The WRM has just published a new Plantations Campaign briefing titled "The carbon shop: planting new problems" by Larry Lohmann. This is the third briefing in our series in relation to tree monocultures, and, as the previous ones, it aims at facilitating understanding of the plantations issue by a wider public and can be used to influence journalists and international fora, to organize public discussions, and to raise awareness within communities facing the hegemonic forestry model.
The issue of the promotion of tree plantations as carbon sinks under the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol as a way of mitigating the greenhouse effect is critically addressed both from the technical and the political point of view. "Instead of enshrining and expanding inequalities in resource use while concealing the pathologies of the current pattern of fossil-fuel exploitation -as the appeal to grand-scale carbon-"offset" plantations does- such an approach would go straight to the root of the climate crisis. Realistically, a livable climate can be promoted not through more monoculture plantations, more logging, more fossil-fuel plants and more automobiles, but only through a commitment to equality" concludes the author.
The printed publication is available in English, and free of charge from the International Secretariat. NGOs, IPOs and community-based organizations can request more than one copy, also free of charge.
