Dear David, Thank you for your message. I'm afraid my reply is going to be necessarily lengthy, because you raise quite a number of issues which I feel very strongly about. 1) You say: "I was unaware that you were against high production rates (tons/ha) for any crop". I am not against high production rates in abstract. Many traditional agricultural systems achieve high production rates in biomass without resulting in detrimental effects to the environment as a whole. I believe that the main issue lies in the way in which we approach the relationship between environment and production to fulfil human needs. Very broadly, I think that the two main approaches are: production modelled on the factory and production which mimicks nature. In forestry, the first model is represented by large-scale monoculture tree plantations and the second by some agroforestry systems. There are a number of experiences showing that agroforestry systems combining food and wood crops are as a whole more productive than food or tree crops separately. The production rate of the system is thus higher. And what about water consumption? It may be higher or lower than in other crops, but it should be seen at a hydrologic basin level, together with all the other related variables: people, soils, biodiversity, microclimate, etc. Human activities within the basin as a whole should be sustainable in the long run. On the water issue, if more water can be "harvested" through protecting the water sources, then more water could be used for other activities. The issue lies in keeping a balance of the water used within the basin. Which brings us to the issue of large-scale (I insist on this) tree plantations. In South Africa, the industry is allowed to plant trees only up to a certain percentage of the area of the water catchment, because they acknowledge that water consumption by those plantations may affect other agricultural activities or human settlements. In other cases, such as Chile, there have been no such regulations and local people have had to leave some areas because of the depletion of water sources. 2) "As foresters, we were both trained to have a long-term outlook on forest management. Where we differ is choosing the path which we believe will have the least detrimental effect". I could agree with this if it were not linked to the example of Brazil and the issues you raise: - The vast plantations that are being implemented in :Brazil are not contributing to forest conservation and in many instances have -and still do- caused further deforestation. Deforestation derives more from government-sponsored opening of forests for agriculture, cattle-raising and mining than from logging activities (for more details see Colchester,M. and Lohmann,L: The struggle for land and the fate of the forests) - The aim of most of those monocultures is the export of pulp for Northern consumption. CENIBRA, for example, exports more than 80% of its production. On average, Brazilian pulp exports amount to almost 50% of its total production. - Although population growth is obviously an important issue, the fact is that plantations are not -and have never been- the motive behind tree plantations in Brazil: they have been mostly aimed at providing fuel for the steel industry (in the past), or raw material for the pulp industry (at present). Consumption in the North is therefore a much more important issue than local population growth, because the Brazilian economy has become export-oriented. - Lastly, you raise a very import point when you say that "we need to decide today where wood in Brazil will be harvested...". I assume that by "we" you mean foresters. There are two different aspects in this: a) the issue of sovereignty b) the issue of approach. As respects to the first, I believe that only Brazilians have the right to decide. We, as outsiders, have the right -and perhaps even the responsibility- to give advice, to criticize policies which we believe are negative, etc., but not the right to make decisions. On the second issue (approach) I believe that decisions on forestry should not be taken by foresters alone. There is a strong need for multidisciplinary approaches, because sustainable forest use or tree plantations -as any other productive activity- must involve many other discliplines, both from the natural and social sciences. But mostly, decisions should be made with the participation and the agreement of local communities, who should be the beneficiaries -and not the victims- of development projects. We may agree or disagree with their decisions, but they are the ones who should have the right to decide: it's their own environment that will be modified and not ours. You say that for Brazil, 10 million hectares (more than half of the area of my smaller country) is not much. But we must not forget that those 10 million hectares are not going to be dispersed within this huge country. On the contrary, they are mostly concentrating along the coast (where most people live) because they are geared towards export markets. How will the local people feel about this? 3) You say that you were "relieved to learn that many countries can now produce wood at rates of 40-50 metric tons/ha/yr" because of the resulting decrease in harvesting of natural forests and because of the lesser land base needed to produce the same quantity of wood. The problem is not tree growth itself but the impacts of large-scale plantations. If those growth rates could be achieved with minimal environmental costs I would be the first to support them. But what if the impacts affect large numbers of people and the environment? (mass migration, depleting water resources, degrading soils, endangering local fauna and flora). Would you still support them? I think that I have covered most of your comments. I hope that the information I provided you in my shorter message on growth rates has been useful for your paper. Best wishes, Ricardo Carrere
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