Tribune of the daily Newspaper
Le Monde of  feb. 7  of 2023 

Maiouri Nature Guyane and the signatories of this tribune are alerting us to the excesses of the development of biomass and false green energy in the French Amazon.

While many scientists have been asking the European Union and its Member States for years to stop classifying primary biomass (wood directly from forests) as a climate-neutral renewable energy and to stop subsidising it so as not to encourage the destruction of forest areas, an amendment slipped in by French deputies in the draft revision of the directive on renewable energy (RED III) directly threatens the Amazonian forest of French Guiana.

The forest of French Guiana, the only Amazonian rainforest attached to Europe, covers 96% of the territory and represents 50% of French biodiversity. This forest is both one of the richest and least fragmented, and is recognised as one of the 15 best preserved tropical rainforest areas on the planet. Within this exceptional geographical area, French Guiana is home to 1,700 species of trees and 6,000 species of vascular plants that are essential to the lives of thousands of species of animals.

The Amazonian forest and biodiversity play an essential role in the fight against global warming and in the prevention of extreme climatic events that threaten the world's balance.

And yet, French MEPs, including a member of the French party La France Insoumise and elected members of the presidential majority, under the impetus of representatives of the territorial collectivity of Guiana, have formed an unholy alliance, introducing a derogation in the European directive on renewable energy.

This derogation is intended to maintain and accentuate a derogation from European standards in terms of sustainability and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to increase the production of solid or liquid biomass in French Guiana. Coincidentally or not, a draft decree reveals the French government's intentions in more detail, clearly displaying the desire to perpetuate an electricity production model that uses forest biomass in addition to burning wood from agricultural clearings and energy plantations that cut down the forest cover. Instead of a virtuous mix based on wood industry waste, thousands of hectares of forest could thus be transformed into monocultures for fuel production.

What is worse is that France, under the guise of developing this energy, which is green only in terms of the colour of the trees it consumes, intends, in particular, to green the space sector, an activity that alone represents 18% of the electricity produced in French Guiana, and to launch projects for the local production of new agrofuels on this deforested land. Sending rockets into space repainted in green thanks to agrofuels seems to be a priority, where preserving the conditions of habitability of our planet is not.

In French Guiana, this exception would allow this non-sustainable biomass to benefit from the status of green energy and therefore to benefit from public aid, generating an unprecedented draught.

However, the example of neighbouring Brazil is clear. Intensive agriculture, cattle breeding and the production of agrofuels made from sugar cane, maize and soya, the world's second largest producer of ethanol, are leading to the conversion of land and the inexorable disappearance of the Amazon forest. While Jair Bolsonaro has just left office, replaced by Lula, who has pledged to put an end to deforestation, it is unthinkable that France, which is responsible for a part of the Amazon that is still preserved, should go in a retrograde direction.

What is the point of promising to plant a billion trees if we are not able to adequately protect the Amazonian forest of French Guiana and its centuries-old trees?

Furthermore, these projects pose a concrete threat to the rights of Guiana's indigenous peoples, whose lands and areas of collective-use-rights could be threatened by the implementation of these energy plantation projects, in violation of their right to free, prior and informed consultation.

But it is also the access to land for local farmers and therefore the food autonomy of this territory that could find itself in direct competition with industrial biomass production. The French government's draft decree mentions 15% of agricultural land that could be used for biomass power plants, i.e. thousands of hectares of Amazonian forest. By way of comparison, in France, 3% of agricultural land is dedicated to first generation agrofuels, causing the disappearance of food crops and the rise of food prices.

This derogation is in total contradiction with the European ambitions while the Commission and the Parliament have proposed to exclude primary and ancient forests, rich in biodiversity and wetlands from the areas where biomass production can be subsidised, because of the disproportionate impact of their destruction in terms of climate and biodiversity.

Moreover, this derogation is in flagrant contradiction with the adoption of the recent European regulation on the fight against imported deforestation, which includes wood energy. France, which was the driving force behind this new regulation, must respect its obligations and not diminish its effects on the territory of French Guiana.

This controversial derogatory amendment to the RED III Directive is currently the subject of negotiations between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers of the EU (trialogue). With two crucial meetings between the European institutions still to be held, on 7 February and 6 March, the French government continues to encourage the indiscriminate development of wood energy within these negotiations, which concern not only French Guiana but also the whole of France and the EU

We defend the forests of French Guiana, which are rich in biodiversity that is still far from having been inventoried by scientists, and we oppose this derogation, which is blind to the current challenges, and which runs counter to European ambitions in terms of renewable energies, energy efficiency and, more generally, in terms of climate protection, biodiversity and respect for the rights of the first peoples of French Guiana.

We call on the government and elected representatives of French Guiana and the European Parliament to abandon this drift, which runs counter to the EU's ambitions in terms of climate protection and the fight against deforestation, and to redirect the considerable public aid devoted to wood energy towards energy savings and less destructive forest management.

Tribune à lire aussi sur le site du Monde  (pour les abonnés) 

To the website for the french version

Signatories

Sylvain Angerand, founder of Canopée Forêts Vivantes

Philippe Boré, president of the Maiouri Nature Guyane association

Marine Calmet, president of the Wild Legal association

Camille Etienne, activist for social and climate justice

Francis Hallé, botanist, tropical forest ecologist

Sylvain Harmat of the NGO Sauvons la forêt

Kadi Eleonore Johannes, First Nations Collective of Guiana

Magali Payen, Founder of On est prêt

Christophe Pierre, film director and activist for indigenous peoples

Martin Pigeon, Fern association

Dominique Bourg, philosophe professeur honoraire de l'université de Lausanne 

Gert Peter Bruch, réalisateur fondateur Planète Amazone

Denis Cheissoux, producteur Radio France

Jean-Marc Civière, président de la communauté all4trees

Gilles Clément, ingénieur agronome, botaniste, architecte paysagiste

Almuth Ernsting, Codirectrice de l’ONG Biofuelwatch

Galitt Kenan, Directrice Jane Goodall Institute France

Fabrice Nicolino, Ecrivain, chroniqueur Environnement à Charlie Hebdo

Vincent Vérzat, Blogueur de Partagez c’est Sympa !