archives, travelers' reports, and oral accounts for Benin, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo to show claims of massive forest loss in these countries have been greatly exaggerated. Specifically, they find that: * These countries have lost some 10 million hectares of forest since 1900, not 25-50 million hectares as previously claimed, * Much of the so-called 'forest zone' has probably never been forest,

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has recently published a report on Ghana's forests and forest policies titled "Falling into Place", produced in collaboration with the Ghanaian Ministry of Lands and Forestry. Authors include Nii Ashie Kotey, Johnny Francois, JGK Owusu, Raphael Yeboah, Kojo S. Amanor and Lawrence Antwi. The book provides a historical analysis, a description of the different types of forests, the stakeholders involved and the evolution of government forest policy, ending with conclusions and suggestions for the future. The report is available at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana  and at IIED.

As in many other countries, Gambia's forests are facing a type of forest degradation which implies the substitution of native species by an exotic. But this is not the common situation where plantation companies substitute native forests by eucalyptus, pines or palm oil plantations. In this case, the villain is a "good" tree, brought into the country by Indian immigrants: the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica). In India, this tree has a number of positive features, among which the production of a useful natural pesticide. In Gambia, it is becoming a pest. But not because native forests are being cut to plant neem: the tree is slowly invading the forest and getting increasingly out of control.

"Forest-Americas" is a list for forest activists in North, Central and South America who want to work together to protect forests and counter the growing threats posed by trade liberalization and globalization of the timber trade. The purpose of the list is to help activists build wider networks to share information and develop joint strategies.

In previous issues of the Bulletin we informed on the expansion of tree monocultures and the pulp and paper industry in Vietnam, under a scheme not aimed at attending the needs of farmers, villagers, or even the country’s economy in the long run (Bulletin 7, December 1997; Bulletin 15, September 1998). The unsustainability of Vietnamese forestry policy becomes evident once again: from July 1998 the Government is allowing imports of Cambodian timber, and even encouraging the re-export of both logs and sawn wood made out of Cambodian and Laotian timber.

For perhaps the first time since Indonesia's independence, the West Sumatran authorities called together 120 Mentawai people for negotiations with the local government in Padang. The representatives were community leaders, religious figures and village heads from the whole Mentawai island chain (off the West coast of Sumatra.) The subject of the meeting was how to bring 10,800 transmigrant families to the Mentawai islands for a commercial oil palm development (PIR-Trans) by PT Citra Mandiri Widya Nusa -owned by ex-Employment Minister Abdul Latif.

Last October, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia) went on a field trip to Sarawak to interview Dayak Ibans that were affected by the Hydroelectric Batang Ai Dam and relocated in nearby districts during the past decade.

The pulp and paper industry, which lost a number of battles to peasants opposing both plantations and pulp mills in Thailand , is now putting pressure on the government for the approval of an expansion of eucalyptus plantations. The Thai Pulp Industry Association is suggesting the Agriculture Ministry ammend the existing forestry law which curbs the planting of eucalyptus. The reasoning is simple: that "the law should acknowledge that eucalyptus is an economic plant." The already well-known social and environmental impacts don't seem to be a major source of concern for the industry.

Western Forest Products (WFP), a Canadian logging company with a long record of clearcutting ancient temperate rainforest, has applied for FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification for an operation in a watershed on British Columbia's central coast called the Ingram-Mooto. WFP is seeking the FSC stamp of approval to combat the international market campaigns targeting the company's customers in Europe and the United States. WFP has already clearcut, blasted and bulldozed a logging road several kilometers deep into the once pristine Ingram-Mooto. What WFP has done there can only be described as an environmental atrocity, yet has been able to contract SGS from the UK to act as its certifier.

Smurfit Carton of Venezuela, a subsidiary of the Dublin-based transnational Jefferson Smurfit, which recently merged with Stone Container, thereby becoming the world’s largest producer of paper and paperboard, is both creating and facing big problems in Venezuela. A previous merger with the US-based Container Corporation in 1986, led Jefferson Smurfit to becoming the major shareholder of Carton de Venezuela, changing its name to the current Smurfit Carton de Venezuela. Until then, the company’s mill had produced pulp from sugarcane bagasse (a by-product in sugar production). In 1994 it switched its pulp production to wood, to be supplied from plantations and primarily from tropical forest.

Melvis Molina, president of the Environmental Group of the village of Morador in the state of Portuguesa was arrested. The Environmental Group stated that the judge's decision was the result of pressures from Smurfit's lawyers and accused the company of responding with judicial terrorism to the recent visit of WRM's international coordinator, which they hope will result in raising international awareness about the ecological and social disaster caused by this company. It is also believed that the arrest is a revenge on Molina and his family, for his persistent criticism in the local press regarding the social and environmental impact of Smurfit's plantations.

By means of this letter, we would like to comment the article of Mr. Julio Cesar Centeno, published in the October edition of 'Aracruz News', bulletin of the pulp and eucalyptus plantation company Aracruz Celulose. In his article, Mr Centeno praises the eucalyptus plantations at Aracruz Celulose because of their "capacity to have a significant impact on local and national economies". Although the author admits that plantations have both positive and negative implications, he merely considers the positive implications, clearly supporting the interests of Aracruz Celulose in promoting its tarnished image. Unfortunately, in spite of the 'objective' tone of his article, Mr.

The Kolla indigenous people, that live in the northern Argentinian Provinces of Jujuy and Salta, have been defending the “yungas” -one of the last remaining mountain forests in Argentina- against a pipeline project that would transport natural gas from eastern Salta to the northern Chilean copper mines. In April 1998 ENARGAS –the Argentinian regulatory entity- approved the project presented by Consorcio Norandino SA, according to which the pipeline would cross Finca San Andres, inhabited by 350 Kolla families, who oppose it.

APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd.) –partner of the Finnish UPM-Kymmene- is known for its permanent violations to human rights and depredatory environmental practices in Indonesia. Lately APRIL has been the cause of local conflicts between villagers and workers in Indonesia (see WRM Bulletin 17, November 1998).

The destruction of Acre, in the Western Brazilian Amazon began in 1877, with the arrival of peasants from Brasil's Northeast, escaping from drought and misery. They were brought to the forest as cheap labour to exploit rubber for the benefit of the so called “seringalistas”, composed by powerful Brazilian and foreign economic groups. They were even forced to fight against the indigenous peoples that inhabited that land: only ten out of the sixty indigenous nations that lived in the Jurua valley, in Acre, survived and their population decreased dramatically. As time went by, the “seringueiros” –workers in rubber production- had to adapt to that new environment, learning from the ancestral traditions of indigenous peoples how to live in the forest.

A workshop on Forests, Plantations and the Multilateral Development Banks was held from 2-4 December in Montevideo, Uruguay, organized by the Latin American and Caribbean NGO Network on the Multilateral Development Banks. Representatives from 18 NGOs -most of them from Latin America- participated in the event. Presentations on the Forest Policy of the World Bank, the situation of forests and tree plantations in the region and case studies on several Latin American countries were made (see article in this issue).

B.C.Y Freezailah, executive director of the International Tropical Timber Organization compared in Tokyo sustainable management of tropical forests with tree plantations and concluded that tropical forestry will need to switch to tree plantations. He stated that 'tropical timbers from natural forests are increasingly facing competition with timbers from temperate forests, against which tropical timber from sustainably managed natural forests is at a distinct disadvantage.' (the 'temperate forests' mentioned are in fact plantations in Chile and New Zealand.)

Scandinavian NGOs are requesting information on Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper-related firms' activities in the South. Such assistance can be very valuable for all, given that it may result in a collaborative relationship to support local struggles in the South. Many of these companies are crucial actors in pulp and paper projects, many of which are being resisted by local peoples. For example, the Norwegian multinational company Kvaerner Pulp & Paper is one of the major actors profitting from large pulp and paper projects in the South, by selling equipment to projects such as the following:

Large scale overseas plantation projects planned by Japan's paper industry cannot be accepted in joint implementation or in the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change. What is actually resulting from plantations is forest degradation and related carbon emissions. At the same time, carbon contained in the wood that is extracted from plantations is released almost immediately in the case of pulpwood plantations, because wood is transformed into paper, much of which is short-lived, thereby releasing the stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Before assessing any CDM projects, it is therefore necessary to close a number of loopholes contained in forestry accounting.

"Glyphosate is less harmfull than table salt", stated one of Aracruz Celulose's managers at a public meeting in Brazil. Artur Duarte Branco, leader of the company workers' trade union SINTICEL, offered to drink there and then a large glassfull of water with table salt if Aracruz's manager drank himself a small glass of glyphosate. The man's loyalty to the company did not go as far as that and he laughed away the challenge. Which was a wise move on his part.

The conclusions of the XI Global Biodiversity Forum, held last November in Buenos Aires -attended by Alvaro Gonzalez of the WRM Secretariat- reveal significant coincidences with some of WRM's viewpoints. One point in common is that which states that even if the increasing number of multilateral agreements on the environment could mean greater concern on the issue, this could also lead to a fragmented and ineffective approach to reality. On the contrary, a holistic vision is needed, that takes into account natural, social, economic and cultural factors working together. Another important point in common is the one that stresses that “done incorrectly, the forest-based measures to address climate change . . .

Ricardo Carrere went to the state of Portuguesa in Venezuela following an invitation from AMIGRANSA and from Alfredo Torres, advisor to the Senate's Environment Committee. The objective of the trip was two-fold: 1) To get in contact with local communities affected by large-scale plantations implemented by the Irish-based transnational Jefferson Smurfit to feed its pulpmill in Venezuela and 2) To share WRM's findings on the reasons behind the spread of such plantations in the South, the impacts they are having and the struggles that are taking place against them. Part of the findings of the trip are registered in a short article published in this issue of the bulletin, while a more in-depth publication will be forthcoming shortly.