South Africa’s land, water and environmental resources are undervalued in comparison to those in consumer countries, and the purchase or consumptive use of South African resources therefore makes for very profitable dealings for multinational corporations. It might be hoped that at least a part of these profits would go back to the communities owning the land and water being exploited by the multinational corporations involved.
However this is evidently not the case, because expanding industrial timber plantations only seem to produce more poverty, disease, dispossession and disempowerment than previously experienced by affected communities. To add insult to injury, other largely unrecognised or ignored secondary and cumulative impacts worsen the situation, but the South African government has continued to support plantation expansion by the timber industry. The FSC has legitimised this situation by certifying over 80% of South Africa’s timber plantations as ‘responsibly managed, economically viable and socially and ecologically sustainable FORESTS’, which is far from the reality.
The prospect of a rise in demand for agrofuels, as global energy consumption grows and fossil fuel resources decline, can only mean greater pressure in the future to increase the area of land under cultivation. This in turn will cause more of the same negative impacts that have already been inflicted on people and places by ‘certified’ timber plantations. The government has announced plans to establish another 200 000 hectares of timber plantations on community land in parts of the Eastern Cape province. Another 3 million hectares has been ‘earmarked’ for the large-scale cultivation of genetically engineered maize and canola for ethanol and bio diesel production. Though it is claimed that the biofuels produced would be used to meet a 4,5% target in South Africa, it seems that there are plans to export to Europe as part of a trade agreement.

By: W. Menne (Global Forest Coalition)

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