Archived press release

Environmental and social damage from free trade exposed in new report

8 December 2005

The danger that current WTO trade negotiations pose to people and their environment is exposed in a new report `The Tyranny of Free Trade', published today (8 December 2005) by Friends of the Earth International. It comes on the same day as 750,000 votes for trade justice are to be delivered to Tony Blair ahead of the 13-18 December World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

The report presents a series of case studies from the Seychelles to Indonesia exposing the environmental and social impacts of current free trade policies in including damage to forests, fisheries, food, minerals, water and biodiversity.

The report shows that intensive agricultural practices and liberalised international trade are leading to social disruption, environmental damage and even hunger, particularly in developing countries. Small-scale farmers are particularly vulnerable to market opening pressures and often forced from their land when it is converted to plantations or planted with crops for export.

Friends of the Earth's Trade Campaigner Eve Mitchell, said:

"The mounting evidence from the World Bank, United Nations, World Resources Institute and our own research shows that the current system is making poor people poorer. Instead of basing trade on sensible resource management, it puts profits for big business first. The UK Government fully supports proposals at the WTO that take us in the wrong direction, despite promising us otherwise. This can't continue." [1]

Friends of the Earth International's Trade Campaigner, one of the report's authors, Ronnie Hall, said:

"The myth of unfettered free trade as a solution to poverty needs to be exploded. Regional and bilateral trade agreements running in parallel are as untransparent and as harmful as the WTO. What we need now is a halt to trade liberalisation negotiations and an urgent review of the impacts of international trade rules on poor people and the environment." [2]

Notes

The report is now available for preview at: www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/tyranny.pdf (PDF)

Friends of the Earth International is the world's largest grassroots environmental federation with 71 national member groups in 70 countries and 1.5 million individual members and supporters. Friends of the Earth International does not have a member group in Hong Kong. `Friends of the
Earth Hong Kong' is not a member of Friends of the Earth International.

[1] Ackerman, Frank; The Shrinking Gains from Trade: A Critical Assessment of Doha Round Projections; Tufts University, USA; October 2005. see www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/pubs/wp/05-01ShrinkingGains.pdf (PDF†)

World Resources Institute in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program and the World Bank; World Resources 2005: The wealth of the poor - managing ecosystems to fight poverty

Naidoo, Robin and Adamowicz, Wiktor L; Economic benefits of biodiversity exceed costs of conservation at an African rainforest reserve, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; 2 November 2005. see www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/46/16712 , UK Government; Securing the Future: Delivering UK Sustainable Development Strategy - Promises Actions and Challenges; March 2005

Mitchell, Eve; Can't See the Forest for the Tr€£$: How the WTO is Gambling with our Future; Friends of the Earth; 16 October 2005. see www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/cant_see_forest_trees.pdf (PDF†)

The UK Sustainable Development Strategy, launched in March 2005, "Promises" that DTI and others will develop a "one planet economy" that does not shift our environmental burden onto other countries. See UK Government, Securing the Future: Delivering UK Sustainable Development Strategy - Promises Actions and Challenges; March 2005

[2] According to the 2003 United Nation Development Program book Making global trade work for people (page 33), "liberalizing trade does not automatically ensure human development, and increasing trade does not always have a positive impact on human development. The expansion of
trade guarantees neither immediate economic growth nor long-term economic or human development." The book is online at http://www.undp.org/mdg/globaltrade.pdf (PDF†)

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust