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Watershed Vol. 6 No. 2 November 2000 February 2001 Page 53

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Tree plantations:Power and profitsby Ricardo Carrerre

Fast-growing tree plantations are spreading in the forests and farmlands of the countries ofthe Mekong Region as the globalising pulp and paper industry looks for cheap wood tosupply raw material. Ricardo Carrerre explores the myths and simplistic arguments used bythe proponents of tree plantations in their attempts to mislead governments, consumers ofpaper and the general public regarding the benefits of tree plantations.

Ricardo Carrerre, a forester by training, is currently theInternational Coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement(WRM). He is co-author (with Larry Lohmann) of Pulping the South: Industrial tree plantations and the world paper economy.

Vast monoculture plantations of eucalyptus, pine andother tree species are increasingly being establishedin countries in the South to feed the pulp and paper

industry. The expansion of tree plantations in the South isfavoured by the combination of inexpensive land, low labourcosts, fast tree-growth, subsidies, support from internationalaid agencies and multilateral development banks,technology provided by Northern suppliers and advice byNorthern consultancies.

Presently, pulpwood plantations occupy more than 100million hectares worldwide. Plantations are designed toprovide the global paper industry with cheap raw material tosupply the overconsumption of paper and paper products,

particularly in the North. At present, 29 per cent of the fiberused in the paper industry comes from fast-growing treeplantations and this figure is increasing.

However, while the pulp and paper industry, governments,international aid agencies and donors promote this forestrymodel, rural communities are opposing it because treeplantations expropriate village community forests, farmlandsand pastures, causing impoverishment, environmentaldegradation and conflict.

The response of the governments and tree companiesthat promote tree plantations denies such impacts and hidestheir real motives of power and profits under a greendisguise: that tree plantations are human-made forestsnecessary in a world facing deforestation and climate change.The promoters of tree plantations rely on misinformationdesigned to influence and win support among influentialsectors of the public, particularly the paper-consuming urbanmiddle-class.

There are ten arguments, all based on misinformation andsimplification, used by the proponents of tree plantations intheir attempts to mislead governments, consumers of paperand the general public regarding the benefits of plantations.

Argument No. 1:Tree plantations are planted forests.

F orestry professionals and forestry companies insist thattree plantations are planted forests. But plantationsare not forests. Plantations are uniform agroecosystems thatsubstitute natural ecosystems and their biodiversity, andusually result in adverse environmental and social impacts:decrease in water supply, modi-fications in the structure andcomposition of soils, alterationand reduction of the abun-dance and diversity of forest

plants and animals, encroach-ment on natural forests, evictionof farmers and indigenouspeoples from their lands, andthe loss of rural livelihoods.

This portrayal of crop of planted trees as a natural forestis the starting point of allpropaganda in favour of treeplantations. However, a planta-tion is not a forest and the onlything they have in common isthat in both are places withtrees. There ends the similarity.A natural forest contains nu-merous species of trees andbushes at all stages of growth,a large number of other veget-able species, growing both onthe forest floor and on the trees and bushes themselves(vines, epiphytes, parasites, etc.), and species of faunainhabiting the forest. This great diversity of plants andanimals interacts with other elements such as soil nutrients,water, solar energy and climate in such a way as to ensure itsself-regeneration and the conservation of all its elements

(plants, animals, water, soil). Human communities also livein, and interact with, the forest and obtain a number of goodsand services from it. Unlike a natural forest, a large-scale

The response

of the

governments

and treecompanies that

promote tree

plantations

denies such

impacts and

hides their real

motives of

power andprofits under a

green

disguise.


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commercial plantation is composed of one or a few speciesof fast-growing trees, planted in homogenous blocks of thesame age, sometimes containing only the few species of floraand fauna which manage to survive in plantations.

Commercial tree plantations require preparation of thesoil, trees carefully selected for rapid-growth, and othertechnological characteristics needed by the industry. Thetrees must then be fertilised, weeds must be removed usingherbicides, and trees must be planted in regular lots andharvested after as short a growing period as possible.

Not only do human communities not inhabit commercialplantations but they are normally not even allowed accesssince they are considered a threat to them. It is impossible toplant the enormous diversity of plants and animals whichcharacterise a natural forest.

Argument No. 2:Tree plantations improve the environment.

W hen plantations are presented as planted forests itis said that they serve to protect and improve soils, toregulate the hydrological cycle and to conserve local floraand fauna. This is all true in the case of natural forests, butnot in the case of commercial tree plantations. Indeed, large-scale tree plantations not only do not improve theenvironment, but they have negative impacts on:

1. Soils: plantations tend to degrade soils because of thecombination of a series of factors: soil erosion, particularlybecause the soil remains exposed during the first two yearsfollowing the planting of the new trees, as well as for two

years after the harvest, thus facilitating the erosive action of water and wind; loss of nutrients, both through erosion aswell as from the harvesting of the crop of trees every fewyears.

2. Water: both the quantity and quality of this vital elementare affected; generally, the volume of water tends to diminishin basins where these plantations are established. In locationsas diverse as Southern Chile, Espirito Santo state in Brazil, inSouth Africa or Northeast Thailand, underground water tableshave declined and whole water courses and natural springshave disappeared altogether as a result of large areas of fastgrowing pine and eucalyptus. This is due to various factors,but mainly to the high water intake of these species. Moreover,water quality is also affected, not only by soil erosion butalso by the use of agro-chemicals in the plantations.

3. Flora: The majority of local species of flora areexterminated in plantations, so that they will not competewith the planted trees. Only a few species succeed in growinginside the plantations and even these few are eliminated everyfew years when the plantation is harvested and re-planted,using herbicides to eliminate plants competing with the newtrees.

4. Fauna: For the majority of species of local fauna,plantations are biological deserts without the food sourcesthese species need to survive. The few species that succeed

in adapting to the ecological conditions of plantations areeither exterminated (because they are considered a pest inthe plantation) or lose their new habitat each time the tree

crop is harvested for wood.

Argument No. 3:Plantations relieve pressure on naturalforests.

This argument goes thus: since plantations make moretimber available, this will lead to less timber extraction innatural forests. Although this may seem logical, the reality isthat plantations generally prove to be yet another factorleading to increased deforestation. In many countries,plantations are established after destroying natural forests.In some cases, this is done by setting gigantic forest fires. Inother cases, timber is felled and then sold in order to financethe establishment of the plantation. Plantations have evenbeen used to justify deforestation, since it is held that loggingof forest areas does not constitute deforestation if these areasare later re-planted.

In many cases, local communities are forced to move awayfrom areas where plantations have been established. Thisoften results in their clearing of forests in order to grow thefood they need to survive. Often, this deforestation resultingindirectly from the plantation is greater than that caused bythe plantation itself.

Argument No. 4:Plantations improve and make better use ofdegraded lands.

In fact, large-scale commercial tree plantations are seldom

established on degraded lands, on such land the trees donot grow well, and thus do not ensure a commercial return.However, on this point, it is important to clarify that degradedlands may refer to an area of natural forest which has beenlogged and/or the homelands of farming communities. It isalso important to recognize the productive potential of naturalforest regeneration and community-based non-commercialplantations.

Land targeted for plantations is also often referred to asunder utilised as if this were synonymous with degraded.In other words, it is the plantation firms which define whetherthe land is degraded or underutilized so that they can justifytheir plantations to the public. However, local communitiesusually disagree with this assessment and even less with thenotion that there is a need to plant eucalyptus, pines or othercommercial species. This often explains the resistance of localpopulations to plantations, when companies attempt toacquire productive land which is neither degraded norunder utilised.

Argument No. 5:Plantations serve to counteract thegreenhouse effect.

This argument has recently become very fashionable: as

the trees in a plantation grow, they take in greaterquantities of carbon dioxide (the principal gas producing thegreenhouse effect) than they emit. The reasoning is therefore


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that trees act as carbon sinks by removing carbon dioxidefrom the atmosphere and help to counter climate change.However, in general terms, any area covered by treeplantations, in the absence of proof to the contrary, shouldbe considered a net source of carbon, not a sink.

In many cases plantations replace natural forests, whichmeans that the volumes of carbon released by deforestationare more than the amount of carbon captured by a treeplantation, even over the long term. Even when they are notthe product of deforestation, plantations replace otherecosystems which also store carbon (such as grasslands)and this is released into the atmosphere as a result of theplantation. Moreover, if these plantations are harvested, then,at best, they are only temporary sinks: the carbon is storeduntil the plantation are harvested, then released in a matter of years (in some cases in a matter of months) when for example,the paper or other products produced from the plantationsare burned.

If the trees are not to be harvested, then the plantationsare occupying millions and millions of hectares of land whichcould be used for much more useful purposes, for example,for the production of food. In other words, there are manydoubts that plantations are always carbon sinks, not onlyover long periods of time but also even in the short period of rapid growth between planting and harvesting.

The solution to global warming is the reduction of theemission of carbon dioxide gas (derived from the use of fossilfuels) and from the protection of natural forests, not from theexpropriation of huge areas of productive or potentiallyproductive land.

Argument No. 6:Plantations are necessary to supply thegrowing need for paper.

P aper consumption is generally perceived as somethingpositive, associated with literacy, access to writteninformation and a better quality of life. This public perceptionis used by the forestry industry to justify huge plantationsof pine and eucalyptus. But a large part of the celluloseproduced in the South is used to supply the demand forpaper in the North. The United State and Japan have anannual per capita consumption of 330 and 230 kilogrammes(kgs) respectively. Countries exporting paper pulp such asChile, South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia have, respectively,an average annual per capita consumption of 42, 38, 28 and10 kgs. Almost 40 per cent of world paper production is usedfor packaging and wrapping, while 30 per cent is used forwriting and printing paper, making the literacy argument notas relevant as it would seem.

Moreover, a huge part of the paper consumption for writingand printing purposes is used for advertising. In the US, 60per cent of the space in magazines and newspapers is reservedfor advertising, while 52,000 million units of different kinds of publicity material is produced each year, including 14,000

million mail-order catalogues, all of which are eventuallythrown away as garbage. This kind of excessive paperconsumption is not exclusive to the US but is true of most of

the countries in the North and what is more, the paperconsuming minorities of the South.

Argument No. 7:Plantations are much more productive than

natural forests.

At first glance, this claim, which is based on theobservation that eucalyptus and pine plantations growvery fast, may seem convincing. However, it depends what ismeant by productive and who benefits from this production.A commercial tree plantation produces, per hectare and peryear, a large volume of wood for industry. But this is all itproduces. The direct beneficiary of this production is thecompany that owns the plantation.

Like tree plantations, a natural forest produces woodwhich can be sold, but it also produces many other kinds of products: other kinds of trees, vegetables, game, fruits,mushrooms, honey, fodder, compost, firewood, woods forlocal uses, vegetable fibres, natural medicines, as well asconserving soils and water resources, conservingbiodiversity, and maintaining micro-climates.

Therefore, comparing the overall number of goods andservices provided by tree plantations and natural forests, itbecomes clear that forests are far more productive than treeplantations. For local communities, tree plantations have zeroproductivity and no (or very few) benefits.

Argument No. 8:Plantations generate employment.

Large-scale plantations generate employment mainly duringthe planting and harvesting of the trees. After the treeshave been planted, employment opportunities falldramatically. When the trees are ready to be harvested,workers are hired once again but, increasingly, these jobs aretending to disappear because of the growing mechanisationof this operation.

In the South, plantation companies subcontract smallerfirms to hire labourers for planting and harvesting work.Thanks to the low level of investment required, thecompetition among these smaller firms is fierce and contractsare won by saving on labour costs, which explains theextremely low salaries and working conditions of theseforestry workers.

In many countries, plantations are established on landused for subsistence farming, causing the occupants of theland to lose their former livelihoods. Moreover, whenplantations displace natural forests, the local population isdeprived of occupations and money-making resources thatwere provided by the natural forest.

Tree plantations rarely lead to the creation of localindustries, especially as in many cases production is aimed atthe direct export of unprocessed logs. Even when pulp andpaper industries are established, the high degree of

mechanisation in these factories means that few jobs arecreated. Of all the activities capable of generating localemployment, tree plantations are probably the worst option.


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Argument No. 9:Eventual negative impacts of industrialmonoculture plantations can be avoided ormitigated through good management.

Promoters of tree plantations may accept that theseplantations are not forests and can cause negative

impacts, but they add that these impacts are caused by badmanagement and not by the tree plantations themselves. Thesolution, they claim, is therefore technical: good managementmethods must be applied.

The fact that local needs and aspirations are often simplyignored cannot be changed by good management of theplantations. In reality, good management by plantation firmsconsists of convincing governments to allow them to investin certain regions of the country; the granting of advantages(direct or indirect subsidies), and; state intervention, wherenecessary, to evict or apply force against local communities.

The principal tool of good management consists of developing different forms of pressure or repression whichwill be used to resolve social conflicts provoked by theestablishment of tree plantations. As far as the environmentalimpacts which commercial plantations generate, these impactscannot be resolved through good management. The verycharacteristics of the model make it basically unsustainable,whether or not conservationist practices or monitoringtechniques are used, which are in any case designed mainlyto improve the image of the firm in the face of possibleopposition by environmental activists.

There are few technical measures which can be adopted

to avoid or mitigate environmental impacts of the plantations.While some impacts may be mitigated (use of less toxic agro-chemicals, preparation of the ground by contour ploughing,care not to encourage processes leading to erosion at thetime of tree-felling, maintenance of patches of natural areasamong the plantations, monitoring of soils, water, flora andfauna, etc), it is impossible to prevent these impacts becausethe model itself does not permit it: it is not possible ordesirable, (from the point of view of good business practice)to make the trees grow more slowly, or to make them consumeless water, nor is it possible to avoid the need for fertilisers,nor to prevent deleterious effects on the soil, nor to preventreductions in local biodiversity. In short, the problem is themodel, not the adoption of suitable management methods for it.

Argument No 10:Plantations cannot be judged in isolation.

This is one of the plantation promoters most recentarguments. They claim that there is a continuous systembetween a primary forest and a planted forest. That is tosay that there exists a system, known as a forest whichincludes protected primary forests, productive forests,protective forests, secondary forests and all kinds of plantations. Therefore, it is said, that this forest system

must be analysed as a whole, rather than separating one of itscomponents: the large-scale monoculture of tree plantations.

This argument is intelligent, but as false as the other

ones. One cannot talk about a continuous system betweenwhat are intrinsically different elements. Commercial treeplantations, generally speaking, do not complement naturalforests and, moreover, often constitute the direct or indirectcauses of deforestation. The same can be said of the waytree plantations negatively affect biodiversity, soils, water,and in particular, local populations.

This line of reasoning triesto justify the destruction of nature in certain areas, arguingthat its conservation will beensured in another area. Byincluding these tree planta-tions in this supposed forestsystem, the destruction gen-erated by large-scale mono-culture plantations is con-cealed and justified. Whenthey are accused of having animpact on biodiversity, planta-tion companies respond thatmaintaining protected areascan solve this problem.Although their arguments area little less convincing whenthe impact on water tables andsoils is discussed, they willagain talk about the forestsystem conserving water andsoils but perhaps keep quiet altogether about the social

impacts.This kind of (il)logic separates production and consump-tion from conservation, when in fact the only way to ensurethe sustainability of these processes in the long term is toconsider conservation as part of a whole. In this sense, theremay be some kinds of plantations which could be includedwithin the forest system. These would be characterised by:small or medium scale; a wide variety of species, all or most of which are native; shelter, food, and reproductive oppor-tunities for native fauna; opportunities for species of nativeflora to flourish; soil conservation and improvement;hydrological regulation; support from local people, and;provisions of locally useful products and services.

As large-scale monoculture plantations cannot complywith any of these conditions, they cannot be considered partof the forest system and therefore their impacts must beseparately analysed. While the roots of trees in a plantationare in the soil of a country, the corporate monoculture of theplantation industry is rooted in the expropriation, resourceextraction, and destruction of the nature and livelihoods of local communities required by the globalising economy of paper and corporate profits.

There is little evidence or reason why the governments orlocal communities in the countries of the South should hopeto benefit from the activities of the plantation, pulp and paper

industry. On the contrary, governments and local communitiesshould be on the guard against the damage that thesecorporations can cause.

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By including

these tree

plantations in

this supposed

forest

system, the

destruction

generated by

large-scale

monoculture

plantations is

concealed and

justified.

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