Ted Williams, author of the excellent article on the impacts of monoculture pine tree plantations in Southern US ("False Forests", Mother Jones magazine, http://bsd.mojones.com/mother_jones/MJ00/false_forests.html ), has now published an equally excellent article focused on eucalyptus ("America's Largest Weed"). The following are some excerpts from his recent article:
Bulletin articles
As a result of successful campaigning efforts in the state of Espirito Santo --where Aracruz Cellulose has its huge pulp mill and most of its eucalyptus plantations-- the state Parliament passed a law banning further eucalyptus planting until an agroecological study is carried out to decide where the tree can and cannot be planted.
On 27 December 2001, the Colombian Inter-Congregational Justice and Peace Commission sent the President of the Republic, Doctor Andrés Pastrana Arango and other national authorities a letter in which, among many other things, it reported that during the first twenty days of December, the “Maderas del Darién” company had been logging in a place known as Mendoza, in the perimeter of San Jose de La Balsa, La Balsa, Bocachica, San Higinio, within the Collective Territory of Cacarica.
Since the 2nd of January, the inhabitants of local communities, students and environmentalists have been carrying out a permanent and peaceful occupation of the most fragile zone of the Los Guarumos forest, at the entry of the Mindo Nambillo cloud forest, to halt the construction of a new oil pipeline which will cross the whole of Ecuador. The 500 km long oil pipeline will transport heavy crude oil for the Oleoductos de Crudos Pesados (OCP) company, (see bulletin 45, April, 2001).
The Department of Rio Negro, located in the western side of Uruguay, presently has 70,510 hectares of plantations (mainly eucalyptus) which makes it one of the Departments having more tree monocultures in the country.
Mining operations in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are part of the IMF backed policy which opens the country to foreign investments for the unsustainable export-driven exploitation of natural resources. The serious record of mining activities includes flooding of forests and homes caused by the dumping of waste rocks and levels of mercury in the Ajkwa river four-times higher than the maximum allowed of 0,001 mg/l (WRM bulletin 7, December 1997).
Industrial logging is the main cause of forest loss throughout the tropics. It is the starting point of a process leading to the forests' final destruction and substitution by agricultural crops, cattle raising or monoculture tree plantations. These are well known facts supported by more than sufficient evidence.
In Cameroon, as in many other countries in the South, a process of deforestation is taking place directly and indirectly caused by intensive industrial logging. This process is generally promoted by political reforms and by loans from the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organisation for the construction of mega-projects such as highways or dams.
Logging involves the removal operation of trees from the forest. When it is carried out for industrial purposes, it implies large-scale operations and becomes one of the primary causes of global deforestation. It is also a major threat to the world's remaining old growth forests, where the most rare and valuable species are selected.
Although many NGOs believe that certification of wood and other forest products is a good idea, there are a number of doubts about whether the actual process is moving in the right direction. The issue has resulted in confrontations between environmental organizations in countries such as Brazil, where some NGOs are working hard to convince logging companies to move into Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, while other NGOs accuse those same NGOs of thereby promoting further forest destruction.
The issue of forests is being addressed by three major international processes: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Until recently, the three processes appeared to be moving in different and not too positive directions, but there are now some signs that the situation might be improving.
Located in the heart of the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 2.3 million square kilometres territory covers most of the Congo River basin and has a narrow outlet into the Atlantic. The center and northern regions are covered with rainforests (1.1 million square kilometres in 1993) which, although sparsely populated, are the major livelihood for many of the country’s 48 million people who depend on the forests for non-timber forest products such as food, building materials and medicines.