Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

75
Management’s experts the possibility to operate successfully worldwide in different environments,
sharing their hands-on expertise for the client’s benefit.” 371
Consultants and conflict of interest
Pöyry describes its work in the South as “sustainable forestry development”. 372 It is, of course, nothing of
the sort. Pöyry’s activities illustrate the conflict of interest faced each time the company is employed to
carry out a study of a proposed pulp and paper development.
“Consulting firms have a conflict of interest as long as they themselves may benefit from one outcome
over another,” a Nordic consultant speaking on condition of anonymity told journalist Ann Usher in the
1990s. “For example,” he continued,
“if they find that a certain project is feasible, they are often in a good position to undertake the subsequent
studies, design work and construction supervision associated with further project phases (which is often
more profitable than the initial feasibility study). . . . This conflict could be avoided if the evaluation were
carried out by an impartial party which was aware that it would not subsequently receive any further
project-related work, regardless of evaluation outcome.” 373
Pöyry’s role in Indonesia illustrates this conflict of interest. In the 1980s, when Pöyry’s “experts” started
to work in Indonesia, they could have explained that a massive expansion of the pulp and paper industry
in Indonesia would bring with it billions of dollars of debt, land conflicts, destroyed forests, destroyed
livelihoods and polluted rivers. They might have suggested that perhaps it would be better not to expand
the pulp and paper industry. Had they done so, however, there would have been nothing more for
industrial forestry consultants like Pöyry to do. As it was, Pöyry won contracts on several of the pulp mill
projects that they had recommended should be built. Local communities and their environments end up
paying the price for this conflict of interest.
Economic hit men
Pöyry can perhaps best be described as the “economic hit men” of the forestry world. The phrase comes
from John Perkins’ book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. In the book, Perkins describes how he
worked as a consultant in the 1960s in Indonesia. He and his colleagues produced reports aimed at
persuading the Indonesian government that it needed massive investment in electricity generation to
power the industrial development of the country. Perkins and his colleagues over-estimated the
anticipated demand for electricity. A raft of US-based companies, with funding from the World Bank,
came in to build the necessary infrastructure. 374
Pöyry started working in south-east Asia in the early 1970s and played a key role in setting up deals in the
pulp and paper industry, benefiting from a range of aid-funded consultancies. David Sonnenfeld, an
371 Patrick Sundholm (2002) “Mill performance improvement through close teamwork with the client”, Know-How
Wire, Jaakko Poyry Magazine, December 2002.
372 Tove Selin (2004) “Jaakko Pöyry and the Fin(n)ished Forests of the Mekong Region”, Watershed, Vol. 9, No. 3,
March-June 2004. http://terraper.org/pic_water/Watershed%209(3).pdf
373 Ann Danaiya Usher (Ed.) (1997) Dams as Aid: A political anatomy of Nordic development thinking, Routledge. page
68.
374 John Perkins (2004) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc.