To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, pil-pc-oceania-owner@mailman.aboc.net.au
Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: Groups Condemn Implied Land-Grab for Biochar
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:25:24 -0700
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Global Justice Ecology Project <aja@globaljusticeecology.org>
Date: Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 8:31 AM
Subject: Groups Condemn Implied Land-Grab for Biochar
To: permaculturecoop@gmail.com
Press Release - for immediate release -30th August 2010
Groups charge Nature Communications article shows 'true colours' of biochar
advocates
Today twenty-one groups (African Biodiversity Network, Amigransa Venezuela,
Biofuelwatch, CESTA (Friends of the Earth El Salvador), COECOCEIBA Costa
Rica, Econexus, ETC Group, FASE Brasil, Gaia Foundation, Global Forest
Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project, Latin American Network against
Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA), NOAH Food and Agriculture (FoE
Denmark), Observatorio de Conflictos Ambientales (OLCA) Chile, Otros Mundos
Mexico, Rettet den Regenwald, Salva la Selva, Save America's Forests,
Sobrevivencia (Friends of the Earth Paraguay), Timberwatch Coalition and
World Rainforest Movement) expressed their dismay at an article by leading
biochar advocates, published in the science magazine Nature Communications,
which proposes that an area larger than the land mass of India could be
turned into charcoal plantations in the name of climate change
mitigation.[1] The paper's own figures contradict the authors' claims that
biochar will not lead to large-scale land grabbing in the global South.
The article, posted online in the August 2010 edition of Nature
Communications, claims that 12% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions could
be avoided by producing vast quantities of charcoal and adding it to soils,
a practice called "biochar". Although the authors claim that this could be
done without the conversion of natural habitats and agricultural lands, the
figures and forecasts used as a basis for their calculations tell a very
different story, implying land-conversion on an unprecedented scale. The
authors claim that there are nearly 200 million hectares of "abandoned
cropland" that could be converted to crops and trees to produce biochar[2].
In addition, 170 million hectares of tropical grasslands could be turned
into short-rotation tree plantations to produce both biochar and animal
fodder.[3]