Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

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failure to define industrial tree plantations are clearly revealed. FAO can pretend that it is aiming to help
“owners of small forest areas”, when in fact it is helping the owners of industrial tree plantations: large
multinational corporations.
FAO explains that its guidelines are to be voluntary. FAO set up no system for determining whether a
particular project complies with the guidelines and even explains that the guidelines are to be interpreted
differently, depending on the level of industrialisation within the country involved:
“The understanding and application of the principles and recommendations will be determined by the
prevailing governance, economic, cultural, social, environmental or other contexts. The extent to which
country economies are industrialized, in transition or developing will determine the application of each
principle.”604
This is an extraordinary statement. It implies that different standards would apply in, say, Laos, Brazil
and Germany, because of the different level of industrialisation in each country. FAO gives no
explanation for this, nor does it explain exactly how the level of industrialisation is supposed to determine
how each principle is to be applied.
The guidelines consist of 12 Principles, divided into five sections: Institutional; Economic; Social and
Cultural; Environmental; and Landscape approach. A series of guidelines follows each Principle. But the
guidelines provide no advice about whether all the Principles and guidelines should be met, or just some
of them, some of the time. FAO provides no advice on interpreting the guidelines or who should do the
interpreting.
The assumption behind the guidelines is that plantations should go ahead. Principle 1, on “Good
governance”, states that governments “should facilitate an environment of stable economic, legal and
institutional conditions to encourage long-term investment, sustainable land-use practices and socioeconomic
stability.” Principle 5, on “Enabling environment for investment”, states that “Governments
should create the enabling conditions to encourage corporate, medium- and small-scale investors to make
long-term investments in planted forests and to yield a favourable return on investment.”
Some of the guidelines are progressive. Principle 2, on “Integrated decision-making and multistakeholder
approaches”, recognises the principle of free prior and informed consent: “respecting international law to
ensure that local communities and indigenous peoples retain control over their lands, unless they delegate
control with free, prior and informed consent.” Principle 8, on “Maintenance of social and cultural
services”, states that governments should prevent “displacement or resettlement of communities without
free, prior and informed consent”.
Other guidelines are written in a bureaucratic style that is difficult to understand. For example, Principle 2
states that the guidelines should include “[I]ntegrating policies, planning and management decisionmaking
related to planted forests into intersectoral and multidisciplinary approaches in order to reflect
their role in the wider landscape, both spatially and temporally”. It is difficult to know what this means,
or what impact of plantations it is attempting to address. Determining whether or not it has been
implemented in practice would be pretty much impossible.
604 FAO (2006) “Responsible management of planted forests: voluntary guidelines”, Planted Forests and Trees Working
Paper 37/E, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, page 9. http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/j9256e/J9256E00.htm