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

304 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradingIs that true?Well, it does somewhat strain credulity. Plantar is saying that carboncredits for its 23,100 hectare project are the only thing that can ensurecharcoal supplies, even though Minas Gerais alone boasts 2 millionhectares of eucalyptus plantations. Plantar itself owns rural propertiescovering more than 180,000 hectares, mainly devoted to eucalyptusfor charcoal and almost all located in Minas Gerais, 182 and providesmanagement services for more than 590,000 hectares of plantationsfor itself and other companies in Brazil spread across 11 large units.The firm also has large investments in the development and productionof high-yielding clonal eucalyptus varieties and is reported to beproducing over 40 million clonal seedlings per year, 183 with yields of35-42 cubic metres per year, contributing to its reputation as a committed,low-cost and highly competitive producer of charcoal andmany other plantation timber products. 184 In addition, Plantar has recentlygone to the trouble of getting plantations it uses to producebarbeque charcoal certified by the FSC.Why should the failure to get carbon credits for only 4 per cent of thetotal area under the firm’s management and 13 per cent of its own directholdings result in a failure to invest in replanting? If the financial prospectsfor new plantation development are so poor, why did Plantar purchasethe lands in question before it was considering carbon finance?Some 143 local groups and individuals put it more strongly in a letterto the CDM Executive Board of June 2004:[T]he claim that without carbon credits Plantar…would haveswitched to coal as an energy source is absurd… Yet now [Plantar]is using this threat to claim carbon credits for continuing to dowhat they have been doing for decades – plant unsustainable eucalyptusplantations for charcoal… It is comparable to loggersdemanding money, otherwise they will cut down trees… [TheCDM] should not be allowed to be used by the tree plantation industryto help finance its unsustainable practices. 185Even the project’s validator, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a Norwegian‘risk management’ consultancy, admitted to being sceptical aboutPlantar’s claim that it would not invest in replanting in the absence ofthe CDM project, ‘given Plantar S.A.’s relatively strong investment capabilitiesas one of the major eucalypt seedling producers in Brazil’.How did DNV check Plantar’s claim?They simply went to Plantar and asked them if it was really true ornot. Unsurprisingly, Plantar executives assured them that the ‘ internal