By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Feb 16 1999 (IPS)

A new reforestation law in Argentina promises to bring in millions of investment dollars by tripling the amount of forestS over the next 10 years.

That should be welcome news for environmentalists but some ecology advocates believe that this seemingly sustainable project will only further damage the environment.

“Planting trees is not always the best way to help the environment”, Juan Carlos Villalonga, a spokesperson for ZCZC WAS010 LLLL AA AB ARJ XJ WX DD QU SERVENG .ROMAWAS LA EN ENVIRONMENT-ARGENTINA: Reforestation Not Always WELCOME

By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 16

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By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Feb 16 1999 (IPS)

A new reforestation law in Argentina promises to bring in millions of investment dollars by tripling the amount of forestS over the next 10 years.

That should be welcome news for environmentalists but some ecology advocates believe that this seemingly sustainable project will only further damage the environment.

“Planting trees is not always the best way to help the environment”, Juan Carlos Villalonga, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Argentina, told IPS. He cautions that the plan is merely a public relations manoeuvre for petrochemical companies to improve business by improving their image.

Between 1992 and 1998, a government reforestation project increased the number of hectares under cultivation from 20,000 to 100,000.

“The goal is to reach 200,000 hectares each year for the next 10 years”, said engineer Daniel Maradei, an advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture, told IPS.

At present, there are approximately 700,000 hectares of forest in cultivation, both native and imported species. The plan is to eventually have more than two million hectares. To reach this goal, Maradei explained, Congress has already passed the new reforestation law, which is designed to attract investment dollars.

The new law promises a 50-year guarantee on investments. It guarantees that the terms cannot change, and it exempts investors from a range of taxes. In addition, it calls for a consumer tax cut and subsidies for plantations under 700 hectares.

The goal is to increase forested areas to revitalize local economies – such as the creation of 120,000 new jobs – and the development of raw materials to help businesses related to the paper and wood industries. In addition, the law aims to help the environment by facilitating the conversion of more carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Trees can absorb the carbon dioxide created by the burning of fossil fuels – particularly the combustion engines of motor vehicles. Carbon dioxide gases raise the temperature of the environment, called the “greenhouse effect”.

According to Maradei, there are now companies investing extensively in stands of eucalyptus, pine, araucan and other, almost all, foreign species , and expect the total investment figure to reach about 5 billion dollars.

The investment money is being funneled through directly related industries and a “forestry fund”, started in Argentina by the Union of Switzerland Bank, which is soliciting small investors to contribute to the planting of trees. Maradei admitted that forestry investment is extremely profitable, in addition to being a form of sustainable development.

A study by the Okita Foundation of Argentina has found the rate of return to be 15 percent, and, for eucaplytus trees, 17 percent. The Argentine oil companies YPF and Perez Companc and the Anglo- Dutch Shell giant already are making plans to buy up extensive expanses of arable land and, for the most part, planting eucalyptus.

This has not been good news for environmentalists. Last June, an international group of 14 environmental leaders met in Uruguay and warned against the risk of new “monocultures”.

“These plantations have little in common with forests”, according to the Declaration of Montevideo ast the end of the 19998 meeting. “They’re made up of thousands, and sometimes millions, of quick-growing trees of one species which yield lots of timber but require a type of maintenance which hurts the land.”

Villalonga explains that the trees chosen for reforestation purposes-eucalyptus, araucan, and pine-are fast-growing trees which erode the soil because of the intensive preparation required, and which crowd out native trees, thus decreasing biodiversity.

“In many cases, the plantings come on the heels of forest fires or the clear-cutting of native trees, the latter being a new major cause of deforestation, mainly in the south where plentiful resources and lax rules coexist.”

Pursuant to recommendations made at the Climate Change Summits- the last was held in 1998 in Buenos Aires-industry and governments are obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions or, failing
that, to plant trees.

But to Villalonga, the value of planting trees to offset environmental damage is questionable,
and difficult to validate scientifically.

“A stable, mature climax forest does not act as filter for carbon dioxide because it exists in an environment where there is already an equilibrium between the amount of carbon dioxide they emit and the amount that they absorb. However, young trees absorb more carbon dioxide than they emit during their growing phases”, the environmentalist elaborated.

But when reforestation becomes a business, verifying the amount of greenhouse gasses they actually absorb is crucial. “Theses new plantations can burn down, which is happening at the moment in Patagonia, and all the carbon dioxide which has been absorbed is being released right back into the atmosphere,” Villalonga said.

Greenpeace thinks a better solution to this problem would be for the petrochemical companies to reduce emissions of polluting greenhouse gases rather than plant trees. The group also proposes that the industry use alternative technologies to replace the old, polluting ones.

“We can measure the damage these gases do to the environment, but we cannot quantify how much carbon dioxide a newly-planted tree can absorb, which4, in addition, creates other problems from the moment it is planted”.

So environmentalists are alerting citizens to beware of ‘green washing” – as the practices of the petroleum companies are called – and are warning of the danger of losing the forest because of some trees which, in this case, might be eucalyptus.

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