Members of the Global Forest Coalition and other NGOs and IPOs that gathered in Lyon in September 2000 prepared a statement explaining the reasons for opposing to carbon sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism. Here there are some of the reasons:
1. Sinks are neither long term nor short term solution to mitigating climate change. The lack
of verifiable ways of estimating the ability of forests and other ecosystems to 'compensate' for industrial emissions means that the inclusion of sinks in the CDM would destroy the Kyoto Protocol.
Bulletin articles
We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations, wish to express extreme concern about the role envisaged for tree plantations in helping industrialized countries meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Sixth Conference of the Parties, in November 2000 in the Hague, will likely determine the content of the so-called Clean Development Mechanism, which could allow many Northern countries to meet their emissions reductions targets by implementing projects in the South.
A number of tree plantation programmes were implemented in Cameroon in the 1950s, when the territory was under French colonial rule, allegedly to address the process of destruction affecting the country's rich rainforests. As a result, about 40,000 hectares of plantations were set up in a period of 50 years, 25,000 of which in areas formerly occupied by dense rainforest, and the remaining 15,000 hectares in the savannah.
The Tanzanian territory embraces a wide variety of landscapes, including mountains, savanna, bushlands and forests. Some 53,000 square kilometres of the country comprises lakes, being Lake Victoria the biggest one. With an area of 69,490 square kilometres Lake Victoria is the world's second largest freshwater lake. It is an essential resource for the life of the surrounding region, which has one of Africa's highest population densities. Farming, fishing and boatbuilding are the most significant economic activities that directly depend on the lake.
Government delegates from all over the world met this month in Lyon, France, in a Preparatory Conference prior to the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change which will be held next November in the Hague, Netherlands.
Last July the government of Gabon, logging companies operating in the country and some environmental groups --among which the World Wildlife Fund-- reached an agreement to keep the Lope Reserve out of the reach of commercial logging. However, the deal includes a redrawing of the boundaries of the reserve substracting 10,352 hectares of land on the southeastern flank --that holds the richest stands of valuable okoume trees-- and adding about 5,200 hectares of a previously not protected area of remote upland primary forests.
The Kenyan coast is estimated to hold more than 10% of the world's unexplored deposits of titanium, a metal used in the pigment industry, and increasingly in the manufacture of many objects of modern life. A drilling recently performed in the Kwale area delineated a reserve of 150 million tons of sands containing rutile, ilmenite and zircon, the minerals used to make titanium.
Indigenous peoples of the oil-rich Niger Delta region continue to suffer environmental degradation, poverty and violence to the hands of oil companies that operate in the area. The companies themselves, together with the Nigerian and Northern country governments are responsible for the present state of things.
The image of the last tree in a dry region of Africa being cut down by a poor peasant --ultimate responsible for environment destruction-- is widespread. Nevertheless, such image is more based on propaganda than on empirical evidence.
UPM-Kymmene Corporation --one of the world's largest forest products companies and paper producers, with industrial plants in 15 countries-- the APRIL Group (Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd.) and APRIL's majority shareholder have recently signed an agreement to sell APRIL's 51% interest in the Changshu paper mill to UPM-Kymmene. The value of the transaction is US$ 150 million. As a consequence of the agreement, the Finland-based UPM-Kymmene has now become the sole owner of the Changshu paper mill.
Two visions are confronted in relation to the conservation of protected areas. One of them --originated in the conservationist circles of the North-- considers that they have to be kept as natural scenarios, void of people. To make it possible, indigenous peoples and other local dwellers are seen as a menace which needs to be removed. From the modern viewpoint, nature needs to be considered in its coevolution with human cultures, and forest peoples constitute an essential part of this relationship, having a crucial role in forest biodiversity conservation.
For years indigenous peoples of Sarawak have been fighting to defend their land and forests against "development" plans involving logging, oil palm plantations, pulpwood plantations, hydroelectric dams, mining activities and resorts development. These activities, which count on the support of the national and local authorities, are not only destroying their livelihoods but also --as in the case of the nomadic Penans-- are putting at risk their existence as a culture. Nowadays there are only about 10,000 Penans left in Sarawak's interior region.