Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

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In his book, “Khor Jor Kor, Forest Politics in Thailand”, Oliver Pye notes that, “The Khor Jor Kor Project
represented a pinnacle of state-directed authoritarian forestry. It was closely connected with the return to
military dictatorship in Thailand.” 38 The plan was defeated by large scale rural protests and when a broadbased
movement resulted in the end of the military junta in May 1992, the scheme was dropped. 39
South Africa’s plantation boom took place during the apartheid regime, under which black people lost all
their rights, including rights to land. The South African pulp and paper company Mondi was formed in
1967, during the apartheid regime. The company expanded its plantations rapidly during the 1980s,
buying up hundreds of farms to become one of South Africa’s largest land-owners. According to Mondi
48 per cent of its land is currently under land claims. 40
The Finnish consulting firm, Jaakko Pöyry, it seems, had no qualms about working for Mondi during the
brutal apartheid regime. Mondi’s Richards Bay pulp mill was commissioned in 1984, 41 at the height of
the company’s apartheid-backed land grab. Pöyry won a series of contracts from Mondi on its Richards
Bay mill going back to the start of the project.
The expansion of the area of industrial tree plantations in Chile took place under Pinochet’s brutal neoliberal
dictatorship. Under the Chilean Decree Law 701, the Chilean government reimbursed companies
most of their development and management costs for establishing industrial tree plantations. 42
The area of Brazil’s plantations expanded as the result of a generous series of tax breaks for companies
which established plantations. The subsidies ran from 1967 to the early 1980s, 43 implemented under
Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Uruguay’s plantations also expanded in part during a military dictatorship, with the foundations for the
country’s plantations boom being laid in 1951, when a joint FAO and World Bank mission made a series
of recommendations for the country’s forestry sector, which, taken togetherwith those of a later FAO
mission, formed the basis for forestry laws adopted in 1968 and 1987. 44
When a company has covered thousands of hectares of land with tree monocultures, the next step is often
to build a pulp mill. More government subsidies are available, such as Free Trade Zone status for the mill
(thus avoiding the need to pay taxes or duties on imported machinery to build the mill). Other subsidies
might include the building of roads or ports to transport fibre to the mill and to export the pulp.
International treaties can also be a form of government subsidy – covering topics such as insurance and
38 Oliver Pye (2005) Khor Jor Kor Forest Politics in Thailand, White Lotus Press, page 109.
39 Ricardo Carrere and Larry Lohmann (1996) Pulping the South Industrial Tree Plantations and the World Paper Economy,
Zed Books, page 237.
40 “Land claims and indigenous people”, Mondi’s website: http://www.mondigroup.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1153/
41 Graham Ferreira (2005) “Richards Bay expansion: Higher capacity, improved environmental performance”, Know-How
Wire, Jaakko Pöyry Client Magazine, June 2005.
42 Dennis Neilson (2007) “Corporate Private Sector Dimensions in Planted Forest Investments”, Forestry Department Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Planted Forests and Trees Working Paper Series, Working Paper
FP/40E, October 2007. http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/10368/en/
43 Dennis Neilson (2007) “Corporate Private Sector Dimensions in Planted Forest Investments”, Forestry Department Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Planted Forests and Trees Working Paper Series, Working Paper
FP/40E, October 2007. http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/10368/en/
44 “Uruguay: Either with the people or with pulp mills and tree plantations”, World Rainforest Movement Bulletin no. 83,
June 2004. http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/83/Uruguay.html