Biofuels in Burma
Junta's horribly misguided energy experiment
Biofuels have long been hailed as a solution in the fight against global warming and increasing scarcity of petroleum. But recently it is becoming increasingly clear that unless sufficient precautions taken, biofuels can snatch food from the mouths of the poor, and can be a human rights disaster. Nowhere is this truer now than in Burma. In its typical brutal, heavy-handed fashion, the Burmese junta has combined forced labor, ham-fisted implementation, and superstition in a disastrously misguided nation-wide biofuel project that is creating yet more suffering for this desperate country.There were unprecedented demonstrations in August and September 2007 from gasoline and diesel price hikes. Biodiesel made from oil squeezed from the jatropha seeds, the generals hoped, would replace Burma's 40,000 barrels per day of petroleum imports and help the junta retain social stability in an economy on the verge of collapse. The junta also has plans to export biodiesel, and Burmese jatropha project has attracted unscrupulous investments from Thailand, Singapore and Britain. Jatropha also reportedly has superstitious significance: jatropha's name in Burmese, "jet suu" is believed to help the regime annul the powers of jailed democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Burma's military ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, has commanded that eight million acres -- an area the size of Belgium -- be planted with Jatropha curcas tree within three years. Each state and division of Burma must grow 500,000 acres. In Karenni State, to meet this quota, every man, woman and child will need to plant 2,400 seedlings.
Biofuel by Decree, a report released on 1 May 2008 by seven community development organizations working in Burma, details the suffering caused by this program. Farmers, civil servants, teachers, schoolchildren, nurses, and prisoners have been forced to purchase seeds and fulfill outrageous planting quotas, consuming precious time, land and resources essential for subsistence. "They said it would be a three-year project", one farmer asked, "but what are we going to eat in the meantime?"
Those who have refused to participate have been fined, beaten, or arrested. From Southern Shan state alone, at least eight hundred refugees have fled to Thailand as a result of the program. Despite huge "contributions" of time and resources, the technical result has been a fiasco. Two years into implementation, crop failures as high as 75% have been reported due to haphazard growing techniques and lousy seed stock. Even when the trees themselves grow, often they bear few seeds because climate and soil conditions are not adequately taken into consideration. Burma has little capacity to extract oil from seed, and much of the biodiesel produced has been of such poor quality that engines won't run on the stuff.
There is no doubt that renewable energy - solar, wind power, biofuels - must play an important role to play in meeting humanity's future energy needs. But the Burma biofuels case shows that so-called "clean energy" - if implemented with violence and ignorance - can cause far more harm than good.
Biofuel by Decree is available for download at:
http://www.terraper.org/key_issues_view.php?id=17