Rettet den Regenwald e.V. (Rainforest Rescue)

Berlin: Vattenfall to import tropical timber for use in biomass-fired power plants

Since 01.09.10 651 people have participated in this protest action.

Wood the Liberians used to cook with is now to be shipped to German power plants.

Three biomass-fired power plants are set to be launched in the Berlin area over the next few years. In addition to the massive Klingenberg cogeneration plant on Berlin‘s borough of Lichtenberg (two biomass-fired plants that have a capacity of 20 megawatts each and generate a total of about 150 megawatts in district heating), the district heating station located at Märkisches Viertel on the borough of Reinickendorf (thermal capacity of 18 megawatts, electrical generation capacity of 5 megawatts) is scheduled to be wood-powered. At the Reuter West cogeneration plant and the coal-fired plant at Moabit, wood will be introduced as an extra energy source. The Governing Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and the Senator for Environment, Katrin Lompscher, have concluded this agreement with Vattenfall.

To achieve the planned results, energy producer Vattenfall states that one million tons of timber are needed on an annual basis. In contrast to earlier claims, the Berlin region is unable to meet this quantity rate, so Vattenfall puts out feelers and turns to Africa. In the years to come, one million tons of rubber tree wood will be shipped from Liberia. To this end, Vattenfall has acquired a share in Buchanan Renewable Energy (BRE), a Dutch company committed to planting rubber trees in West African Liberia and transporting them to the coastal region for international shipping.

In Liberia, rubber plantations emerged as a result of the gradual destruction of the rainforest. Just so that Vattenfall and the City of Berlin may embellish their reduction rates of carbon dioxide emissions, more pressure is put on the rainforest. Furthermore, it is tacitly accepted that the people of Liberia have to go on living without electricity – and with much less amounts of firewood which is needed for cooking. Silas Siakor, director of the Sustainable Development Institute at the Liberian capital of Monrovia, is sure that these are the inevitable consequences of Vattenfall‘s rubber deal which Liberia has to face. At large, generating energy from wood is considered to be causing severe problems and as being overall confined to certain limits. The Global Forest Coalition (GFC) has published the survey „Wood-based bioenergy: the green lie“ on this subject-matter.

Ever since the first protest campaign and statements by Rainforest Rescue, the Swedish power company has responded twice in writing. However, these documents mainly deal with the terms and conditions Vattenfall and Buchanan have agreed on. It is stressed that the energy producer has high demands concerning social and environmental standards and that its sub-contractor has to meet these. The impact on the environment, the encouragement of rubber cultivation (working conditions in crop growing are quite evocative of the times of slavery in Liberia), the prospect of an ever increasing market demand for tropical timber – all these issues were only vaguely touched on by the Swedish power company.

Constructing these biomass-fired power plants for Vattenfall calls for high investments, and the break-even point can only be accomplished by means of long retention periods. In other words, this dangerous development will have to remain established for a long time. If the plants get built, they‘ll have to be operated at any cost – no matter where the timber eventually comes from. To be frank: This is not about one region in Africa being troubled – this is about a global problem!

Basically and essentially, Rainforest Rescue rejects Vattenfall‘s construction plans for biomass-fired power plants. Please support the local non-governmental organizations in Liberia and take part in our protest campaign!

To the Senate of Berlin
The Governing Mayor
Mr. Klaus Wowereit

Senate Department for Health, Environment and Consumer Protection
Senator for Environment
Miss Katrin Lompscher
poststelle@senguv.berlin.de

Vattenfall Europe
Mr. Tuomo Hatakka, Senior Executive Vice President
tuomo.hatakka@vattenfall.com , info@vattenfall.de

Dear Mr. Wowereit, dear Miss Lompscher, dear Mr. Hatakka,

I reject the plans for the incineration of tropical timber at power plants in the Berlin area. Vattenfall states that one million tons of timber are needed on an annual basis to work the announced biomass-fired plants and to establish wood as an additional energy source at power stations already in use (Reuter West and Moabit). This large amount of wood can neither be supplied by local produce, nor can it be provided in an environment-friendly and socially acceptable way.

Vattenfall has acquired a share in the Dutch company Buchanan Renewable Energy (BRE) and has concluded a contract concerning the import of one million tons of rubber tree wood from Liberia. The affected rubber plantations have emerged as a result of the constant destruction of the local rainforest. According to experts, Liberia's stock in timber is too low to allow for any export business. Furthermore, wood charcoal made from rubber trees is used for cooking by the Liberian population. Business deals and export trades carried through by BRE already lead to severe consequences on the economy of Liberian cities whose inhabitants' lives rely heavily on wood charcoal: The prices have doubled since.

This situation puts the Liberian rainforest under an even bigger pressure. The state of affairs on rubber plantations is generally catastrophic – e.g. child labour is quite common. For Liberia, the United Nations even certified working conditions reminiscent of slavery, lawlessness and corruption and strong cases of environmental pollution. (1)

All the while, the construction works on a Monrovia-based electrical generating station with a future capacity of 36 megawatts are stuck for about a year. Buchanan Renewable (BR), another branch in the Dutch company, was officially instructed by the government to improve the disastrous power supply in Monravia. Originally, the Monrovian plant was to be powered with the woodchips BR produces from rubber trees as an energy source. But as of now, BR could well calculate it more profitable to sell their woodchips to Vattenfall instead of using them to provide Liberia's capital with electricity. Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world.

What is more, the long route of transport – the wooden material is sent from the Liberian inland to the coastal region in order to be shipped to Berlin, a distance that amounts to 5.500 kilometres – demands large quantities of fuel and crucially harms the climate as well as the ecology.

It is wholly unacceptable that Vattenfall and the Senate of Berlin start only now to look into criteria as to how the necessary biomass can be produced sustainably – and if it can be done at all. Above all, the question remains if criteria regarding sustainability may be applied to countries like Liberia. Many important issues – such as indirect change in land use, i.e. displacement of established activities, and the effects on food prices – still refuse to be regulated and/or resolved.

For these reasons, I'm asking you to stop the construction of biomass-fired power plants in and around Berlin immediately – including any plans concerning the import of timber and other biological materials for energetic utilisation.

Yours sincerely,

Footnote:
(1) http://unmil.org/documents/human_rights_liberiarubber.pdf

First Name:

Last Name:

Company:

E-Mail:

Address: St No

Zip/Postcode:

Town/City:

Country:

Save data on this computer

Please enter your contact details here. The mail will then be sent to the addresses mentioned in the text above. Please fill in all blanks.
Your data will be saved for campaigns by Rainforest Rescue only.

Campaigns:

Berlin: Vattenfall to import tropical timber for use in biomass-fired power plants