Global Justice Ecology Project works with organizations, social movements and indigenous peoples around the world for the elimination of socially and ecologically destructive industrial timber plantations and for the restoration of biodiverse native forests, which are critical to communities, wildlife, water and the climate.

"Tropical deforestation is a major contributor to global warming, causing 20% of the planet's total greenhouse gas emissions."      --Union of Concerned Scientists, Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative

Plantations are Not Forests.

Few people would mistake a corn field for a native prairie.

Yet that is exactly what the timber industry asks us to do when they argue that there is no difference between a timber plantation and a native forest.

Like cornfields, trees in timber plantations stand in straight orderly rows.  There are few or no understory plants, there is little habitat for wildlife and often the trees themselves are clones from a single "parent" tree--many times a species that is not native to the bioregion.

Forests are ecosystems that have evolved over billions of years.  They include not only the trees, but the microorganisms in the soil, the dead and rotting trees that are host to a myriad of fungus and wildlife and are important for storing carbon.  They include the understory plants, the ferns, wildflowers and shrubs.  And forests include the insects, birds, and large and small mammals--all of which are woven together into one intricate web of life. But forests support not only wildlife, but many human communities are found living in and with forest ecosystems in regions all over the world.

But these forests are being ravaged.  This mass-deforestation has driven countless species into extinction.  Indigenous and forest-dependent communities have been evicted to face uncertain futures.  Some entire peoples have vanished from the Earth.

Protecting the world's remaining native forests--both tropical and temperate--is a crucial part of sustaining life on our fragile green planet.  Intact native forests also help stabilize the world's climate and provide clean water.

Rising demand for wood for paper products plus new demands for trees for biofuels (cellulosic ethanol) is increasing the already severe pressure on these forests.

The countries of the Industrialized North are the worst contributors to this problem, with the US far and away the top abuser, with the vast majority of paper produced being used once and sent into the landfill.

Today companies argue that they can achieve "more wood" from "less land" through the use of plantations of trees genetically engineered to grow faster or have "improved" wood quality.

The sad truth, however, is that plantations don't protect native forests, they replace them.  Fast growing plantations also rapidly deplete both soils and ground water, devastating the land for generations.

In addition, plantations do not sequester carbon in the same way that native forests do.  Some studies have found that native forests in tropical areas store four times the carbon of plantations.  Replacing forests with plantations, therefore, contributes to global warming.

Plantations are a part of the problem, not a part of the solution, and the addition of genetically engineered trees to the mix will only make the problem worse by irreversibly contaminating native forests with genetically engineered seeds and pollen, leading to dangerous and widespread ecological impacts.

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For more details about the threats of using trees for biofuels, click here.

Top Right: Weaverbird and nest, Kenya.  Photo:  Petermann/GJEP