The Gadarene rush to bio-fuels

THE rush for bio-fuels is causing massive environmental damage and must be halted. Whole ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people are being thrown off their land to make way for the crops needed to make bio-fuel. This is not Spigot talking but a British charity with impeccable green credentials. It goes on to say that some bio-fuels are as damaging as traditional fuels and there is hardly any saving on carbon emissions. The rush to bio-fuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, "The numbers involved are mind-boggling. The Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha. "The Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares that could be cultivated with agro-fuel crops; and an agro-fuel lobby is speaking of 379 million hectares being available in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale." In Latin America, Asia and Africa, the report claims, the push for agro-fuels is leading to the reintroduction of the old colonial plantation system at the expense of indigenous farming systems and local communities. The growing clamour for bio-fuels has led to a fall in the amount of grain being grown and a consequent rise in prices which has hit the poorest the hardest. South Africa's crazy scheme to produce bio-fuels in the former homelands should take note.