Large-Scale Tree Plantations

In mid-March, 2001 concerned Oregon State University (OSU) students and alumni targeted three GE test sites where Poplar and Cottonwood trees were being grown by Steve Strauss, a forestry professor at Oregon State University and the founder of the Tree Genetic Engineering Research Cooperative. According to an open letter sent after the action to professor Straus, the test plots "at these places were independently assessed and found to be a dangerous experiment of unknown genetic consequences".

In the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo there are currently two different production sectors facing completely different situations.

Recent research findings provide additional arguments to the opposition movement against the inclusion of tree plantations as carbon sinks within the current Convention on Climate Change debate on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory have found evidence linking cooling earth temperatures between A.D. 1000 and 1900 to widespread deforestation. The discovery adds layers of complexity to the already difficult endeavor of predicting climate change and casts doubt on a commonly held belief that planting trees will slow "global warming."

The large-scale monoculture pulpwood plantation model being implemented in the South not only results in negative social and environmental impacts in the forest areas, but has also additional impacts from pollution resulting from the industrial process for the production of pulp as well as deforestation linked to logging for supplying the pulp mill with raw material.

Certification of monoculture timber plantations as “sustainably managed forests” by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) makes an absolute mockery of the concept of sustainable environment and ecosystem management. In recent years vast tracts of industrial tree plantations in South Africa and many other countries, have been given the FSC stamp of approval.

The growth of the Chinese economy, measured in conventional economy terms, is astonishing: its National Gross Product jumped to U$$ 4 trillion, which represents a 22-fold increase of its value in 1978.

During the intergovernmental negotiations on climate change (COP-6) at the Hague last November, the Australian government sided with the US, Japan and Canada in refusing to negotiate reductions of its own carbon emissions. Five months later, the Australian government announced five projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Predictably enough, the projects, which are funded through the government's International Greenhouse Partnerships (IGP) Programme, are not aimed at reducing Australia's emissions, but are to be carried out in Peru, Fiji, Malaysia and Vietnam.

In Argentina, the invasion of tree monocultures is destroying the country's grassland-related biodiversity. Subsidised by the government with backing from the World Bank, plantations are expanding in the eastern Provinces of Misiones, Corrientes and Entre Rios, while significant areas are also being planted in the Provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Cuyo, Chaco and Patagonia. According to unofficial figures, the plantation area in Argentina has increased five fold from 1995 to 2000, and continues growing.

The fragmentation of habitats resulting from human activities --among which industrial tree plantations-- provokes restrictions in the supply of resources and the spacial needs of animal and plant species, which can even lead to the extinction of entire ecosystems. Once landscape structure has been altered the persistence of both plant and animal populations is menaced.

Invasion of habitats by alien plants is one of the causes of the extinction of native species. Some plant species have developed the capacity to adapt to new sites and to displace the original vegetation cover. This phenomenon has been widely recorded and it is known as “bioinvasion”. Needless to say that invasive species constitute a threat for biodiversity at the local and regional level, since the spread of newcomers alters the richness and abundance of the flora and fauna of the original ecosystem.

Bangladesh is one of the states signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Nevertheless, the three types of forests existing in the country --the evergreen and semi-evergreen rainforests in the eastern region and at the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, the moist and dry deciduous forests, known as “sal” forests, situated in the central plains and the northeast region, and the tidal mangrove forests along the coast-- are under threat, and little is being done to save them. In the meantime, annual deforestation rate has reached 3.3%.