Large-Scale Tree Plantations

Like other countries invaded by monoculture tree plantations (or the “green cancer”, as some South Africans call them), South Africa shows that those schemes have not been aimed at ameliorating local peoples’ quality of life. On the contrary. Adding to the information delivered by the report on the impacts of outsourcing on forestry (see WRM Bulletin Nº 96), shocking statistics came out of the first forestry sector empowerment charter workshop held in East London on September 12.

Six months ago, indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani people reclaimed just over 11,000 hectares of their land from the Brazilian pulp giant Aracruz Celulose. They chopped down thousands of eucalyptus trees to demarcate their territory and built two indigenous villages with a large meeting house and several other houses on the land. Several indigenous families are living in the houses.

Celulosas Arauco and Constitución pulp mill, better known as Celco, located in Valdivia, belong to the Chilean Angelini group. It recently re-launched their operations after having been closed for 64 days following the scandal arising from the mass death of black-necked swans in the Rio Cruces sanctuary where it discharged its effluents.

Japan’s biggest paper manufacturer, Nippon Paper (NP) is known as an industry leader in environmental reform, but how real is this? South East Fibre Exports at Eden, about 500 kms south of Sydney, is a NP subsidiary. It is Australia’s oldest chipmill and was the first overseas operation of the former Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company (taken over by NP a couple of years ago).

Asia Pulp & Paper(APP), one of the world’s largest paper and pulp producer, was accused by Greenpeace for conducting illegal logging of forests in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, the most biologically diverse area in China.

By the World Rainforest Movement Selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement, addressing the gender dimension of the impacts in the forests of plantations Women, forests and plantations. The gender Dimension

By René Montalba Navarro, Noelia Carrasco Henríquez and José Araya Cornejo By means of testimonials, documents and figures, the present report sets out the problems faced by that commune of 11,405 inhabitants, where monoculture tree plantations have expanded violently, imposed by a forestry development model instituted during the military dictatorship and still currently in force.

Between 1994 and 2004 the land converted from native forests and farms to monoculture tree plantations in Tasmania has increased almost fourfold – to 207,000 hectares. Most farms replaced were organic or used relatively few chemicals as compared to the highly chemically-dependent monoculture tree coupes that replaced them.

Annexation of Mapuche territory by the Chilean State and the imposition of its legal system on all the indigenous peoples that co-exist in the country have marked deep changes in the way of life of the Mapuche people. Between 1881 and 1907, stripped of their territory, their autonomy and their assets generated as an agricultural and cattle-raising society, the Mapuche people fell prey to hunger and to disease that took around twenty thousand victims.

The human health risks associated with plantations of genetically engineered trees, though virtually unstudied, are significant and further legitimize the call to globally ban GE trees. The health risks can be broken down into the following categories: exposure to hazardous chemicals (such as the herbicide RoundUp) applied to the plantations; the harmful effects of inhaling pollen from trees that produce the bacterial toxin Bt; the risks associated with consumption of fruit from GE trees; and the threats of using antibiotic resistant markers in the development of GE trees.

In 1999, the World Bank's Economics of Industrial Pollution Control research team published a report titled "Greening Industry". The report, which was the result of "six years of research, policy experiments, and firsthand observation", described Asia Pulp and Paper's PT Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper as a "success story".

As reported in past WRM bulletins, Liberia’s forests have long been exploited to fuel conflict in this small West African country. Liberia houses the last two blocks of the upper Guinea Forest, which is known to be home to over 2,000 flowering plants, some 240 of which are timber species, and 60 of which have been commercially harvested.