Bulletin Issue 25 – July 1999

Carrying out a campaign against plantations is not easy, particulary in places located far away from the plantation areas. How can you be against tree planting? Doesn't the world need more trees? These are the type of questions we have to face time and time again. We explain that we are not opposing the plantation of trees but a specific type of activity, characterized by being large scale monocultures of exotic trees which usurp local peoples' forests and lands and result in a large number of negative social and environmental impacts. But the task is not an easy one. At the receiving end -in the plantation areas- there is little need for explanations and much need of support to people confronting them, precisely because they know -and suffer- the consequences.

Opposition to plantations is not an academic exercise, but a direct result of the impacts of plantations in many countries. All of the research carried out on this issue is the direct or indirect result of the identification of a number of problems by local peoples who suffer the consequences. What independent research has done is to put the issue in a broader perspective and to explain academically why local peoples are right. This does not mean that such research is not important. On the contrary, it is crucial in assisting local peoples in their struggles, by translating their findings into a language which can be understood and accepted by decision-making circles as well as to disseminate them widely to gain support at the public level.

  The impacts of industrial tree plantations on local plants and animals are very well known. They are particularly clear when tree monocultures replace forests -as happens in many tropical countries- and also relevant, even if not so apparent, when plantations are set up on grassland ecosystems. Tree plantations imply a simplification of the previously existing ecosystem, thus resulting in a loss of biodiversity.

 

The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) was established in 1997, being its first task that of promoting and monitoring the implementation of the 135 Proposals for Action agreed by the International Panel on Forests (IPF). The IPF's proposals for action contain a number of contradictions in relation to plantations, which reflect the different interests at stake among the governments involved in the process, and the presence of a strong pro-plantations lobby within the Forum.

The FAO holds major responsibility regarding monoculture tree plantations, having been the first international organization to actively promote -since the 1950s- the present plantation model. In spite of all the already known negative social and environmental impacts resulting from the Green Revolution in general and from its application in the forestry area in particular, the FAO continues being the main international body promoting such model and providing it with the necessary "expert" support.

The World Bank is one of the major actors directly and indirectly promoting industrial tree monocrops in many countries, especially in the tropical region. The Bank directly promotes plantations through:

Forestry consultancy firms are crucial actors behind the scenes in the implementation of pulpwood plantations. They are in charge of promoting, investigating, planning, designing and setting up pulp and paper mills and plantation activities. Additionally, they play the important role of establishing links between executives, technology and machine providers, and local officials and authorities to make sure the establishment and the continuity of such projects.

There is a variety of bilateral aid agencies. The work of some of them may actually contribute to improve the quality of life of the population of Southern countries and there are people working in those organization who devote their efforts to that goal. However, it is equally important to stress that there is also an important number of such agencies -specifically in the forestry-related sector- whose work results in negative impacts to local peoples and their environments.

The increasing paper and wood demand at the global level, together with the need to preserve the remaining forests, are used to justify the expansion of tree plantations for the production of paper and wood. At the same time, the threat of global warming is used to promote plantations as carbon sinks. But the issue of overconsumption of paper, wood and fossil fuels -which are at the basis of the current crisis- are not included in the equation.

Southern governments are ultimately responsible for the adoption of the plantation model and for its implementation at the national and local levels. Even when the idea for the promotion of plantations may originate in external actors (World Bank, consulting firms, aid agencies, etc.), it is the Southern governments which need to pave the way to make their implementation possible. The first step usually consists in carrying out viability studies -with funds provided by international funding or bilateral aid agencies- to justify such development. A second and crucial element is the adoption of legislation to promote tree plantations, which centrally includes direct and indirect incentives to make the activity profitable for corporations.

Modern forestry science -silviculture- arose in the North as a result of the Industrial Revolution: forest management was separated from agriculture and cattle breeding and focused exclusively on the production of timber, considering other vital forest goods as "minor products". Plantations constitute the ultimate step in that direction, achieving the total simplification of nature with the aim of producing only one product for industrial purposes. This narrow approach, where forests are viewed as only composed of wood for industry- has been adopted by most forestry technical schools and universities, where professionals are formed.

Ongoing certification programmes are the result of successful consumer awareness campaigns against the unsustainable exploitation of forests. The public reacted by demanding the possibility of being able to know which products they could buy which had been extracted under socially and environmentally sustainable forest management. Independent certification was therefore required. At the public level, one of the certification schemes which has wider credibility is the FSC, given the direct participation of an important number of NGOs in this process.

The WRM has just published two new plantations campaign briefings ("Pulpwood Plantations: a Growing Problem" and "Ten Replies to Ten Lies") which are available free of charge from the International Secretariat. NGOs, IPOs and community-based organizations can request more than one copy, also free of charge. The first briefing is a summarized version of "Pulping the South" and is also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese. The second briefing counters the 10 main arguments used worldwide by plantations promoters and is also available in Spanish.

"Pulping the South: industrial tree plantations and the world paper economy.", by Carrere, R. & Lohmann, L. Book. Published by Zed Books, UK. Provides a detailed overview of the pulp and paper industry, the actors supporting it, its social and environmental impacts and case studies in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, Indonesia and Thailand. Available at the publishers. Southern NGOs can also request a copy free of charge from the WRM International Secretariat.

"Tree plantations: impacts and struggles." (also in paper) "Pulpwood plantations: a growing problem." (also in paper) "Ten Replies to Ten Lies." (also in paper) "Briefing on Finnish Consultancy Firm Jaakko Poyry" "Plantations and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests" "The World Bank: a major actor" Apart from the above, the web page contains many other relevant papers and articles, both on general and specific country-related information, which we encourage you to read. We are planning to continue publishing materials in printed and electronic format, among which briefings on plantation-related issues such as: carbon sinks, the FAO, the World Bank, biodiversity, oil palm plantations, certification.

In August 1997 we received bad news from Hawaii: Oji Paper/Marubeni -Japan's largest paper supplier- was about to receive a lease for 4,150 hectares of public land at Hamakua County to set up eucalyptus pulpwood plantations. Oji/Marubeni was also seeking some10,000 hectares of private land leases on the Big Island and elsewhere to produce eucalyptus for chips that would be later exported to Japan for paper production.

Even if natural forests in South Africa do not occupy more than 300,000 hectares, this country is an important exporter of wood products. They come from pine and eucalyptus plantations that quickly expanded during the last decades. Large corporations -as SAPPI and MONDI- and the South African State itself -through SAFCOL- have been responsible for the expansion of tree monocultures in grasslands. Nowadays plantations have reached 1.5 million hectares and the powerful pulp industry intends to increase the area by 600,000 hectares more. Companies are also aiming at setting up extensive plantations in neighbouring Mozambique. In this period of globalization, MONDI is expanding abroad and in May 1996 became one of Aracruz Celulose's main shareholders.

Smurfit Carton in Venezuela, a subsidiary of giant Jefferson Smurfit, is a good (bad) example of how depredatory the activity of a company can be, and of how local people can successfully resist it.

Nowadays pulp plantations in Chile cover more than 2.1 million hectares, 75% of a single species - radiata pine- and the rest mainly composed of eucalyptus.

Indonesia is undergoing an accelerated process of plantation of oil palm. In a process promoted by the government -that wants the country to become the first palm oil producer in the world- and led by a reduced group of powerful companies, the present area of 3.2 million hectares is expected to increase at a rate of 330,000 hectares a year.