A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

242 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon trading‘The Money Came from a Place Far Away’:Tanzanian Land, Norwegian CarbonIn addition to its project in Uganda (seemain text), Norway’s Tree Farms companywas also, by 2000, trying to acquiresavannah land totalling over 70,000 hectaresin Tanzania. Between 1996 and 2000,some 1,900 hectares of trees were plantedin Mufindi and Kilombero districts atabout 2,000 metres above sea level, wherea seasonally moist climate provided lots ofwater for thirsty industrial monoculturesof Pinus patula and Eucalyptus saligna.The land had been leased from the governmentat usd 1.90 per hectare per yearfor a 99-year period on condition that it beused solely for forestry. Industrikraft Midt-Norge, the Norwegian power utility,meanwhile signed an options contract topay Tree Farms nearly usd 4.50 per tonneof carbon dioxide supposedly sequestered.Over a 25-year period, this would giveTree Farms a carbon profit of about usd 27million for one plantation complex, Uchindile,compared to usd 565,000 paid tothe Tanzanian government in compensationfor losing the opportunity to do anythingelse with the land.Yet according to Tree Farms ManagingDirector Odd Ivar Løvhaugen, the firmwould have invested in Tanzania’s forestrysector regardless of possible carbon money.Løvhaugen emphasised that the com panyconsiders any trade in carbon credits merelyas a supplement to those from conventionalforestry. The Tree Farms carbonproject would thus be in breach of the requirementsfor carbon projects outlined bythe Kyoto Protocol, which disallow creditsfrom activities that would have been undertakenwithout special carbon finance.Promising various social benefits, the companyhad succeeded in overcoming villagers’reluctance to cede their uncultivated land tothe project, but in the end pledges to providehealth and education services were notkept. Up to 500 local villa gers were hiredto plant and nurse the trees, build roads,or watch over the plantations. But plantingtook place only between December andMarch, so the work could not replace agriculturalor animal husbandry occupations.In addition, the promised wage was too low– usd 1 a day, less than the government’srecommended minimum – for anythingother than daily subsistence. Many workerswere not paid at all. Some workers interviewedby NorWatch in 2000 had eightmonths of wages owing to them.‘When we asked about the salaries’, commentedthe residents of Uchindile village,‘the company told us that the money camefrom a place far away and that there wasnothing that could be done about it’.Source: Jorn Stave, NorWatch/The Futurein Our Hands, ‘Carbon Upsets: Norwegian“Carbon Plantations” in Tanzania’, inFriends of the Earth, Tree Trouble, Friendsof the Earth, Asuncion, 2000.In sum, the project was not just a ‘lose-lose’ initiative for forestry andlocal people, as concluded by the EU-funded study, 36 but in fact a‘lose-lose-lose’ state of affairs. The forestry effects of the scheme were