Large-Scale Tree Plantations

As has been the case with most Southern countries, Côte d’Ivoire inherited from the colonial period the role of exporter of tropical agricultural products. Apart from the ivory from which the country was named, prior to colonization Côte d’Ivoire had less to offer for trading compared to its eastern neighboring country Ghana, more endowed with gold. So, when the French arrived in the area in the 1880s they found it simple to use the vast fertile land of dense tropical forest for agricultural production.

Even by conservative estimates, less than a quarter of Ghana’s pre-colonial forest remains. Loggers and politicians caused most deforestation, though they like to shift the blame to farmers. But the fact is that throughout the Twentieth Century farmers have had little control over the trees on their land. British colonialists gave timber rights to chiefs, who promptly sold them to loggers, or ordered them cleared and replaced with cacao plantations. After independence, the government claimed ownership of all trees and land, and sold most of it off to loggers.

Senegalese exposure to European trade started in 1444 when the Portuguese established trading posts along the coast on the river Senegal: Goree (which eventually became a major slave transit post), Rufisque and along the south as a whole.

I was part of a filming crew of seven members who were on June 4 in the Modhupur forest in order to make a documentary film on the forest destruction with special attention to the effects of plantations —mostly commercial and industrial— on public forestland. The Modhupur forest is now thoroughly plundered. We were in our third and final round of filming in Modhupur, and we focused our last shots on a suddenly discovered spot where green vegetation was being thoroughly cut. The spot is very near to Lohoria Beat between Rasulpur and Dokhola Ranges.

Two years ago, China's State Forestry Administration approved genetically modified (GM) poplar trees for commercial planting. Well over one million insect resistant GM poplars have now been planted in China. Also two years ago, China launched the world's largest tree planting project. By 2012 the government aims to have covered an area of 44 million hectares with trees.

Between 1990 and 2002 the global planted oil palm area increased by 43%. Most of this growth occurred in Indonesia and Malaysia. In Indonesia, between 1990-2000, the total area planted with oil palm almost tripled from 1.1 to 3 Mha (million hectares). In 2002, overcoming the 1997-1999 financial crisis, the total mature oil palm plantation area reached 3.5 Mha. Assuming recent planting rates, the total area of oil palm plantations in Indonesia is set to increase to 11.2 Mha in 2020.

Bananas, in terms of gross value of production, are the world’s fourth most important food crop after rice, wheat and maize. Latin America dominates the world banana economy, where they are cultivated mostly in large mono-crop plantations.

The environment pressure network Geasphere has charged the international Forest Stewardship Council with acting irresponsibly in certifying the massive spread of Industrial Timber Plantations (ITPs) in South Africa. ITPs come at a massive cost to the natural and social environment, and these costs have not been quantified, says Philip Owen of Geasphere, in an open letter to the chair of the Forest Stewardship Council, David Nahwegabouw.

The March-June edition of the magazine "Watershed" focuses on the issue of tree plantations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as part of the broader picture of the spread of industrial tree plantations in the South. This edition of Watershed is the result of a collaborative effort between a large number of individuals and organizations --mostly from within but also from outside the Mekong region-- concerned over the social and environmental impacts resulting from large-scale tree monocultures.

It seems important to learn why for the past few years the issue of forestry in Colombia has been at the hub of the main debates and the government agenda. This article endeavours to reply to this question and to show some political elements that allow us to affirm that the issue of forestry and its environmental services are just another business, not only at national level but also at a global level.

There is no smoke without fire, and in this case, the fire is in Spain, where the ENCE paper company has a pulp mill that for many years has contaminated the Pontevedra river mouth. Although the company was finally condemned and its executives ordered to pay fines and sentenced to prison, the environmental “inheritance” continues (see WRM bulletin 75). The local population is asking for the “factory to be closed” to enable them to “recover the shell-fishing areas” and “the fisheries.”

“Carbon emission trading, a vehicle for development. Is this a story that's worth telling? I think it is,” Sergio Jellinek, a “communications advisor” at the World Bank told a room full of journalists at the Carbon Expo in Cologne last week.