Large-Scale Tree Plantations

Forest and biodiversity conservation mean different things to different people. In the case of Cambodia, village people throughout the country depend on farmland, fisheries and forests for their livelihoods. For them, conserving the forest and its biodiversity implies ensuring their present and future means of survival. In recent years, even as peace has returned to rural areas, large scale logging concessions have reduced villagers' access and rights to forests, and caused massive damage to the forests themselves.

Vegetation maps published in Geography books still show the archipelago of the Philippines, as covered by dense tropical forests. Unfortunately, this does not correspond to reality any longer. Over the past 50 years almost two thirds of the country's forests --most of them primary-- have been lost, and nowadays forest cover is only 17 % --far below the original 60% of the country area. In 1990 the country's forest was down to only 16 million acres, 1,75 million of which was primary forest and only 50% of the original mangroves remained standing. The situation has since worsened.

The growth of the pulp and paper sector in Indonesia since the late '80s has been based on the clearcutting of vast area of forests --estimated in at least 800,000 hectares a year-- the spread of tree monocultures, the violation of indigenous peoples' land rights, and the granting of official subsidies to the companies, which often hide corrupt practices (see WRM Bulletin 41).

Lao government officials, international aid agencies and forestry consultants are almost unanimous in claiming that large-scale reforestation is urgently needed in Laos to address the problems associated with deforestation. Yet, under the Asian Development Bank's US$11.2 million "Industrial Tree Plantation" project, forests are being further destroyed and replaced by monoculture plantations. The beneficiaries are private companies such as BGA Lao Plantation Forestry Ltd, which is currently establishing 50,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in Khammouane and Bholikhamsay provinces.

Much of the Belizean territory is still covered by forests, which host an enormous diversity in plant and animal life. Those forests have however been exploited for centuries in an unsustainable manner. What the forest hides is the fact that the most commercially valuable hardwood species have all but disappeared, particularly mahogany.

Private commercial tree plantations began to be implemented in Colombia in the 1960s. Long-fibre wood commercial plantations --pine and cypress-- are mostly located in the West of the country, in the Departments of Antioquía, Caldas, Quindio, Risaralda, Valle and Cauca, while in the central zone --in the Departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá-- there is a dominance of Eucalyptus globulus.

One of the issues that has not been addressed in the discussions about the World Bank's future Forest Policy and Strategy is that of the Bank's position regarding genetically modified organisms. This needs to be urgently addressed, particularly because the following information is generating concern within the environmental movement: - Although the subject of genetically modified organisms has become one of the most visible environmental debates, the World Bank’s latest annual environmental report chooses to be silent on the issue.

Malaysia is the world's top producer and exporter of palm oil, generating fifty percent of the global output, of which 85% is exported. Within the African continent, Nigeria is the country having the more extensive oil palm plantations, with at least 350,000 hectares planted to this crop. According to recent news, a Malaysian corporation will begin to invest in Nigeria's palm oil sector, with government support from both countries.

A recent study, sponsored by CIFOR and WWF International’s Macroeconomics Program Office, provides an in-depth analysis of the features and consequences of the rapid expansion of the pulp and paper sector in Indonesia during the last decade.

Thailand’s main logging agency, the state-owned Forestry Industry Organisation (FIO), is looking to certification of its tree plantations and ecotourism as a way out of its financial troubles as well as to cover-up its infamous past.

The Vietnamese government is currently negotiating with a range of bilateral and multilateral "aid" agencies to raise funds for its five million hectare reforestation programme. So far, little of the estimated US$4.5 billion needed has been formally committed, but in December, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) announced a US$287,000 project "to promote the programme in Vietnam". On 7 December, Nguyen Van Dang, Vietnam's Rural Development Minister and Fernanda Guerrieri, FAO's representative in Vietnam, signed the agreement for the FAO project.

In the last issue of the WRM bulletin we included an article --"Argentina: A shady carbon sink project"-- detailing an absurd and destructive tree plantation project in that country. Now we are pleased to inform you that the struggle against it has been successful. The Argentinian justice has prohibited the company to "carry out all the works related to the forestry project", which involved the clearcutting of 4400 hectares of native forest to be substituted with Oregon pine.