South Africa: Gore Urged to Put Brake on Biofuel Production

An international coalition has appealed to former US vice-president and environmental campaigner Al Gore to take up their concerns about the world’s rapidly developing biofuels industry.

They have told him that large-scale biofuel production and new incentives to promote biofuels, based on “energy-crop monocultures”, are having a devastating impact on biodiversity and contributing to global climate change.
a draft biofuel strategy, but it has run into strong criticism from environmental groups.

The coalition asked Gore to consider their concerns before addressing the World Biofuels Markets Congress in Brussels this week and speaking at the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas in Argentina in May.

The coalition said one of their major concerns was that energy crop monocultures threatened the global climate.

“Energy yields are highest from crops growing in the tropics; hence much of the global biofuel demand is being, and will continue to be, met from Asia, Latin America and Africa.

“Already, biofuels production is leading to increased rates of deforestation in many rain forest nations, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Cameroon.”

AllAfrica