Monday, May 15, 2006

Argentina and Uruguay continue paper mill dispute

Last week’s summit between several Latin American nations and the European Union failed to find a solution to an ongoing disagreement over Uruguay’s plans to build a paper mill close to the border with Argentina. Earlier this month, Argentina filed a lawsuit against Uruguay in the International Court of Justice to prevent the construction of the paper mill that would be owned by two European companies.

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1 comment:

  1. Sampsa1:56 PM

    A Finnish foresters view on this whole dispute:

    The whole dispute is out of portions. As a Finn I can tell you that any city, town or other area in Finland would be more than happy to welcome Metsä Botnia on their grounds. The escape of paper industry to South is causing a lot of economical problems for Finland itself and to traditional paperindustry cities where most of the people get their income working in the mills.

    The reason why Finnish paper industry is moving it's production to South is high cost of work in Finland (it's actually ridiculously expensive, as the already "more than average" earning paper workers blackmail more benefits every year. This is a common opinion among Finns) and the slow growth of forest in Finland (it takes up to 50 years to grow wood for paper manufacturing in Finland. In Uruguay the time requiered is 4 years!).

    The papermill project has been evaluated for it's environmental, social and economical effects several times by third parties and found to be environmentally sound and have positive effects for Uruguay. This whole fight to me seems as a publicity stunt by local NGOs who have found a common enemy with whom they can break into the international media. Or maybe the style to do business is that much worse in Latin-America than in Finland, where paper industry has been a groundbreaker in pollution reduction (after much pressure by the state in the 70's and 80's).

    NGOs also like to consentrate on the fact that the wood is grown on monocultural (single species) plantations that lack biodiversity. I dare to ask how much biodiversity there was on the former grassland, and how much better it is to plant trees that provide better environmental services (like prevent extreme groundwater fluctuation) than this grassland much loved by, to my view, populist environmental organizations.

    This papermill case isn't black and white. You cannot pinpoint a bad guy. I understand that NGOs are in desperate need of publicity for their great causes, like landless rights and forest exploitation. I'm just not sure that Metsä-Botnia with their papermill, that would benefit Uruguays economy hugely (an estimated 1% of yearly BDP), is the right target.

    Finnish paper industry cannot afford bad publicity, which is why they have changed their practices around the world to be more environmentally sound.

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