September 21, International Day Against Tree Plantations

(Castellano) (Euskara)
On September 21, the International Day Against Tree Plantations, organizations, networks, and movements celebrate resistance and raise their voices to demand an end to the expansion of industrial tree plantations.These plantations encroach on territories and affect the lives of peoples and communities. The Day was established in 2004 during a meeting of a community network fighting against industrial tree plantations in Brazil, the Green Desert Alert Network. The reason for calling them “deserts” also invites reflection on the reality of these monocultures—so-called ecosystems which are not truly that, because no ecosystem consists of a single species. Calling them deserts implies that no other species lives there (even deserts are more of an ecosystem than these monocultures).

For decades, institutions and companies have been promoting and developing large-scale monocultures of fast-growing species intended for the production of pulp, timber, and biomass. In recent years, a new trend has emerged under the false pretense of mitigating climate change, with the aim of creating so-called carbon sinks and plantations for biofuel production. All these monocultures (which in reality are limited to very few species) have replaced and destroyed real ecosystems; they have excluded communities and deprived them of resources, their habitats, sacred spaces, and landscapes; they have diverted water for their own use, and have also caused other environmental disasters, because, in the case of pine trees, in addition to acidifying and drying out the soil, these are highly flammable species that make them prone to fires, as demonstrated this summer in Biscarrosse (Les Landes, France), in Riglos (Huesca), and in so many other places. The pine plantations in Patagonia—both in Argentinan, and Chile (in the latter case, including eucalyptus as well)—were the cause of the spread of the fires in 2021, 2025, and this year.

Monocultures of any species—including trees—are prone to the spread of diseases and pests because they consist of a single species through which these can be transmitted continuously.

The new climate variable introduced by the proliferation of monocultures also opened up the possibility of additional profits for this industry through so-called carbon offsets in the 2000s. This was promoted by the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This was nothing more than another way to generate more profit—profit added by these industries to that obtained from the sale of timber, oil, and other products.

The final twist in this absurdity was the acceptance that carbon emissions from the Global North could be offset by tree plantations in the Global South; by failing to specify how, and by classifying monocultures as “forests” as well, led to the establishment of massive single-species plantations with the disastrous consequences we are all too familiar with—and which we intend to denounce once again this year.

In addition to these CDM projects, another proposal emerged known as REDD+—or, supposedly, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. The affected communities and activists opposed to the environmental disaster it entailed soon redefined it to express its true meaning: Rapid Enrichment through Evictions, land grabbing, and the Destruction of biodiversity. Even more, the equation continued to be perverted by including the use of genetically modified trees among the so-called solutions.

Furthermore, we must understand that this proliferation of forest monocultures is taking place while true forests, jungles, and other ecosystems are shrinking—also due to human causes: deforestation (logging by timber companies or clearing to make way for agricultural crops) and fires.

In the Basque Country, the paper industry—which dominated the sector—was responsible (along with the institutions that accepted and promoted it) for the excessive spread of Radita or Insignis pine plantations, a species native to Baja California. It currently covers an area of 97,086 hectares (CAPV, Basque Community, 2025) and, ironically, accounts for 24.5% of the total forest area in the region. Furthermore, almost all of it is owned by private landowners. Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus nitens) is the other widely established monoculture, covering 26,153 hectares (CAPV).

Near the Basque Country, in the French state, Las Landes is teh main example of huge pine monoculture. This was started in 1857  and in a few years managed to cover nearly the whole extention of this flatland: 1.000.000 hectares.

In Argentina, the area of forest plantations has increased, reaching 1.3 million hectares. Here, too, the promoted species are fast-growing ones such as pine and eucalyptus.