Agrofuel Moratorium Campaign

November 2007

To sign up, please send your name, organisation and country to:

agrofuelsafrica@gmail.org

We, the undersigned members of African civil society organisations, as well as organisations from other parts of the world, do urgently call for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on our continent. We need to protect our food security, forests, water, land rights, farmers and indigenous peoples from the aggressive march of agrofuel developments, which are devouring our land and resources at an unbelievable scale and speed.

We call for:
• A moratorium on new agrofuel developments in Africa. Our governments
urgently need to stop and think before delivering our continent to the fuel demand of foreign investors.
• No agrofuel targets for Governments in Europe and the rest of the world.
• An international moratorium on agrofuel exports, until the true social and environmental costs can be assessed, and disaster averted.

We have chosen to name this problem “agrofuels” instead of the more common term “biofuels” to make clear that we are talking about the large-scale growing of crops specifically to produce liquid fuels. We are not talking about the use of wood, dung or waste matter. Nor are we talking about small-scale production that is integrated into
food production and used for household and local energy supplies. We wish to make clear that the agrofuels push is about large-scale fuel production on massive privatised plantations, driven by the fuel demands of export markets.

Africa is already feeling the impact of climate change, and our continent is likely to be the hardest hit by future changes in our weather systems. We must do all we can to both mitigate the problems and adapt to the coming changes. But the agrofuels push, rather than the seductive “carbon neutral” solution it claims to be, will exacerbate Africa’s climate and food security problems even more.
The agrofuels push in Africa is being termed the next “Green Gold Rush”. Investors are rushing to privatise our land for their plantations, while our governments willingly allocate millions of hectares from the 70% of Africa’s land that is still communally
owned. "Jatropha" is being pushed as one of the new miracle crops for African small farmers to produce fuel. But the reality is that the gold rush is firmly controlled by giant transnational companies which are taking over Africa’s land at an incredible pace, and are bringing about disastrous socio-economic and environmental impacts on our
communities, food security, forests and water resources.

Some of the impacts that already have been observed in 2007 so far include:

1) Displacing farmers and food security in Tanzania
Thousands of Tanzanian farmers growing rice and maize are already being evicted from fertile areas of land with good access to water, for agrofuel sugar cane and jatropha plantations on newly privatised land. Villages are being cleared, but families have been given minimal compensation or opportunities for their loss of land, community and way of life. Evictions already taken place in Kisarawe District and the Usangu plains, and tens of thousands of hectares in Bagamoyo and Kilwa districts are being given to foreign investors. In addition,
the government has identified millions more hectares in at least 10 other districts.

2) Deforestation for agrofuels in Uganda
In Uganda, plans to cut down thousands of hectares of the country’s largest rainforest reserve, for a sugar plantation for ethanol have fortunately been cancelled, following civil protest on the issue. Such deforestation can threaten local water cycles, as Mabira Forest is a key water catchment area for Lake Victoria and the River Nile. Unfortunately, however, thousands of hectares of forest on Kalangala and Bugala Islands in Lake Victoria have already been cut down to make way for palm oil plantations.

3) Conservation Areas Threatened in Ethiopia
Millions of hectares in Ethiopia have been identified as suitable for agrofuel production, and many foreign companies have already been allocated land from farmland, forests and wilderness areas. Even protected areas are not safe from the spread of agrofuels. One European investor has been granted 13,000 hectares of land in Oromia state – 87% of which is the Babile Elephant Sanctuary, a home to rare and endangered elephants.

4) A Bad Deal for Out-growers in Zambia
Privatised plantations are not the only model of large-scale agrofuel production in Africa. Some investors in Zambia are choosing to grow crops such as jatropha through huge numbers of out-growers, using contracts that last up to 30 years. These contracts serve to transfer control over production from the farmer to the company, through a system of loans, numerous extra charges and service payments, and prices determined by the company. Under such a system of dependence, farmers are likely to increase their indebtedness to the company, until they may be obliged to hand over their land altogether.

5) Fuel or food in West Africa?
In West Africa, the agrofuel craze is also gaining momentum. Jatropha is already being grown in Togo, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Niger. Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade has enthused about an African "biofuels revolution" and placed fuel crops at the heart of an agriculture renewal programme in his country. In Ghana one company is planning to plant one million hectares of Jatropha with support of the government, while in Benin another company has obtained permission to plant a quarter of a million hectares of agrofuel crops. Farmers in Benin and in many other countries in the region have, on the average, no more than 1 hectare to grow their products and the agrofuels are expected to make a serious dent into their food production.

In other words: the agrofuels ‘revolution’ is geared to replace millions of hectares of local agricultural systems, and the rural communities working in them, with large plantations. It is oriented to substitute biodiversity-based indigenous cropping, grazing and pasture farming systems with monocultures and genetically engineered agrofuel
crops. In addition, the millions of hectares of what the agrofuel-pushers euphemistically call “wastelands” or “marginal soils” are to be turned to ‘productive’ fuel production, conveniently forgetting that millions of people in local communities make a living from these fragile ecosystems. And where there are no indigenous farming systems to replace, one just takes the forests. In the driver’s seat are the multinational corporations that manage these kinds of huge monocultures best and already control the international market for agrofuels.

In Africa, much of the drive for agrofuel developments comes from talk of achieving national energy security. However, in most countries there seems to be a failure to recognise that foreign companies are already controlling the direction of biofuel production, with an eye on targeting more lucrative export markets. Rising global oil prices will determine the price of liquid biofuels, and is likely to price fuel and feedstock out of the reach of the poor, and into export markets in the North.

We simply do not believe that agrofuels offer a genuine solution for climate change or energy security. Scientific studies show that the production, processing and transport of agrofuels, uses more energy than is contained in the fuel product. Other studies show that the cutting down and burning of forests and peatlands to make way for agrofuel plantations, produces many times more carbon dioxide emissions per litre of agrofuel than the equivalent amount of fossil fuel. The current push for agrofuels exacerbate, rather than solve, the problem of climate change.

To address climate change, we don’t need agrofuel plantations to produce fuel energy. Instead, we need to turn the industrial production system upside down. We need policies and strategies to reduce the consumption of energy and to prevent waste. Such policies and strategies already exist and are being fought for. In agriculture and food production, they mean orienting production towards local rather than international markets; they mean adopting strategies to keep people on the land, rather than throwing them off; they mean supporting sustained and sustainable approaches for bringing biodiversity back into agriculture, using and expanding on local knowledge; and they mean putting local communities back in the driving seat of rural development. Such policies and strategies imply the use and further development of agro-ecological technologies to maintain and improve soil fertility and organic matter and in the process to sequester carbon dioxide in the soil rather than expelling it into the atmosphere. Together, such measures would amount to a formidable step in the right direction in the fight against climate change.

Among Africa’s many challenges, food security is one of the most serious. A full car tank of ethanol uses the same amount of grain that can feed a child for a year. We do not understand how our governments can willingly take our food, land and water to meet the fuel luxuries of the wealthy in the North, when we already face problems of food security and environmental destruction at home.

We can ill afford to lose our food, forests, land and water, if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and food insecurity. We therefore ask our African governments and those of the North to stop and think. We urgently call for a moratorium that can protect Africa from the many threats of the new and dangerous Agrofuels stampede.

SIGNED BY:
From Africa:
1. Mahinou Senade Nestor, Synergie Paysanne, Benin
2. Desalegn Tanga, Wolyta Soddo Pensioners
3. Elbethel Tadesse, ABN Seed GETCO, Ethiopia
4. Gebremehdin Birega, Africa Biodiversity Network, Ethiopia
5. Melaku Werede, Scientific Advisor, Ethiopia
6. Million Belay, MELCA, Ethiopia
7. Sue Edwards, ISD, Ethiopia
8. Tadesse Reta, Ejera Indigenous Seed Conservatory Association, Ethiopia
9. Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Environmental Protection Agency, Ethiopia
10. Tsion Yohannes, MELCA, Ethiopia
11. Bakari Nyari, RAINS, Ghana
12. Gilbert Iddi Seidu, University for Development Studies, Ghana
13. Naa Thomas Tia Sulemana, RAINS, Ghana
14. Salifu Yussif Abudulai, RAINS, Ghana
15. Alice Mashinde, Appropriate Rural Development Agriculture Programme, Kenya
16. Basilius Kagwi Ndirangu, Porini, Kenya
17. Collins Ochieng Otieno, CREP Programme, Kenya
18. Gathuru Mburu, Africa Biodiversity Network, Kenya
19. Jackson Wafula, SMART Initiative, Kenya
20. Paul Karanja, SACDEP, Kenya
21. Regina Mutheca, SACDEP, Kenya
22. Zachary Makanya, PELUM, Kenya
23. Lamine Biaye, ASPSP, Senegal
24. Elfrieda Pschorn-Strauss, GRAIN, South Africa
25. Jabulani Bonginkosi Tembe, Kwa-Nganase Farmer Organisation, South Africa
26. Katja Abbott, ABN, South Africa
27. Lawrence Mkhaliphe, Biowatch, South Africa
28. Mphatheleni Makaulule, Mupo Foundation, South Africa
29. Abdallah Ramadhani Mkindi, Envirocare, Tanzania
30. Chacha Benedict Wambura, Foundation Help, Tanzania
31. Peter Kidimba, Ileje Rural Development Organisation, Tanzania
32. Renatha Abel Kimathi, NGAS, NI, Tanzania
33. Agnes Kirabo, VEDCO, Uganda
34. Geoffrey Kayama, Harvest Help, Zambia

Source: http://www.gaiafoundation.org/documents/Africaagrofuelmoratorium.pdf

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The undersigned call for an immediate moratorium on U.S. incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures and a moratorium on global trade of such agrofuels. This includes the immediate suspension of all congressionally mandated targets and incentives such as tax breaks, tariffs and subsidies that benefit and promote agrofuels from large-scale industrial monocultures, including financing through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid or loans from international finance organizations.

This call responds to the rapid concentration of the agrofuel industry in the U.S., driven largely by U.S. and E.U. renewable fuels targets, and to the growing number of calls from the global south against the expansion of agrofuel monocultures. Agrofuels refer to large-scale industrial monoculture production of crops such as soy, oil palm, sugar cane, jatropha, canola etc. for fuels and do not include small scale, sustainably grown fuel crops that benefit local communities, do not employ genetically engineered (GE) varieties, and can be accurately referred to as "biofuels."
Agrofuels cause deforestation and environmental damage

Industrial monoculture production has numerous negative impacts on the environment, climate and on people. These include soil depletion and erosion, contamination and depletion of waterways, increased use of nitrogen fertilizers and toxic agrichemicals and an increasing reliance on a small number of GE varieties at the expense of diverse and sustainable agriculture systems. Monocultures of soy and sugar cane in Latin America and palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia have led to massive deforestation and the loss of invaluable biodiversity.
Agrofuels will worsen global warming

Agrofuels are promoted as a solution to global warming, but more accurate life-cycle assessments suggests that they increase carbon emissions by increasing deforestation and degradation of peatlands and soils, while also creating more nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use. Crop irrigation and refineries deplete already dwindling fresh water resources.
Agrofuels seriously threaten food and land rights of indigenous people and the rural poor.

Promoted as a benefit to the rural poor, agrofuels are instead causing the displacement, often violent, of indigenous people and the diversion of lands formerly used to produce food for local consumption into production of agrofuels for export to wealthy northern countries. Workers are subjected to poor conditions, chemical exposures, and other abuses.
Certification will not provide adequate protections

Certification systems cannot control macro-level impacts such as the displacement of other land uses, cannot be adequately monitored and implemented in many countries, have thus far failed to ensure full participation of affected communities, could conflict with WTO agreements, and cannot be designed and implemented fast enough to keep pace with current development.

The International Energy Agency estimates that over the next 23 years, the world could produce as much as 147 million tons of agro-fuel. This fuel will barely offset the yearly increase in global oil demand, now standing at 136 million tons a year, without offsetting any of the existing demand. Is this worth it?
Urgent and effective measures other than agrofuels are available

The undersigned support urgent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, based on climate science assessments, which involve a drastic overall reduction in energy use in industrialized countries, strict energy efficiency standards, and support for truly renewable forms of energy, such as sustainable wind and solar energy and promotion of land use patterns that preserve 'carbon sinks'.

Read more about the call for a moratorium (pdf)

Download the call in Portuguese
Download the call in Spanish

Members of the working group:

Rainforest Action Network
Global Justice Ecology Project
Food First
Grassroots International
Family Farm Defenders
Student Trade Justice Campaign

Signers:

Altropico Foundation, Ecuador
Amazon Watch
American Jewish World Service
A SEED Europe, Netherlands
ATTAC, Germany
BASE-Investigaciones Sociales, Paraguay
Biofuelwatch, UK
Biowatch South Africa
Border Agricultural Workers Project
Brazilian Association for Agroecology
Carbon Trade Watch, Europe
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture
Climate Action Coalition, Bulgaria
Concerned Citizens of Newport
Cornucopia Institute
Corporate Watch, Europe
Dogwood Alliance
EasySweet Farm
Ecological Society of the Phillipines
Ecologistas en Accion, Spain
Energy Justice Network
EPIC (Environmental Protection Information Center)
ETC Group
FIAN (Food First Information and Action Network), Netherlands
Food and Water Watch
Food for Maine's Future
Foreign Policy in Focus
Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth, Brazil
Friends of the Earth, Sierra Leone
Friends of the Earth, Sweden
Global Exchange
Global Forest Coalition
Grupo de Reflexion Rural, Argentina
IFG (International Forum on Globalization)
Institute for Production and Investigation of Tropical Agriculture (IPIAT)
International Society for Ecology and Culture
Institute for Social Ecology Biotechnology Project
Land Action Research Network
Life of the Land
Mesa Global de Guatemala
Mother Earth Foundation, Philippines
Movimento das Mulheres Camponesas, Brazil
NOAH/Friends of the Earth, Denmark
Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering
Organic Consumers Association
Regenwald-Institut, Germany
Rising Tide North America
Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville
Small Planet Institute
Small Producers Movement (MPA)
Third World Network
UNAC - Mozambique Farmers' Union
WALHI/Friends of the Earth, Indonesia
World Hunger Year
World Rainforest Movement

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October 25, 2007—New York

The link between the expanding agrofuel industry, also known as “biofuels,” and the dangers posed to global food security will move into the spotlight today, with the call by Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, for a five-year moratorium on the production of agrofuels. The proposal to be submitted to the UN General Assembly expresses fears that billions of dollars of support for the agrofuel industry will drive up food prices and further limit resources available to combat hunger.

MADRE, whose Food for Life campaign links issues of environmental sustainability and global justice, today stressed that the global push for alternative energy sources must not come at the expense of human rights, particularly the right to food.

Agrofuel production is currently celebrated as one of the best responses to overdependence on finite supplies of polluting fossil fuels. However, reports increasingly indicate that the new focus on agrofuels does more to benefit agribusiness interests than to reduce carbon emissions and stop climate change.

Yifat Susskind, Communications Director of MADRE, said today, “The need for a serious approach to the dangers of climate change as a result of fossil fuel emissions is undeniable. Yet the response to this challenge has been co-opted by agribusiness that sees this global crisis as an opportunity to expand their industry. This approach shows little regard for human rights, protection of the environment, or the imperative to combat hunger.”

Ziegler’s proposal—to ban the conversion of land for the production of agrofuels—seeks to counter the substantial increase in food prices that has accompanied the demand for agrofuels. Ziegler further encourages using the five-year moratorium to develop “second generation” agrofuels, that will use non-food plants and will not compromise food security.

The effect of these price hikes is already in evidence, particularly in connection with US food aid levels. The primary US program for the delivery of food aid saw a drop in volume of more than 50% between 2000 and 2007, as a result of increasing prices. MADRE also pointed out that this marked decrease in aid reveals a failing in the US system for the delivery of food supplies, which allows only the purchase of food aid from domestic sources. MADRE emphasizes that this measure, designed to protect US producers, drives up transportation costs and limits the availability of food.

More information on agrofuels can be found in the MADRE statement “Feed People, Not Cars: Agrofuels are no Solution to Climate Change,” located here: http://www.madre.org/index.php?s=4&news=101.

Available for interviews:

Victoria Tauli Corpuz is Executive Director of the Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples' International Center for Policy Research & Education), which has United Nations ECOSOC NGO consultative status and is based in Baguio City, Philippines. Ms. Tauli Corpuz has served as the Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples (UNPFII) from 2005-2007 and was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations from 1996 to 2003; she is the founder and convener of the Asia Indigenous Women's Network. She has a Nursing degree; is an Indigenous activist who is committed to the recognition, protection, and promotion of Indigenous Peoples' rights worldwide; and has been defending the rights and cultures of Indigenous Peoples for more than 30 years.

Yifat Susskind, MADRE’s Communications Director and Coordinator of MADRE’s Food for Life Campaign, worked for several years as part of a joint Israeli-Palestinian human rights organization in Jerusalem before joining MADRE. She has written extensively on US foreign policy and women’s human rights; her critical analysis has appeared in online and print publications such as TomPaine.com, Foreign Policy in Focus, and The W Effect: Bush’s War on Women, published by the Feminist Press in 2004. Ms. Susskind has been featured as a commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and BBC Radio.

Source: http://www.madre.org/index.php?s=4&news=13

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The undersigned call for an immediate moratorium on EU incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures including tree plantations and a moratorium on EU imports of such agrofuels. This includes the immediate suspension of all targets, incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies which benefit agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, including financing through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid or loans from international finance organisations such as the World Bank. This call also responds to the growing number of calls from the global south against agrofuel monocultures[1], which EU targets are helping to promote.

Background:

Agrofuels are liquid fuels from biomass, which consists of crops and trees grown specifically for that purpose on a large scale. Agrofuels are currently produced from crops such as maize, oil palm, soya, sugar cane, sugar beet, oilseed rape, canola, jatropha, rice and wheat. Agrofuels are designed to replace petroleum, mainly in road vehicles and trains. Biodiesel and ethanol are the main types of fuel produced. Agrofuels do not include biofuels derived from waste, such as biogas from manure or landfill, or waste vegetable oil, or from algae.

Agrofuels are being promoted by governments and international institutions as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, and improving 'energy security', i.e. of helping to ensure regular supplies, stabilise the price of oil and mitigate the impacts of volatile oil prices and possible peak oil. Public support for agrofuels is further justified on the basis of their claimed positive impacts on rural development and jobs in producer countries, promises of 'second generation' agrofuels whose production will not compete with the production of food, and assumptions about the availability of large amounts of 'degraded' or unused land.

Agrofuels are also being strongly promoted by industry. New corporate partnerships are being formed between agrobusinesses, biotech companies, oil companies and car manufacturers. Billions of dollars are being invested in the agrofuel sector in a development often likened to a 'green goldrush', in which countries are turning land over to agrofuel crops and developing infrastructure for processing and transporting them.

Impacts of agrofuels from large-scale monocultures:

Agrofuels are generally grown as monocultures (including plantations), often covering thousands of hectares. In order to compete in the market, they require government support such as subsidies and tax breaks. Support for agrofuels has to date failed to acknowledge the negative social, environmental and macro-economic impacts associated with this kind of farming.

Forecasts by different UN agencies predict that in future most agrofuels will be produced in the global South and exported to industrialized countries. Although presented as an opportunity for Southern economies, evidence suggests that monoculture crops for agrofuel such as oil palm, soya, sugar cane and maize lead to further erosion of food sovereignty and food security[2], threaten local livelihoods[3], biodiversity[4],water supplies[5] and increase soil erosion and desertification[6].

Agrofuels are currently being developed within the intensive, mechanised, agro-industrial paradigm, using massive monocultures and inputs of fertiliser and pesticide. There is strong evidence that such agrofuel production will not mitigate climate change but instead may accelerate global warming, as rainforests, peatlands and other ecosystems that are essential carbon stores are being destroyed to make way for plantations. There is also controversy about how much greenhouse gas is generated by the agrofuel production process and whether agrofuels provide any real savings once issues such as fertiliser use (and thus increased nitrous oxide emissions[7]), refining, transport etc, are taken into the equation.

GM agrofuels:

Many of the crops currently being used for agrofuels have been genetically engineered (soya, maize, rape). A decade of utilization has revealed that the current range of genetically modified crops have not increased yields or reduced dependence on inputs. However, proponents of genetic engineering in agriculture are already using the threat of climate change to argue for wider use of GM crops and the development of new ones such as GM eucalyptus for agrofuel production. GM crops and trees pose serious risks to biodiversity, ecosystems and the food chain. GM microbes and enzymes being developed as part of cellulosic ethanol research (so-called second generation – see below) could also pose severe risks that have not been researched or even considered by governments.

Second generation agrofuels:

It is being suggested that a "second generation" of agrofuels can be developed that will solve some of the problems posed by current agrofuels, such as competition between food and fuel production. The aim is to find ways (including genetic engineering and synthetic biology) of modifying plants and trees to produce less lignin, engineering the lignin and cellulose so that they break down more easily or in different ways, and engineering microbes and enzymes to break down plant matter. Such high-risk techniques do not challenge the pattern of destructive monocultures designed to feed increasing energy consumption patterns. A moratorium on monoculture agrofuels is needed now, to prevent further damage being done through the over-hasty promotion of agrofuel crops. In the meantime, the promises and potential risks associated with second-generation agrofuels should be fully examined. Whatever the outcome, such fuels will not be available for approximately ten years and decisive action to address climate change is required immediately.

Scope of the moratorium:

The moratorium called for by the signatories will apply only to agrofuels from large-scale monocultures (and GM biofuels) and their trade. It does not include biofuels from waste, such as waste vegetable oil or biogas from manure or sewage, or biomass grown and harvested sustainably by and for the benefit of local communities, rather than on large-scale monocultures. A moratorium on large-scale agrofuels and their trade could favour the development of truly sustainable bioenergy strategies to the benefit of local communities - as opposed to the financial benefit of the export-oriented industries.

Certification is no solution at present:

Since public support and targets for agrofuels are being justified for their supposed environmental benefits, a number of different initiatives have been started up to develop 'sustainability certification schemes'. The undersigned organisations regard certification schemes, whether voluntary or mandatory, to be incapable of effectively addressing serious and potentially irreversible damage from agrofuel production, the main reasons being:

* Macro-level impacts such as the displacement/relocation of production to lands outside the scope of the certification schemes cannot be addressed through these schemes. Likewise, certification cannot deal with other macro-level impacts like the competition with food production, and access to land and other natural resources.
* The development of such criteria has to date failed to ensure that communities most directly affected by agrofuel production are included in the discussion and fully consulted from the outset, or to comply with basic procedural requirements ensuring Free Prior and Informed Consent of indigenous peoples whose lands will be affected.
* The development of agrofuels is proceeding far more quickly than certification can be implemented.
* In many countries, conditions are lacking to ensure the implementation or monitoring of such safeguards, or accountability for those responsible for violating them.

As one certification initiative from the Netherlands, the Cramer Report,[8] says: "Some of the impacts of biomass production are difficult to assess on the individual company level, and only become apparent on the regional, national and sometimes even on the supranational level. This is true in particular for the impacts caused by indirect changes in land use and is especially important in the themes Greenhouse gas emissions, Biodiversity and Competition between food and other biomass uses. In determining the sustainability of biomass it is crucial to take these macro-impacts into consideration". At present, there are no concrete proposals for macro-level policy, in addition to certification schemes, that would deal effectively with these macro-impacts.

Why does a moratorium need to be implemented with immediate effect?

Despite an increasing number of civil society statements and evidence-based reports expressing concern about the unintended but foreseeable negative impacts of agrofuels and calls to halt their expansion, the agrofuel rush is accelerating. The decision of the high-consumption countries, notably the EU and the US, to introduce significant incentives for agrofuels, such as mandatory targets, publicly funded subsidies and tax breaks, is triggering speculation and investment in plantations and enticing countries in the global South to commit substantial portions of land to agrofuel crop-production.

In the past 18 months, billions of dollars have been invested in agrofuel plantations and refineries and associated infrastructure. In Indonesia, $17.4 billion dollars of investment were pledged in the first quarter of 2007, whilst the government plans to convert some 20 million hectares of land to biofuel plantations. 9-10 million hectares of rainforest are acutely threatened in West Papua alone. In Latin America, the Inter-American Development Bank has announced plans to invest $3 billion in private sector agrofuel projects. Governments in a growing number of countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador and Colombia, are implementing national strategies to boost agrofuel production that involve financial incentives and investment in and licensing of refineries and infrastructure projects, including new roads, ports and pipelines. Those infrastructure developments will open up old-growth forests and other natural ecosystems to destruction, whilst accelerating the displacement of local communities by expanding plantations. The impacts of this massive, rapidly growing investment in agrofuel expansion will be irreversible and irreparable.

Agrofuels pose a particular threat to tropical forest and wetland ecosystems, as events in Indonesia already indicate. Such forests play a vital role in stabilising climate and creating rainfall. There is evidence that the Amazon rainforest may be approaching a point where deforestation will have reduced the vegetation so much that it can no longer maintain its rainfall cycle, thus threatening much or all of the ecosystem with potentially rapid die-back and desertification[9]. Further destruction of rainforests and peatlands for agrofuels could push the planetary system into accelerated warming, sea level rise and ecological change sooner than fossil fuel emissions alone. If the current rush for agrofuels is allowed to continue while certification and the necessary macro-level policies are developed, the damage such schemes and policies are meant to prevent will already have been done by the time they are in place. The risks of a 'wait and see' approach are far too high. The EU should apply the precautionary principle to its approach to biofuels and implement a moratorium.

A moratorium will immediately reduce the demand for crops and trees used as agrofuel feedstocks, thus reversing current increases in commodity prices and putting the brakes on the expansion of monoculture plantations for agrofuels which is threatening ecosystems, food security, communities and the global climate. It will provide time to look at the consequences of large-scale agrofuel production in order to make a sound and comprehensive assessment of their socio-economic and environmental implications. This will include assessing the foreseeable impacts of proposed agrofuel targets and ensuring that proposed policies and safeguards are capable of being implemented and preventing the serious negative impacts that are already being experienced. It is essential that civil society, and in particularly those most directly affected by the production of agrofuel crops are given a fair chance to assess the impacts of the current promotion of agrofuels. A moratorium on incentives for large-scale agrofuel crop production and a halt to EU agrofuel imports will provide the space required for this discussion.

Signatories call for effective measures to tackle climate change:

Agrofuels have not been shown to mitigate global warming; they actually threaten to accelerate it. The undersigned support urgent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, based on climate science assessments, which involve a drastic overall reduction in energy use in industrialised countries, strict energy efficiency standards, and support for truly renewable forms of energy, such as sustainable wind and solar energy, as well as the protection of ecosystems and carbon stores.
Your organisation can sign on to this moratorium - please visit www.econexus.info or send an email to h.paul@econexus.info

View the organisations calling for a moratorium on agrofuels: http://www.econexus.info/biofuels.html#org

Source: http://www.econexus.info/biofuels.html

References:

[1] For example: Official Declaration of Chake —uh· on the Agro-fuels and Environmental Services Traps, AsunciÛn, Paraguay, 24 April 2007; We want Food Sovereignty Not Biofuels, signed by Alert Against the Green Desert Network, Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations, Network for a GM free Latin America, OilWatch South America and World Rainforest Movement, January 2007. http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/biofuels/EU_declaration.html

Statement from SawitWatch - http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/245

[2] "How biofuels could starve the poor", C Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305-p20/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html

and Food and Agriculture Organisation, "Food Outlook (Global Market Analysis)" No. 1, June 2007, http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah864e/ah864e00.htm

[3] "Oil Palm and Other Commercial Tree Plantations, Monocropping: Impacts on Indigenous Peoples' Land Tenure and Resource Management Systems and Livelihoods", Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang, report to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, May 2007, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/6session_crp6.doc

and "El fujo del aceite de Palma Colombia-Belgica/Europa acercamiento desde una perspectiva de derechos humanos", HRVE and CBC, November 2006, http://www.hrev.org/hrev/media/archivos/flujoPalma/informe_es.pdf

[4] "Agrofuels - Towards a Reality Check in 9 Key Areas", Chapter 4, Report prepared by eleven organisations for SBSTTA 12, July 2007. http://www.econexus.info/pdf/agrofuels_reality_check.pdf or: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/agrofuels_reality_check.pdf

[5] Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management", International Water Management Institute, 2007, see: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Press/coverage/pdf/Biofuel%20crops%20could%20drain%20developing%20world%20dry%20-%20SciDevNet.pdf

[6] "Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic ethanol and other Biofuels are not Sustainable and a Threat to America's National Security", Alice Friedman, Energy Pulse, May 2007, http://www.energypulse.net/centers/topics/article_list_topic.cfm?wt_id=46

0, No. 23, 2199, doi:10.1029/2003GL018600, 2003, http://www.ag[7] "Biofuels Threaten to Accelerate Global Warming", Report by Biofuelwatch, April 2007, http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/biofuels-accelerate-climate-change.pdf

[8] "Testing Framework for Sustainable Biomass", Final Report from the Project Group "Sustainable Production of Biomass", 2007, http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/assets/reports/070427-Cramer-FinalReport_EN.pdf

[9] "Climatic variability and vegetation vulnerability in Amazonia", L. R. Hutyra et al, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, L24712, doi:10.1029/2005GL024981, 2005, http://eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/saleska/docs/Hutyra05_Var.Vuln_GRL.pdf , and also "A new climate-vegetation equilibrium state for Tropical South America", Marcos Daisuke Oyama and Carlos Alfonso Nobre, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 3u.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL018600.shtml

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We oppose a second "conquest of the desert" through biofuels

Fiske Menuco (General Roca), 25th May 2007 (see footnote)*

The organisations and individuals who attended the First Patagonian Conference on Biofuels are aware of the true social, economic and ecological consequences suffered throughout the country by victims of the expansion of soya cultivation. The Provincial Governments of Chubut, Rio Negro and Neuquen are now announcing their intention to promote agribusiness and biofuel production and make large areas of land, with potential for irrigation and convenient soil and climatic conditions, available for growing crops such as soya, rape and trees.

We, the signatories:

Reject this second ?conquest of the desert? and perceive it as an attempt to further expand the boundaries of monocultures. The current expansion does not intend to increase the territory for sheep farming, as it did at the end of the 19th century for the benefit of the pampas oligarchy and
the predominantly British commercial interests of the time. The present attempt favours Patagonian invasion by means of monocultures destined for the production of agrofuels. The Government of Buenos Aires in 1879 defined "desert" as any territory that could be occupied, shared out and used without the need for any consents or permissions. Today, both the Government and other interested parties talk elegantly about "growth", "investment", "technology", "sustainable development", and "potential",
but in reality their plans are just another repetition of the past ruthless plundering ? only this time with even greater risk of contamination, increased levels of human exploitation and large-scale social and environmental consequences.

Not only do we reject the above methods for obtaining energy, but predominantly, we reject the assumptions on the demand for, and use of energy as publicised by main-stream media, corporate literature, university programmes dependent on private interests, and government projects. All the above have been heavily influenced by large industrial groups and stock-market speculators. No matter how large a corporation, their bulimic demands are neither justifiable or a representation of the
needs of "humanity". Their views should be seen as part of a race for accumulation, competition and conflict (including wars), and their methods imply an increase -rather than a reduction- of large-scale squandering. In order to achieve their targets and maintain consensus they promise to maintain levels of consumption and privileges in some regions whilst in the remainder of the world they sow the seeds of poverty interspersed with sweet talk and unverifiable statistics.

We reject the development of biofuels, and view this as a mega-industry which will primarily benefit the large agro-exporting companies, seed patent companies, pesticide producers and a small number of middlemen and promoters. This will occur at the expense of small and medium-sized producers, biological diversity, and the socially based production, distribution and consumption of abundant as well as healthy food for local communities.

Even more so, we reject any decisions taken relating to this issue, as well as any future actions taken by governments without consulting communities, small and medium-sized business organisations, and social and ecological organisations.

We reject the turning over of vast expanses of territory to monocultures (whether GM crops or not), and by so doing, excluding any other type of land use, such as the growing of food crops. This has a detrimental effect on diversity and food sovereignty.

For these reasons, and to give an example, we reject the provision of pre-elaborated meals in schools and other places as they contain soya or soya derivatives, as rather than providing adequate nutrition, they contribute to child malnutrition. Instead, we propose that the large sums of money spent on providing industrialized ready meals should be used for buying local produce and/or to subsidise the small and medium-sized producers.

We reject any type of production which leaves rural producers in debt, displaces rural populations and allows the concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few, whether these are individuals, national or foreign companies.

We reject the inconsistent arguments put forward as justification for the biofuels business which advertises, for example, that it helps to create employment, allows diversification of crops, feed livestock, contribute to mitigate global warming, help to resolve the so-called energy crisis, etc.

We reject the funding and intervention of any transnational company (such as Monsanto, Repsol, Cargill, Telefónica, Aquiline, etc) in public institutions such as schools, educational programmes, research centres, and state organisations in general. This also includes any other methods used to influence political decision making, including the use of business-oriented foundations and NGOs to promote so-called "social corporate responsibility" and other public relations programmes in order to legitimise the appropriation of common goods and discourage social control of the economy.

We reject the public consultations on ?sustainable? production of biofuels organised by EU countries and by the European Commission. These have included consultations relating to our territory and have taken our support for granted without consulting with us. We are opposed to being the ones that feed the transport needs of rich countries at the expense of our soils.

We have joined the increasing number of organisations and individuals who are calling for a global moratorium on biofuels. Our aim is to halt the devastating expansion of bio-energy crops. We hope that EU Governments will be willing to listen to other voices, rather than just to those of the industries who have an interest in biofuels, and the NGOs (from the North and the South) who are financed by these companies.

During the moratorium, we demand that communities which will supposedly be "benefitted" from large scale consumption of biofuels are made aware of the social, economic, cultural and environmental consequences which are already apparent due to the production of these so-called "energy" commodities, and that this is not done via intermediaries.

We are aware of the devastating impact that the expansion of these mono-crops has had on the food industry. In order to push forward with their plans, the industry would need to conduct a huge and world-wide cover-up to prevent this information becoming public knowledge.

We are asking for socially-based systems of distribution and control for agriculture, for seeds and for water in order to maintain a system of local, regional and national production.

Coalition of Popular Assemblies of the provinces of Chubut, Río Negro and Neuquen, Patagonia,
Public Workers Union (ATE),
Argentine Central Workers Association (CTA),
Provincial Teachers Federation (UNTER),
University Teachers Union (ADUNC),
Andean Regional Neighbour's Assembly Against Plunder,
Pastoral Social Alto Valle (Catholic Church),
Fvske Menuco Association (indigenous communities),
Rural Women's Movement (Mujeres en Lucha),
Theomai Network (academic),
Grupo de Reflexión Rural Argentina,
Citizen's Assembly against Plunder and Contamination,
National Network of Ecologist Action (RENACE, over 70 environmental organizations of Argentina),
Regional Human Rights Observatory,
more signatures of supporters follow

* The 25 of May commemorates the birth of Argentina in 1810. For the Patagonians, on the same day but 69 years later, it symbolises the beginnings of the genocide suffered by the ancestral communities which inhabited, and continue to inhabit, this territory. It symbolises the appropriation of this land by a handful of landowners, the plunder of the environment and the devastation of a traditional way of life. It was on the 25th of May 1879 when General Roca crossed the Rio Negro for the first time to conquer the territory south of the river. We do not accept any project that threatens to repeat that same story of domination, this time with our diverse society, on an economic, social or cultural level.

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