"CARBON SINK PLANTATIONS IN THE ECUADORIAN ANDES.
Impacts of the Dutch FACE-PROFAFOR monoculture tree plantations’ project on indigenous and peasant communities"

Dear friends,

We finally have the English version of a research carried out in Ecuador on the FACE Foundation's carbon sink plantations: "CARBON SINK PLANTATIONS IN THE ECUADORIAN ANDES. Impacts of the Dutch FACE-PROFAFOR monoculture tree plantations’ project on indigenous and peasant communities". The report will be available tomorrow in printed format, but it is already available in our web page at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Ecuador/face.html

Tomorrow we will be disseminating the following at the United Nations Forum on Forests that is taking place in New York, which is a very brief summary of some of the research findings:

The ugly FACE of carbon sink plantations

A recent research on the impacts of the Dutch FACE Foundation monoculture tree plantations project on indigenous and peasant community lands in the Ecuadorian Andes has just been released by the World Rainforest Movement. The research, carried out by Patricia Granda from the local NGO Acción Ecológica documents the social and environmental impacts of the so-called “Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions” which compose the acronym of the FACE Foundation.

The research concludes that while FACE maintains that it provides thousands of jobs or daily wages to the indigenous communities in Ecuador, in no way are these jobs real or decent. They are rather tasks that the communities find themselves obliged to take on, through contracts signed between FACE and the indigenous communities, whereby these take on a debt that converts the contract into a tool of coercive hiring, obliging the communities to serve the interests of the company, because their only option to comply with their contractual commitments is to provide work in a non-remunerated way.

FACE promotes the establishment of tree plantations with the offer of an economic incentive. The possibility of receiving income from forestry activities convinces the peasant communities who sign forestation contracts with FACE. These contracts engage the communities not only in planting (and replanting) the trees but also in providing maintenance of the plantations for terms of between 15 and 30 years, and to be responsible for harvesting and trading the timber. All this takes place in lands that are community property, under the promise of receiving unspecified income at some future date from the sale of the timber. However, the incentives provided by the company have proven to be insufficient even to cover expenses that the communities have to incur to complete the establishment of the plantations.

The only real beneficiary is FACE, which retains 100 per cent of the carbon sink credits while the local communities take on all the responsibilities arising from their maintenance and environmental impacts. Thus, the sequestration of carbon is cheap because it absorbs labour and environmental costs in Ecuador, while unverifiable carbon credits are sold to companies and governments with industrialized economies.

As respects to environmental issues, the introduction of a monoculture pine plantation in a fragile high altitude environment such as the Paramo destroys the water regime and soil structure. It also acidifies the soil, detaining the growth of other plant species, converting these plantations into a food desert for the local fauna. It even results in net carbon emissions, because soil and hydrological changes cause the release of carbon stored in the carbon-rich Paramo soil which amounts to much more that the carbon “fixed” in the trees.

To make matters worse, pine plantations are particularly prone to fire. This risk is considerably increased because FACE plantations are surrounded by easily combustible natural vegetation (the pajonal that is characteristic of the Paramo) and are constantly exposed to strong winds, and it is therefore easy for fires to reach the trees. This is not a theoretical issue: some of the FACE plantations have in fact been almost completely destroyed by fire, thus releasing the carbon allegedly “sequestered” in the trees.

Furthermore, the trees show deficient growth. The pines, introduced into a high altitude environment with extreme climatic conditions, are showing clear indications of poor adaptation to the environment, and are becoming chlorotic.. The “benefit” to be obtained by FACE’s “beneficiary partner” communities at the end of the contract in 30 years or more will be –at the best- a harvest with very few good quality trees.

As part of the research, the World Rainforest Movement’s international coordinator visited the area accompanied by Patricia Granda and Acción Ecológica’s forest campaigner Ivonne Ramos. Ricardo Carrere recorded his observations in a technical report (included as an annex to the research), which is preceded by the following broad assessment: “The Paramo area we visited was never covered by forests, and therefore the plantation of hundreds of hectares of trees (exotic ones at that) will necessarily result in serious impacts on the zone’s flora, fauna, soils and hydrological regime … The Paramo contains a unique and diverse type of vegetation that in turn protects the soil, feeds the fauna and regulates the water cycle. For their part, monoculture pine plantations are devoid of food for the local fauna, eliminating (once their crowns have covered the soil) all the underlying vegetation and thus facilitating erosive processes and substantially modifying the hydrological system (greater consumption by the trees, less infiltration to the water table and sedimentation processes).”

This research should provide food for though to those actors which are either promoting monoculture tree plantations in general (UNFF, FAO, bilateral agencies, governments) or promoting carbon sink plantations (Convention on Climate Change, World Bank) or certifying them (Forest Stewardship Council). Much can be learnt from it.

The full report is available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Ecuador/face.html

WRM International Secretariat Maldonado 1858 CP 11200 Montevideo Uruguay Tel: 598 2 413 2989 - Fax: 598 2 410 0985 e-mail: wrm@wrm.org.uyweb page: http://www.wrm.org.uy.

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