Wild deforestation in Africa due to the rubber industry
The violence of the exploitation of resources in Africa, now sees the environment as the protagonist. A destroyed and raped environment, in fact. With avant-garde means this time, industrial means that are doing damage quickly and, probably, irreversibly.
What emerges from a recent analysis by Global Witness is not good news. Analysis that shows that in recent years the area has suffered from a highly profitable trade from an economic point of view, as well as lethal as regards the effects on the environment and local populations.
And, to begin with, it denounces that it is not palm oil, today consumed mainly locally and produced with sustainable methods by local farmers, also thanks to a substantial campaign to raise awareness of consumers worldwide, but rubber is the largest threat deriving from the exploitation of tropical forests in West and Central Africa.
This threat is called deforestation. And it continues to advance from year to year. In 2020 alone, the value of EU imports of palm oil from Gabon, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia amounted to $ 39 million, while that of rubber was $ 503 million. Almost thirteen times more.
The EU also imports over 30% of all rubber shipped by major African producers. Yet rubber is excluded from the recently proposed anti-deforestation legislation in Europe.
To give an extension of the phenomenon, it must be said that industrial rubber plantations in West and Central Africa are connected to almost 520 km2 of deforestation, an area 16 times larger than Bruxelles. And this dates from 2000. The havoc continues. Intensive production obviously affects the forest communities in the region and their livelihoods.
Indeed, as has already happened for other types of plantations, there have been not a few reports of undue expropriation of the land, which for these communities also has an ancestral value, and of violent repression of community protests against foreign companies engaged in exploitation and export of the rubber.
Another salient fact of the work of the NGO, which monitored 40 industrial rubber plantations in the six African states mentioned above, is that almost all the plantations linked to deforestation are currently owned by only three multinationals: Olam and Halcyon Agri, with headquarters in Singapore, and Socfin, owned by France and Belgium, listed on the Luxembourg stock exchange.
Together, these companies have entered into billions of euros in deals with European banks such as Rabobank, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, to finance their businesses. Agreements that, of course, do not even remotely contemplate the protection of the environment.
Global Witness cites a study published last year, according to which African tropical forests, despite the records achieved by phenomena such as heat, drought, but also intense rains, continue to play a very important role in curbing the effects of climate change. A heritage that should be preserved and protected. On the contrary, the lack of specific regulations on the exploitation of rubber is changing the ecosystem. To the detriment of the entire planet.
Mighty Earth NGO, data in hand, asks the EU to also introduce rubber in the anti-deforestation law to be applied also to tire manufacturers. Meanwhile, the demand for this resource in 2021 has grown and therefore the related industry has grown (+ 8.7%), and the analyzes predict a continuous positive trend for the entire decade. Also because rubber is also a commodity in which the global financial markets invest.
To pay the consequences are the local communities, especially the weakest. The work of Global Witness cites, for example, indigenous groups of Cameroon pygmies, the baka, who have lost huge portions of forests where they used to hunt and also diverted or dried up waterways. For the profit giants it is very little compared to the advantages derived from the exploitation of the precious resource.
References:
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/rubbed-out/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210517194737.htm
