Pertinent Issues

The above topics have emerged as the main areas of concern in respect of the expansion of large-scale industrial monoculture tree plantations. While until recently the threat of expanding tree plantations was driven mainly by growing demand for pulp and paper products, there are now a number of new drivers coming into play. Climate change has opened the door to the potential for enormous new tree plantations that are expected to function as carbon sinks to offset industrial carbon emissions, or to provide a source of raw materials for the large-scale production of agrofuels (biofuels) such as from Oil Palm, Jatropha and fast growing trees such as Poplar, Pine and Eucalyptus, that will be used for cellulosic ethanol. The timber industry response to rapidly increasing deforestation, in partnership with the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), has been to promote so-called 'planted forests', a nice name for more of the same terrible tree plantations already experienced in so many parts of the world.

Forests and plantations are fundamentally different entities, and efforts to confuse the two by FAO and the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) have led to heightened conflict between mainly foreign plantation companies, and local communities and indigenous people who are dependent on, but also protect the forests in their regions. This conflict will escalate as new 'carbon mitigation' schemes such as REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) are used to displace forest peoples from their traditional lands, and to further promote the establishment of plantations instead of encouraging genuine forest restoration.

There are common threats that permeate all of these new and existing drivers of tree plantations. The issue of food security is a major problem in terms of how productive farmland and biodiversity rich ecosystems are being targetted for the establishment of plantations. Displaced communities will be deprived of access to their basic needs for survival, and forced to migrate to city slums or to accept the starvation wages offered by plantation managers.

Water consumption by fast growing plantation trees has a major impact on water availability and this is made worse by the effects of polluting chemicals used in plantations as well as the harmful effects of both air and water pollution caused by pulp and paper mills. These could shortly be joined by the ethanol and biodiesel factories needed to feed the demands of Northern motorists and truckers.

Another new and potentially devastating development is the genetic engineering of plantation trees. The threats from this include contamination of wild tree genes, through cross-pollination between related species, thereby endangering the genetic integrity of trees in forests, and creating even thirstier, but more drought resistent varieties that could do far more ecological damage than existing non-transgenic trees.

Although there is a degree of overlap between some of the issues listed, for example Pollution and Pulp mills, these topics can also be dealt with individually. In some instances information will be common to more than one issue, and in these cases information will be duplicated wherever necessary.

In this section: Agrofuels Biodiversity loss Carbon sinks Certification Genetic engineering Plantation expansion Plantation fires Pollution Pulp & paper mills Social impacts Soil impacts Water impacts