From sustainable consumption to environmental justiceA global overview of industrial tree planta4on conflicts

“Forestrycorporations

promotingITPs as‘planted

forests’ aredeceiving

the public”

WinnieOverbeek

Winnie Overbeek, World Rainforest Movement

www.ejolt.org

While the consumption pattern of an elite minority pushes the commodityfrontiers, calls to address the environmental injustices associated with thisexpansion are rising. Take the pulp and paper industry. Between 1961 and2005, paper consumption increased fivefold but the increase is unequal and ismainly about more wrapping paper: while Vietnam also has a literacy rate of93%, it consumes 20 times less paper per capita compared to the US. Pulpproduction shifted to the South, increasing the external costs and damages inpulp producing countries such as Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia.‘A global overview of Industrial Tree Plantations Conflicts’, discusses the needfor alternatives to the present industrial tree plantations model, including theneed of consumption reduction. It deals with cases of community struggles ondifferent continents. The report and this poster were produced for the globalproject Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT).This FP7 project supported by the European Commission runs from 2011 to2015 and involves 23 universities and civil society organisations from all overthe world, working towards mapping environmental justice.

Since the 1970ies, fuelled by cheap land & labor, high productivity and generous subsidiesfrom governments and financial institutions, industrial tree plantations (ITPs) expandexponentially in Latin America, Africa & Asia. False solutions to the climate crisis are addingto the expansion through f.e. the sale of credits from carbon ‘stored’ in trees and biofuelsfrom palmoil.

ITP conflicts in Africa - with exception of South Africa - are on the rise, mostly with newtypes of plantations (oil palm, biomass, carbon sinks) within the present context of theprocess called landgrabbing. Social and environmental grievances were recorded incountries like Brazil, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and India.Social responsibility policies of corporations and certification schemes like FSC fail to stopthis trend. The appropriation of community lands is the main negative impact, but ITPs alsoresult in a significant reduction in water availability and contamination of streams and riverswith pesticides.

Communities also see the local ecosystems on which they depend for food and medicinesbeing destructed. The promises made by the companies of huge employment opportunitiesare false, and the few jobs created often dangerous. ITPs even destroy jobs: industrial oilpalm plantations in Africa are jeopardizing traditional oil palm production that overgenerations has been set up carefully by local communities, which guarantees work formillions of Africans, especially women.

Figures about paper consumption show that more than 50% is used as wrapping paper.Most of this is consumed in the most ‘developed’ countries, who consume more than 250kg of paper/capita/year, while in most African countries these levels are as low as 5 kg ofpaper/capita/year, insufficient to even attend basic needs like education and school books.Political action is needed to review present policies for the ITP sector, as well as to rethinkour economies ‘beyond consumption’ and beyond the idea of ‘unlimited growth’.

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