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Published on December 5, 2007

"To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by biofuel might sound good compared to fossil-based fuels like gasoline or coal but its impacts will be too big to accept," said Dr Migual Lovera, chairman of the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).

"It is too risky to promote biofuel as a solution for climate change. This is obviously a false solution," he told the alliance's press conference at the main auditorium of the Bali International Convention Centre, the venue for global talks on climate change.

Biofuel, or agrofuel - including fuel from oil palm, soy beans, sugarcane, maize, jatropha, cassava and other fuel "crops" - are being promoted as a means for reducing greenhouse gases emissions under adaptation measures of the Bali Conference, or the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Initially, biofuel was promoted as cleaner than fossil fuels like coal. UNFCCC members decided to recognise and promote it under their talks to curb greenhouse gases.

However, under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol, biofuel was adopted as one solution through the clean development mechanism (CDM) and emission trading (ET).

"That is a mistake. To promote biofuel is to promote monocultures of those fuel crops in large areas around the world especially developing countries, which is proven to scientifically damage the ecology," Lovera said.

"Furthermore, in reality, the target fuel crop areas are mostly in forestlands which are the home of indigenous people who have helped conserve the forest for generations. The plantations will cost them their homes based on today's trends," he said.

"After that you could imagine, lost home, human right violations and finally violence is most likely. It is like we punish those who protect the forest and allow the agro-forestry industry to take those areas for biofuel raw materials, rewarding the environment destroyer," he said.

"Agrofuels are a key direct and indirect cause of global deforestation, and thus contribute to climate change, which is of little interest to the new ethanol millionaires," he said.

Dr Rachel Smolker supported Lovera with her recent published report on "The true cost of agrofuels: food, forest and the climate", saying impacts are now obvious in many parts of the world including the Brazilian Amazon, Cerrado, Pantanal and Mata Atlantica, and rainforests in Southeast Asia.

"Those regions' ecology is seriously threatened," she said.

Indonesian activist Abdon Nababan of the AMAN group said the impact of growing oil palm plantations had seriously hit indigenous people in his country - socially, culturally and ecologically.

"Often, human rights violations occur," he said.

"The climate pact in Bali must take the rights of indigenous people into consideration more seriously than today. We cannot solve one problem by creating another problem," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairman of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

GFC's Lovera said biofuel itself was good if implemented properly. But to promote biofuel for export or for emissions trading would cause huge consequences for indigenous communities and the ecology, he said.

"It will be okay if you promote biofuel in the right place, in communities to replace the use of fossil fuel, but not for export and without the effects on food security in the community, as fuel crops are also food crops. All these conditions could not be met in reality," he said.

"Carbon trading could be done among real renewable energy industries like wind, tidal and solar, not in the 'grey' area like biofuel," he said.

Apart from biofuel promotion, other market-based mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol like the reduction of emissions from deforestation in developing countries, or REDD, also cause rights violations among indigenous people as they are forced off their land for deforestation projects of states driven by REDD, Lovera said.

Senior official Aree Wattana Tummakird, who is among the Thai delegates at the Bali conference, said the Thai stand on biofuel was that two concerns should be taken into consideration when deciding to trade carbon through biofuel projects: the impact on local food security and on biodiversity.

"That is what we will recommend to the government if asked. However, if it decides to promote fuel crops for biofuel anyway, we will consider seeking carbon credit for trading from such projects as allowed under the Kyoto Protocol," she said.

Aree Wattana is from the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning, the core authority of Thai delegates in Bali.

Kamol Sukin

 The Nation

Bali, Indonesia