In the Media
‘Green desert’ monocultures spreading in Africa and S.America
September 27, 2011
guardian.co.uk
Artificial single-species forests are expanding fast in countries of the developing South, fuelled by low production costs and incentives from governments, and causing severe social and environmental impacts, warned experts from around the world who met last week in the Uruguayan capital.
The so-called “green deserts” are encroaching on the fertile soil of South America and other regions, with the proliferation of plantations of fast-growing and high water-demanding trees to be used to produce pulp and paper, and for other industrial uses, displacing local communities and threatening native ecosystems.
Many governments in the global South support this model of investment, production and consumption, which is replicated from the North, said the participants in the International Symposium on Forestation, held Wednesday Sep. 21, the International Day of Struggle against Tree Plantations.
In several countries of Latin America, as well as in southern Africa and in Asia, monoculture eucalyptus and pine plantations are advancing, to supply paper pulp factories. Plantations of oil palm, first established in Indonesia, are also expanding in those areas. Elizabeth Díaz, with the Uruguayan environmental organisation Guayubira said the environmentalists who met in Montevideo reached the conclusion that “the production model based on large-scale monoculture is the same throughout the developing world, with very similar impacts on communities and the environment.”
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Keywords: Africa, Asia, CDM, deforestation, developing, Forest, Latin America, Palm, paper, pulp, pulp and paper