Large-Scale Tree Plantations

GM trees are not a result of evolution. They are the result of decisions taken at institutional and corporate levels for their development and deployment. Companies, research institutions and universities work together closely on this. Companies fund university research departments, and influence what type of research is carried out.

In spite of the risks posed by genetic modification of trees, there is no international legislation specifically relating to GM trees. Instead, legislation has been produced with GM food crops and seeds in mind, and does not necessarily cover the problems presented by long-lived GM plants such as trees. International law covering GMOs is at present focussed on issues relating to trade. There are two institutions which provide rulings covering international trade in GMOs: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

On October 22, 2004 Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement created to begin addressing the problem of global warming. Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol now gives the agreement a high enough level of participation by the countries most responsible for the world’s carbon emissions for the agreement to go into effect, even without the United States’ 25% of worldwide annual global carbon emissions.

Plant pollination takes place in different ways. One way is done by bees, butterflies, humming birds and bats. Another type of pollination is caused by wind blowing through plants that have their reproductive cells in open flowers. This happens with coniferous trees (for example, pines). For fecundation to be effective, these trees have to produce an enormous amount of pollen that the wind blows away and distributes, passing it from plant to plant and covering great distances.

When the first ‘conquistadores’ travelled down the Amazon in the 16th century, they found populous settlements, hierarchical chiefdoms and complex agricultural systems all along the main river. The ‘Indians’, they reported, raised turtles in ponded freshwater lagoons, had vast stores of dried fish, made sophisticated glazed pottery, and had huge jars, each one capable of holding a hundred gallons. They also noted these peoples had flotillas of canoes and traded up into the Andes and down to the mouth of the great river.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was founded in 1993, with the mission of promoting "environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests. FSC forest management standards are based on FSC's 10 Principles and Criteria of responsible forest management." Unfortunately, the FSC decided to also include tree plantations within its scope and this has resulted in widespread criticism, particularly in the South, where many local communities and NGOs are opposing the spread of large-scale tree plantations.

Representatives of the Murut, the Kadazandusun, and the Rungus, and some 30 more tribes coming from the remote region of Tongod, traversed in July of this year northern Borneo to reach the gleaming office of Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister of Land, Datuk Lajim Haji Ukin at the capital city of Kota Kinabalu. The group was there to demand the government to abide by its own laws, recognize native rights to protect and manage their natural resources, and halt reallocation of lands to logging and plantation corporations.

Ms. Mai of the Palaung ethnic community and mother of three children in Pang Daeng village of north Thailand has been camped in front of Chiang Mai City Hall for the past few weeks. Along with about hundred members of her community, she came to petition the Chiang Mai governor for the release of her husband Mr. Tan Bortuk and others.

In Popondetta, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, representatives of all land owning communities from around the province gathered on 12th March 2004, in the first Oro landowners Forum on Land Rights and Community Based Natural Resource Management. They committed to ensuring sustainable resource management and to protect their rights as the rightful owners of those resources, declaring that:

In 1944, the Rockefeller Foundation funded the introduction of a series of technologies in Mexican agricultural production. This gave rise to an agricultural production model known as the “Green Revolution” with a central concept of “high yielding varieties” developed in the framework of monoculture crops supported by a technological package including mechanization, irrigation, chemical fertilization and the use of toxic chemicals to control pests.

Agriculture and cattle-raising are direct causes of deforestation. However they should be looked at in depth in order to be able to understand what promotes them, who benefits from them, how they arise. It may be said that it is a funnel-like process. What is most visible is on the outside, the disappearance of the forest as a consequence of these activities.

Deforestation of tropical forests took place at a rate of 10–16 million hectare per annum during the last two decades, and is showing no signs of slowing down. 16% of the whole Amazon forest has already disappeared and every day, another 7,000 hectares of forest is lost – a surface of 10 kilometers by 7 kilometers. The causes are complex and often interrelated, but among them is the role of large-scale commercial agriculture.