In his regular La Jornada column, "The Village Idiot," Mexican journalist Jaime Aviles delivers a humorous, yet accurate, sketch of the connections between the disastrous effects of monoculture eucalyptus plantations on native forest ecosystems and the neo-liberal agenda, more popularly known today as corporate globalization. In fact, monoculture plantations, along with the research and development of genetically engineered trees, are fast becoming a symbol of the international timber industry's refusal to deal with its unsustainable paradigm of industrial forestry.

It is important to remember the negative impacts of monocultural, or single species, tree plantations on native forest ecology even before the use of genetic engineering in plantation technologies. These criticisms call into question the role that even non GE tree plantations play in degrading native forests.

A plantation is not a forest. Monocultural tree plantations lack the biodiversity to support a balanced and healthy forest ecosystem. These tree plantations put added stresses on the integrity of soil nutrients, water tables, and "downstream" ecosystems as they are subject to the heavy use of agri-business chemicals, such as poisonous herbicides and pesticides, to maintain their monocultural integrity.

Multinational timber corporations, universities, and government institutions involved in GE tree research and development (R&D) look for plantation-friendly GE approaches like wood quality (uniformity, growth rate, straightness, etc.), herbicide and pesticide resistance, and cloning for the purpose of replicating commercial GE plantations. GE technology in plantation forestry seeks to develop species that grow quickly, display uniformity in size and shape, and even flourish in extreme climates such as deserts and areas suffering from drought or deforestation.

The Pulp and Paper Industry

The international pulp and paper industry is central to placing GE trees in a context of corporate globalization. Plantation technology, certainly to include GE techniques in the future, is the medium of choice for this industry to generate a massive short-term profit. To get an idea of what the paper/pulp industry's plans are for tree plantations, one has only to take a trip into the southeastern United States. Southeastern forests and plantations not only satisfy the bulk of domestic demand for paper products in the US, but also are a major regional purveyor of paper and pulp products worldwide. Pine plantations, especially loblolly pine, are quickly becoming the medium of choice for timber giants like Champion-International (a Helsinki-based multinational) and Georgia Pacific, which also funds R&D for GE trees.

In his Mother Jones (May/June 2000) article "False Forests," journalist Ted Williams gives a concise picture of the grotesque methodology utilized by big pulp/paper companies for installing and "managing" tree plantations:

"Before planting their superseedlings, the companies clear-cut and bulldoze the site to get rid of all native trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, mosses, fungi, grasses, sedges, and wildflowers. Woody debris is burned off. Then they plant loblolly. As the pines mature, they are thinned and pruned. Native trees that return from roots or seeds are cut or killed with herbicides. Frequently the plantation is bombed with fertilizer pellets. Then, 15 to 20 years after they were planted, the pines are clear-cut, and the process begins anew."

Williams' description makes clear the stark contrast between native forest and monocultural tree plantations. What if these tree plantations were comprised of genetically engineered trees? A plantation of GE loblolly could spread its seed cones into nearby adjacent native forest. Genetically engineered traits, like insect resistance and sterility, could be passed on into the genetic material of native forest, forever altering the region's native forest ecosystem. Our own US Forest Service reports, probably conservatively, " that plantations (non-GE) now make up 36 percent of all pine stands in the South and within 20 years will make up 70 percent."

The national paper/pulp industry came to the southeastern United States because of warm weather and long growing seasons, cheap labor, and the fact that most plantations are on private land, and so are largely unregulated. The Western Hemisphere's multi-national paper/pulp products corporations have, in turn, come to roost in Central and South America for the very same reasons. And the principal vehicle for making a killing in timber products across international borders is through trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its looming progeny, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

NAFTA was enacted in 1994, and with its implementation came an unprecedented southward migration of timber multinationals to Mexico, among them International Paper, one of the largest landowners on the planet, and Boise-Cascade, currently the target of an anti-corporate campaign by international activists. Boise-Cascade is a major multinational timber force in the Mexican state of Guerrero, where farmer environmentalists Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia were arrested, tortured, and jailed for their peaceful opposition to logging.

Mexico City journalist John Ross claims that NAFTA was the major force behind the proliferation of tree plantations in Mexico (and one can certainly extrapolate this to include future GE trees and plantations), a threat not only to native forests, but to the indigenous peoples who for centuries have relied on them for shelter, food, fuel, and traditional medicines.

Ross writes: "The scheme to convert Maya Mexico into a vast eucalyptus plantation is a direct consequence of the reform of Article 27 of the [Mexican] Constitution and a direct repercussion of the Free Trade Treaty. This reform allowed peasant communities and ejidos to sell or rent their lands to transnational agro-industries."

Ross goes on to point out the blatant collusion between high-ranking Mexican government officials and Edward Kobacker, Vice President of International Paper's forestry division, whose proposals guided the rewriting of Mexico's forestry laws for the purpose of expanding "free" trade and multi-national corporate power in Mexico.

After the reform of Article 27, the land farmed for centuries by Mexican peasants, many of them indigenous Mayan peoples, is subject to the same treatment as are Southeastern forests in the US: clear-cutting, tree plantations, in this case eucalyptus and palm –– both species infamous for their tremendous absorption of water, and eventual desertification after repeated growing cycles because of stress on soil and water tables, and the intense use of chemicals for fertilizers and against pests. These practices leave indigenous farmers little choice but to move off their ancestral lands and clear more native forest to grow food to sustain their communities.

On January 1st, 1994, the day NAFTA was implemented, the indigenous people of Mexico staged a direct response to the multi-nationals' apparent coup détat over Mexican forests. From the Lacandon rainforests of the in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas marched the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which has waged a guerrilla war against the corrupt Mexican government, its paramilitaries, and the greedy policies of multi-national corporations, including big timber, ever since.
With the implementation of NAFTA in the mid-nineties came the establishment of so-called "free trade zones" in Central America, areas where foreign corporations can have their goods assembled by non-union workers for sub-poverty line wages in sub-standard and unregulated maquiladoras, or sweatshops. The goods produced are later shipped back to the US and sold. Tree plantations provide the raw material for the paper/pulp industry, which in turn supplies the paper packaging -- packaging utilized by maquiladora industries in Mexico. In his 1999 article for "Labor Alerts," a publication by the Campaign For Labor Rights, Robert Chavez makes clear the connections between the paper/pulp industry's tree plantations and the insidious maquiladora system in Mexico:

"A new report by ACERCA (Action For Community And Ecology In The Regions Of Central America) tells another, less-known side of this story. Huge foreign-owned paper companies have acquired large tracts of land in southern Mexico for the purpose of growing eucalyptus and palm trees which have been genetically altered to yield pulpwood with short growing times. [Author’s note: It is important to note that 'altered' does not necessarily mean 'genetically engineered,' though it is certainly possible that GE plantation test plots could be a dark part of southern Mexico's future.] Evidence suggests that much (or most) of this fiber will end up as packing materials for products assembled in the maquiladoras and then shipped out of the country."

When one looks at what the timber industry has to say about "genetically improved" tree plantations, it is clear that Chavez and ACERCA's thinking is very much on the mark. In a 1999 timber industry report, Roger A. Sedjo discussed the impacts of GE trees:

"The potential of widespread introduction of genetically improved trees can have important economic effects. With increasing yields and shortened rotations, planted forests become increasingly attractive as an investment for producing future industrial wood . . .. A planted forest can also be located in proximity to important markets. [emphasis added] Within limits, the manager can choose a species appropriate to the site, which may also have good market access and a reasonably short harvest rotation.”

Looking into the uncomfortably near future of southern Mexico, one reads of plans for a Trans-Isthmus Megaproject, which will include tree plantations, and quite possibly GE tree technology, as just one aspect of a hemispheric corridor for the transport of goods and services in the Global South. In his "The Trans-Isthmus Megaproject: The Global Invasion," indigenous Mexican activist/writer Juan Carlos Beas Torres describes this latest threat to the communities and ecosystems in southern Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

"The proposal involves 80 different municipalities in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The first phase includes 146 projects (81 productive and 65 infrastructure development), among them: privatization and modernization of communications and urban infrastructure, ports and petrochemical facilities; installation of eucalyptus and African palm plantations; industrial shrimp farm development, exploitation of mineral deposits; expanded tourism zones; and the installation of maquiladora industrial parks." [emphasis added]

Industrial monoculture tree plantations and genetically engineered trees not only pose a direct threat to global native forest ecosystems, but will have a dire effect on indigenous forest peoples and the workers of the world. In the early 21st century, the Free Trade Area of The Americas, or FTAA, will be the economic policy foisted on these people to bring about long-term "free" trade projects like the Trans-Isthmus Megaproject.

The FTAA seeks to expand NAFTA to every country in the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of Cuba. The FTAA will include the Multilateral Agreement On Investment, an investment package and "corporate bill of rights. " It would also include a throwback to the World Trade Organization (WTO) called the Investor-to-State Dispute Resolution, which give multi-national corporations the right to sue countries like Mexico if a WTO-style tribunal rules that said country is attempting to impede "free" trade. One of these impediments could be Sanitary/Phyto-Sanitary Regulations (SPS).

SPS regulations were designed to regulate "acceptable" pesticide levels used in agriculture, inspect goods for disease, assess the treatment of livestock, and prevent the spread of invasive species, (this last category could arguably include GE foods, crops, and trees). It is possible that, under Investor-to-State Dispute Resolution, FTAA policy could run counter to the idea behind SPS regulations. That is, if GE trees are not "proven" unsafe for global forest ecosystems, including the human species, then safety-oriented regulations like SPS could potentially be swept aside as a "barrier" to "free" trade by a dispute resolution tribunal.

To learn more about genetically engineered trees or the FTAA, contact the Native Forest Network and ACERCA at (802) 863-0571; nfnena@sover.net, acerca@sover.net

Jason Ford is a Northern Forest Campaigner with the Native Forest Network/Eastern North American Resource Center.