ThinktoSustain.com: According to your study, ‘market-based climate change mitigation projects’ – as in the case of the Idete plantation project – have their own share of problems. Can you elaborate why CDM plantation projects are not sustainable?
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza & Mr. Wally Menne: This question has been dealt with at length in our report. However, in summary, it can be said that the core problems with the CDM are that the projects it encourages and legitimizes are piece-meal efforts that merely displace elsewhere the environmentally harmful activities they are intended to mitigate. They fail to reduce the overall level of greenhouse gas emissions and increase negative social and environmental impacts, as demonstrated by the Idete tree plantation project of Green Resources Ltd,, which has applied for it to be registered as an emission reduction project under the CDM.
ThinktoSustain.com: In the case of Idete, issues have been raised on the role of governments of Tanzania and Norway in the finalization and execution of the project. What were the main issues?
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza & Mr. Wally Menne: The overarching issue is the unequal relationship between Norway, as an excessively wealthy country with a small urbanized population (<5million) with many highly educated yet ill-informed individuals, and Tanzania, a so-called developing country with a large population (>40 million), mostly living in rural communities that subsist from the traditional utilization of natural resources and small-scale agricultural activities. Norway has tried to impose its Eurocentric ideologies on Tanzanian society in a manner much like that used by the major colonial powers to dominate parts of Africa in the past, albeit without resorting to military means in accessing Tanzanian resources perceived to be of importance in expanding Norway’s economy.
ThinktoSustain.com: How do you foresee the challenges related to CDM plantation projects? Do you see any gaps that can be plugged-in to prevent misuse of CDM provisions laid down by UNFCCC? Who should take the first action-steps?
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza & Mr. Wally Menne: We believe that in its present form the CDM is deeply flawed, and has already been exploited and/or corrupted in so many ways that there is little hope that it could ever be rehabilitated. Industrial-scale alien tree plantations are seriously problematic in their own right, and this has been thoroughly documented, but to claim that they can mitigate the impacts of climate change is ludicrous, to say the least. In fact they add considerably to overall carbon and methane emissions, when the complete timber production, processing, consumption and waste disposal cycle is taken into account.
There is no doubt that the conversion of natural carbon sinks such as grasslands into industrial plantations leads to substantial carbon leakages that no amount of temporary sequestration in industrial timber can hope to offset. To put it politely, we believe CDM “Afforestation/Reforestation” projects in the form of industrial plantations are nothing less than a deliberate scam, aimed at justifying the increased expansion of one of the most environmentally destructive land uses on Earth, for the benefit of the corporate global timber industry.
ThinktoSustain.com: Green Resources Ltd. reacted to your preliminary study-findings by citing several evidences and explanations to justify their actions. What are your views on this?
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza & Mr. Wally Menne: Our final report responded comprehensively to the relevant claims and accusations made in Green Resources Ltd.’s response to the preliminary report that we released in December 2009. However, since the release of the final report in early March this year, Timberwatch has not been approached directly by Green Resources Ltd. concerning our findings. Rather we have received several positive responses, including those from international NGOs and researchers. We do, however, anticipate that in due course some corporate persons and their supporters and funders will try to defend Green Resources Ltd., as they do it all the time through green-washing campaigns. Clearly, it does not serve their interests if any person or group exposes the negative side of projects they promote as progressive.
About the Researchers:
About Dr. Blessing J. Karumbidza
Blessing J. Karumbidza is the Media & Communication Convenor of the Climate Change Committee on COP17 as well as a committee member of The Timberwatch Coalition. He is the Director of the African Ombudsman Research Centre based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and former researcher at the Social Economic Rights Institute of South Africa. Blessing is an economic historian and development sociologist with interests in sustainable social and economic transformation. He has worked with rural development organisations such as the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) where he was director, and with labour and political economy institutions such as the Workers College in Durban. He acquired his Ph.D. from University of KwaZulu-Natal. As a SARCHi Research Fellow at the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation at the Tshwane University of Technology, Blessing is publishing his Ph.D. on Zimbabwe’s agrarian political economy. He is carrying out research and writing on climate change mitigation and adaptation in Africa and is active in the climate justice network.
About Mr. Wally Menne
Wally Menne is a Member of The Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa. His expertise is in ecological impacts of monocultures, in particular of timber plantations, on forests and grasslands; socio-economic implications of land-use conversion to large-scale pulp-wood/agro-fuel crop production; the inherent unworkability and dishonesty of carbon (JI and CDM) and biodiversity (land exchange) offset projects; natural vegetation/landscape restoration, through propagation and cultivation of native plants.
(Compiled under the guidance of Dr. Laxmi N. Goparaju, Ph.D. in Environmental Science & Technology, Expert on Forest and Ecology Issues at ThinktoSustain.com. In case of any queries related to this interview, do send your mails to editor@thinktosustain.com.)
