Large-Scale Tree Plantations

The imagination of technocrats seems to have no limits. On the other hand, their common sense appears to be extremely and increasingly impaired. Their bright ideas surprise us --backward people-- constantly and at times we even doubt --unscientifically-- about their mental sanity. Such is the case of a Dr Klaus Lackner, a Columbia University physicist, who has invented an artificial tree which according to him is much better than the obviously limited real one.

    To governments and civil society committed to halting climate change and reducing fossil fuel emissions at source, the latest developments at the BioCarbon Fund must be worrying. The fund's 'two-window' approach aims at re-opening the door for carbon sink credits from conservation projects even though governments clearly excluded credits from this project type to be used by industrialised countries to achieve their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

The World Social Forum surpassed all expectations. Fifty thousand people were expected and some 100,000 attended. Participation in the numerous activities organised in Porto Alegre was very active and we all came out strengthened in our endeavour to work for "another world is possible," as announced by the Forum.

For the global pulp and paper group Sappi, money does grow on trees. Indeed, the company's latest annual report suggests that it grows most efficiently in South Africa. The report noted that Sappi's southern Africa division, Sappi Forest Products, represented 15% of group sales, but contributed 36% to the group's operating profits in the year to September 2002. "We have an extraordinarily low cost base in South Africa, which has unique competitive advantages in fibre production because of the speed at which trees grow and low inherent energy costs," the report noted.

The reopening of the PT Inti Indorayon Utama paper and rayon pulp mill, in Porsea, North Sumatra, has caused strong local opposition to resume. The factory is located at the centre of a densely populated district near to Lake Toba, one of the largest fresh water reservoirs in South East Asia, and releases pollutants, often unfiltered, into the environment, pollutes the water and air in the region and destroys the local Batak population's basis for life.

In the framework of the World Social Forum, representatives of Latin American NGOs got together to discuss the possibility of coordinating efforts with respect to the growing problem of tree monocultures. During this meeting, the factors promoting territorial occupation by monocultures aimed at timber, cellulose fibre and palm oil production were analysed, together with factors limiting this occupation.

Mexico has joined a model giving priority to the needs of transnational industrial capital demand, aimed at exportation. The environmental policy and rights of the indigenous and peasant peoples are subordinated to this demand (see WRM Bulletin 14).

The Green Party is concerned at the reported aggressive comments of US company, which outline its plans to grow genetically engineered (GE) redwood trees in New Zealand. The timber company, Soper-Wheeler, has said it intends to start planting genetically engineered seedlings from the US in its South Island plantation in August. This is despite New Zealand's moratorium on commercial release of GE not being due to be lifted till October. The company says the harvested logs would be sent to mills in the US.

As governments at the 7th Conference of the Parties to the climate change convention, COP7, in Marrakesh in 2001, put the final touches on the decision that made carbon sink projects eligible for credits under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a group of NGOs formed SinksWatch, an initiative to track and scrutinize carbon sink projects related to the Kyoto Protocol.

Indonesia ranks among one of the countries with the highest tropical forest loss rate in the world. Average annual deforestation recorded up to one million hectares in the 1980s, 1.7 million hectares in the first part of the 1990s, and between 2.0 and 2.4 million hectares at present according to statistics of the State Ministry of Environment.

"Indonesian police and company security forces are responsible for persistent human rights abuses against indigenous communities involved in the massive pulp and paper industry in Sumatra", Human Rights Watch said in a new report released on January 7, 2003. Abuses include land seizures without compensation and brutal attacks on local demonstrators. "Without Remedy: Human Rights Abuse and Indonesia's Pulp and Paper Industry", a 90-page report, extensively documents the underlying links between disregard for human rights and unsound forestry practices.

On 24 October 2002, provincial authorities announced the suspension of construction of the new 130,000 tons a year pulp and paper mill at Dac To in Kontum province, in Vietnam's Central Highlands. The state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported that construction was stopped because of "a failure to draw up a credible master plan". Six months earlier, during a two-day trip to Kontum, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan had demanded that the Vietnam Paper Company, Vinapimex, must publish a plan indicating where the raw materials were to come from to feed the mill.