Large-Scale Tree Plantations

The report “The advance of Forest Plantations on the Farmers Territories in the Nacala corridor: the case of Green Resources Mozambique”   was launched in 2016 by the Mozambican organisations Livaningo, UNAC (National Peasants Union) and Justiça Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique, and written by Lexterra.

SwissInfo in conversation with Kartini Samon from GRAIN on the impacts of industrial oil palm production on communities and on the role of Swiss banks in financing land grabbing by funding expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia.

  Thailand's modern forest politics has had many phases. In the 19th century, the British began logging the country for teak. In the 20th century, other commercial loggers eventually took over. State agencies anxious to deny the forest to insurgent movements meanwhile promoted commercial agriculture and hydroelectric dams as well as timber extraction. In 1989, with the country's once-vast forests severely depleted, logging was officially banned.

  The region typically known as “India’s North East” or also referred to as just “North East” is linked tenuously with mainland India by a roughly 20 kilometer-wide land bridge, and surrounded by Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. There are over 200 indigenous and tribal communities living in this region, most of whom share similarities in culture, food, clothing, economy and polity, and evolved diverse laws and institutions specific to each tribe.

 

At the end of the climate summit in Marrakesh in December 2016, 20 activists from the Field Liberation Movement in Belgium planted a “permit to cut” in a field of GMO poplar trees belonging to the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology. The permit was given symbolically to the Flemish Minister responsible for climate policy. The Minister became infamous for her statement regarding forest management that “Trees have always had the function to be cut.” With this in mind, activists encouraged her to cut the field of GMO trees.

In the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, the Landless Peasant Movement MST is occupying some 400 hectares of land appropriated by pulp and paper company Fibria (formerly Aracruz Celulose). 190 families have already established a camp and are preparing the land for the cultivation of food free of pesticides.

Organizations in Chile demand an end to the national policy and instruments that have been created to favor the development of tree plantations. The large-scale pine and eucalyptus monoculture forestry model has caused, in addition to other impacts, the fire crisis that is being experienced in the south-central area of the country. For more information see: http://olca.cl/articulo/nota.php?id=106668

Years before governments adopted the Paris Agreement, international initiatives promising millions of hectares of reforestation and forest restoration were launched, supposedly to benefit the environment and local communities. Yet, not one example of reforestation at scale exists that has achieved the promised benefits for communities and the environment.