Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

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91 CEPI Eurokraft states that “it is clear that the distribution itself gives the highest environmental impact for all of the studied systems”.464 But rather than looking at possible ways of reducing the impacts of distributing goods, CEPI Eurokraft distorts the findings of the report it commissioned and promotes the use of paper sacks instead of the semi-bulk system using large reusable plastic sacks. In 2001, CEPI Eurokraft co-sponsored a school project in the UK, which included information on “growing trees for paper making”, “making paper sacks from paper” and “recycling paper waste by composting”. The project included teacher’s materials, wall posters for the classroom, posters for children to take home, stickers, recycled paper pots, kraft paper to make sacks, compost and tree seeds.465 It sounds great. Children even get to plant tree seeds in the compost “hence completing the cycle” as CEPI Eurokraft puts it. But, CEPI Eurokraft’s job is to promote the industry, not to educate. There is no mention in its material for schools of the impacts of the pulp and paper industry’s industrial tree plantations on biodiversity or local people. Neither is there any mention of the vast areas of land that European companies are taking over in the global South to establish their industrial tree plantations. “PrintSells” is CEPIFINE’s advertising campaign promoting “the use of paper as an extremely efficient marketing tool”.466 The campaign urges companies to “Get real with your corporate communication and see the benefits immediately.” PrintSells celebrates paper consumption, pointing out, for example, that between 1954 and 2006, the number of catalogues that IKEA prints each year has increased from 500,000 to 192 million467 and that more than 2,860 new magazine titles were launched in 2006.468 The PrintSells campaign promotes just about any use of paper: books, calendars, annual reports, brochures, catalogues, magazines, advertising and junk mail. CEPI is running another paper promotion campaign titled “paperonline”, with the slogan “ideas start with paper”. The website tells us that “Paper is all around us and the demand for paper is increasing,” and “paper is a part of everyday life”.469 On paper and climate change, the website notes that under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU committed itself to “a reduction of minus [sic] 8%”, compared to 1990 levels by 2012. “However,” CEPI continues, “the growth in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, especially from the transport sector, suggests that the Kyoto targets are much more ambitious than was envisaged in 1997.”470 The implication that the Kyoto targets are even remotely “ambitious” flies in the face of the scientific evidence about climate change which demands reductions of more than 90 per cent. 471 Once a year, CEPI organises the “European Paper Week”, which it boasts is the “European paper and 464 “LCA of Distribution in Paper Sacks. Executive Summary”, Eurosac and CEPI Eurokraft, 2000, page 4. 465 “ETAPS School Pack”, CEPI Eurokraft website. http://www.cepi-eurokraft.org/Etaps.htm 466 CEPIFINE’s website: http://www.cepifine.org/html/index_ns.htm 467 “Instore communication, brochures and catalogues”, PrintSells brochure. 468 “Magazines”, PrintSells brochure. 469 CEPI’s paperonline website: http://www.paperonline.org/ 470 “Environmental issues”, CEPI’s paperonline website. http://www.paperonline.org/enviro/level3/issues/issues_frame.html 471 To prevent global warming exceeding 2°C, the world needs to cut emissions to about 15% of the volume in 2000, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This would require cuts of 94.4% in the UK and 97.7% in the US. For an explanation of the figures, see George Monbiot (2007) “What is Progress”, Guardian, 4 December 2007. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/12/04/what-is-progress/
92 pulp industry’s biggest annual event”. In November 2007, about 300 pulp and paper company representatives met for a three day corporate shindig at the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels.472 CEPI acts quickly to defend the industry’s interests against any attempts to change it. For example, when more than 50 European NGOs launched the “Shrink” campaign, aimed at reducing paper consumption in Europe, CEPI responded with a press release in which it claimed that the pulp and paper industry is “a unique example of how an industry can avoid producing waste and one that recycles at all stages.”473 “By targeting the paper industry these NGOs are promoting other materials that do not have the same environmental credentials,” said Teresa Presas, CEPI’s Managing Director, in the press release. Presas ignores the fact that the Shrink campaign is not promoting other materials. It is advocating using less paper in the North, not replacing paper with something else. Presas says that NGOs are “contributing to the relocation of paper production to other areas of the world where environmental standards are less of a concern.” She seems oblivious to the fact that the pulp and paper industry has been closing down operations in the North and expanding in the global South for many years. In any case, the NGOs behind the Shrink campaign are not recommending that the industry should relocate to the South, they are recommending that it should shrink. Presas says that the Shrink campaign would become “responsible for the loss of thousands of jobs in Europe in particular in rural areas.” But as CEPI’s own data shows, the pulp and paper industry is responsible for the loss of thousands of jobs in Europe. In 1991, CEPI member countries employed 389,300 people in the pulp and paper sector. By 2006, this figure had shrunk by about a third, to 259,100 people. During the same period, pulp and paper production in Europe has actually increased.474 In January 2008, CEPI commented on the European Commission’s proposals for the EU CO 2 emission trading system (EU ETS). CEPI welcomed the “special considerations for energy intensive industries, like the pulp and paper industry”, an unusual admission by the industry that pulp and paper production does in fact require a large amount of energy. CEPI is in favour of a trade in emission credits, which would allow the industry to buy credits instead of reducing its emissions to meet targets. Predictably however, CEPI opposes the auctioning of emission credits, because the industry would have to buy to rights to continue polluting. CEPI argued that the EU ETS would “generate up to 75 billion Euros per year” by 2020, which CEPI describes as the first direct EU tax in history. 475 CEPI is also lobbying against the targets for reduced greenhouse gas emissions that are needed across all industries to prevent runaway climate change: “Full auctioning is not needed to ensure a properly functioning carbon market or carbon price and will not help industry to meet the required targets but it will unnecessarily damage European industry. ETS 472 “Welcome to European Paper Week”, CEPI website. http://www.cepi.org/Content/Default.aspPageId=43. European Paper Week 2008 is planned for 25-28 November 2008. 473 “Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) Disagrees with ‘Shrink Waste and Recycle’ Campaign by NGOs in Europe”, CEPI Press Release, 12 June 2008. 474 “Key Statistics 2006 European Pulp and Paper Industry”, CEPI, June 2007. 475 “Energy intensive industries need clarity soon in EU ET”, Confederation of European Paper Industries, press release, 24 January 2008.
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1 Plantations, poverty and power: E
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3 CONTENTS Introduction 1. Plantati
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5 New investors have emerged recent
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7 1. Plantations do not plant thems
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9 plantations established on grassl
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11 Nations Food and Agriculture Org
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13 Another reason for the move to t
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15 In his book, “Khor Jor Kor, Fo
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17 Between 1991 and 2006, the numbe
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19 are asking for”, notes WWF. 60
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21 consume fewer goods. Less advert
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23 credit crunch, unstable oil pric
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25 Investment in plantations in the
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27 possible price. Subsidies, linke
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29 2. The anatomy of five pulp proj
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31 However, while the Bank confirme
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33 make way for its tree plantation
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35 In April 2004, about 2,000 famil
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37 Sappi, Swaziland: 50 years of in
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39 after an assessment by the Soil
Page 42 and 43: 41 impact of the plantations on wat
Page 44 and 45: 43 Advance Agro, Thailand: Deforest
Page 46 and 47: 45 confiscation and liquidation of
Page 48 and 49: 47 management was facing a bankrupt
Page 50 and 51: 49 Indah Kiat, Asia Pulp and Paper,
Page 52 and 53: 51 company owners want profits to b
Page 54 and 55: 53 • US$4.5 billion owed by APP i
Page 56 and 57: 55 explained that “association wi
Page 58 and 59: 57 Indah Kiat faces a series of lan
Page 60 and 61: 59 logging. While the investigation
Page 62 and 63: 61 experimental areas and not from
Page 64 and 65: 63 Staples and Office Depot in the
Page 66 and 67: 65 “the exhaustive studies have c
Page 68 and 69: 67 CEDHA has also filed complaints
Page 70 and 71: 69 of converting grasslands to indu
Page 72 and 73: 71 3. Pulp Inc. Profiles of seven p
Page 74 and 75: 73 Thailand, a power plant for a Ne
Page 76 and 77: 75 Management’s experts the possi
Page 78 and 79: 77 A year after Aracruz’s third p
Page 80 and 81: 79 In January 2003, Pöyry announce
Page 82 and 83: 81 Bank in the early 1990s. Groome
Page 84 and 85: 83 Pöyry’s role in the Baikal Pu
Page 86 and 87: 85 Under carbon financing, Pöyry o
Page 88 and 89: 87 Pöyry is working on second gene
Page 90 and 91: 89 The Confederation of European Pa
Page 94 and 95: 93 sectors need to reduce by 21% co
Page 96 and 97: 95 The ADB’s report notes that th
Page 98 and 99: 97 Nepal In Nepal, the target area
Page 100 and 101: 99 loan for the second plantations
Page 102 and 103: 101 International Finance Corporati
Page 104 and 105: 103 •In December 2000, IFC approv
Page 106 and 107: 105 firm’s activities. After his
Page 108 and 109: 107 safeguards are in practice.
Page 110 and 111: 109 Bank projects are approved by a
Page 112 and 113: 111 •€80 million to Portucel to
Page 114 and 115: 113 The Food and Agriculture Organi
Page 116 and 117: 115 Nevertheless, Poore and Fries n
Page 118 and 119: 117 failure to define industrial tr
Page 120 and 121: 119 FAO’s guidelines recommend th
Page 122 and 123: 121 Rosengren did not reply to my e
Page 124 and 125: 123 Forest Stewardship Council: Mis
Page 126 and 127: 125 body that rubber stamps operati
Page 128 and 129: 127 Criterion 1.6, for example, sta
Page 130 and 131: 129 fast wood plantations have take
Page 132 and 133: 131 Principle 10.8 should prevent t
Page 134 and 135: 133 By April 2004, FSC had, at last
Page 136 and 137: 135 plantations, because it creates
Page 138 and 139: 137 integrated set of common Princi
Page 140 and 141: 139 for clearing areas of Atlantic
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141 Colombia were certified by SGS.
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143 The dissociation became necessa
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145 4. Future planned pulp mills As
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147 Planned pulp projects: 698 Comp
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149 UPM and Sveza Group Vologda Rus
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151 paper industry along ecological
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