Even when everything would seem to indicate that the future of the planet’s climate is in the hands of a group of clowns, the possibility always exists of recovering common sense, that is to say, the sense of ordinary people.
Bulletin articles
International negotiations about global climate protection have been slow, delivering meagre results. The debate began over 20 years ago, articulating the target of achieving 20 per cent in CO2 emissions reductions, and ended up in the Kyoto Protocol with a mere 5 per cent – and even this has been questioned time and again.
Forests again high on the agenda – really forests?
The Thirteenth World Forestry Congress (WFC) took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 18 to 23 October.
The history of these congresses started in 1926 in Rome. They are meetings that take place every six years in different host countries, attended by representatives of governments, civil society, the private corporate sector and the academic world.
The World Forestry Congress taking place in Buenos Aires is viewed as an excellent business opportunity by the Argentine forestry sector.
Uruguay and the Republic of Korea have recently signed an Agreement for Investment Promotion and Protection which, according to Uruguayan government authorities establishes a framework for Korean investment in Uruguay. From past experience in Uruguay, the establishment of a framework for investment in this country may mean reducing or eliminating all taxation, granting of foreign trade zone permits and all kinds of support to the company’s enterprises.
World demand for paper and paperboard is expected to grow by 2% to 3% annually in the long term, with significant growth potential for Asia and Eastern Europe - India, China and Russia in particular. Paper pulp exports from Latin America from lands converted into monoculture tree plantations, so called “green deserts”, are expected to grow by 70% between 2000 and 2010.
International Day against Monoculture Tree Plantations is a good opportunity to expose the myths being spread around about the so-called “benefits” of these plantations. Such myths have not arisen on their own but are the result of a long process during which people and institutions related to the corporate-plantation sector have invented arguments to convince both the general public and governments and institutions of the advisability of mass tree plantation.
Plantations are forests in uniform. They look like soldiers all lined up in ranks, and that is what they are. Dressed in green, they march off to the world market. The hymns that sing their praises in the name of our Mother Earth are lies. Industrial forests are to natural forests what military music is to music, and what military justice is to justice.
Eduardo Galeano, writer, Uruguay
Large-scale tree plantations do not generate jobs because they always involve as much mechanization as possible. For example, the Veracel Celulose Company in Brazil generates 1 direct job per 130 hectares of eucalyptus. On the other hand coffee plantations, very common in Brazil, are able to create up to one job per hectare.
Anyone that subscribes to this idea must be someone who has either never visited a forest area surrounded by communities, or is simply linked to the plantation business. Local people in the Mekong countries in Southeast Asia who live and rely on their native forests will totally disagree with such a statement. For them, conversion of their forests into plantations has started to be the worst nightmare they have ever suffered in real life.
Why is this statement simply not true?
Monoculture tree plantations cannot ever improve on the natural environment that is eliminated when plantations are established.