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The forestry plan launched in 1988 by the government –based on the promotion of large-scale tree monocultures– promised the generation of jobs and the entry of foreign currency from increased exports. To achieve these objectives, the Uruguayan State made considerable investments, including direct subsidies, tax breaks, soft loans and investments in infrastructure. By the year […]

In Uruguay, all forests are protected by law and their exploitation is forbidden unless expressly authorised by the bodies in charge of ensuring their protection. Therefore, certification in this country is totally unnecessary to ensure forest conservation. However, it is enough to enter the FSC web page’s “certified forest list” to discover that there are […]

The Department of Rio Negro, located in the western side of Uruguay, presently has 70,510 hectares of plantations (mainly eucalyptus) which makes it one of the Departments having more tree monocultures in the country. A few months ago, the launching of a new project related to afforestation in this Department was announced. It consists of […]

One of the most commonly used arguments by those promoting large scale monoculture tree plantations is that they generate employment. As we will see from the following examples, such arguments are false. Let us look at the multinational company Aracruz Celulose, based in Brazil. Presently the company owns 144,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in the […]