Conservation threats

our food security, forests, water, land rights, farmers and indigenous peoples from the aggressive march of agrofuel developments, which are devouring our land and resources at an unbelievable scale and speed. " The petition describes the negative impact of agrofuel programs in several African states. In Tanzania, thousands of farmers have been evicted from their land to make way for large scale jatropha farming. In Uganda, rainforest is cleared in favour of palm oil plantations. In Ethiopia, the petition claims, land belonging to a conservation area serving as a sanctuary for a rare and endangered elephant species has been handed over to agrofuel investors. The moratorium call is specifically targeted at the monocultural agrofuel production which is encouraged by the current system of incentives and investment. The authors fear that this kind of agrofuel business will not only harm food production on a starving continent but also produce the well-known side effects of monocultures, such as erosion and decline of land quality. At the same time, the African Biodiversity Network also expressed concern over the biofuel gold rush, as did two separate UN agencies, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization. But what is the way forward, if biofuels don't offer a real solution? Acknowledging the more sustainable ways of producing biofuels, the authors make clear that when calling for a moratorium " we are not talking about the use of wood, dung or waste matter. Nor are we talking about small-scale production that is integrated into food production and used for household and local energy supplies. We wish to make clear that the agrofuels push is about large-scale fuel production on massive privatized plantations, driven by the fuel demands of export markets. " The trouble is that most " biofuel from waste " programmes are still in experimental stages, producing kilogram rather than tonne amounts, and they haven't attracted that much investment either. Moreover, the authors point at the need for actual reductions in energy consumption, stating that " we need policies and strategies to reduce the consumption of energy and to prevent waste. Such policies and strategies already exist and are being fought for. " Reducing consumption is of course very unpopular with our politicians, who like to keep voters happy with the promise of unlimited economic growth, which will have to be fuelled in one way or the other. So unless somebody can summon …