Biofuel backfire fears

With crude oil prices approaching $100 a barrel this autumn, following one of the worst global harvests in recent history, the idea that crops may be able to provide biofuels is one of the most contentious current agri-industrial topics. And it is presently having the greatest impact in the tropics, where ecosystems are already under unprecedented threat from human activity. Conservationists are having to toughen up their act in the face of new biofuel proposals. There is a rush to plant palm oil plantations in many tropical countries with the prospect of biofuel use for the oil, but there is growing interest in the potential of sugar cane as a source of ethanol for biofuel. So it is quite a surprise that conservationists have just notched up one of their first major successes in Uganda which will be widely studied around the globe. One of Africa's great unspoilt forests has been saved from massive biofuel development, helped by a conservationists' campaign. News focus Biofuels look like a good option in the face of climate change and dwindling fossil fuel reserves, but they are raising increasing environmental concerns. Nigel Williams reports. Biofuel backfire fears planning to give away one third of the protected Mabira Forest Reserve to sugar cane companies. The reserve is about 12 kilometres north of Lake Victoria and small-scale logging began early in the last century along with damage from intensive coffee, banana cultivation and charcoal production which continued until 1988. After then, many people were evicted from the forest as the reserve became established. The illegal collection of plants and timber and charcoal burning continues on a reduced scale but is nothing compared with the planned destruction to make way for sugar cane plantations and the large-scale production of ethanol for biofuel. Development sweetener: Proposed sugar cane plantations to produce biofuel are one of the crops threatening tropical environments. (Picture: © Yvette Cardozo/Alamy.)