LDPI Working Paper 1. Commercial Biofuel Land Deals & Environment and Social Impact Assessments in Africa: Three case studies in Mozambique and Sierra Leone

In his Editorial “The biofuels conundrum” (27 April, p. 515), Donald Kennedy describes how biofuels, although at first glance a boon for the environment, have hidden costs that could prove environmentally and socially disastrous. His solution is “to abandon this cluttered arena” and to invest in research in plant physiology to overcome biomass recalcitrance for cellulosic conversion. There are several problems with this view. First, it is unlikely that a single approach will suit all circumstances. For example, gasification techniques seem efficient and promising for some feedstocks, but not all. Second, cellulosic conversion demands uniform feedstocks, which translates into high-input and environmentally destructive biofuel monocultures. Such monocultures are unlikely to be sustainable. Third, given the evolutionarily conserved structure of cell walls, it is possible that fooling with it would lead to crops that are prone to structural failure or, more likely, sensitivity to fungal pathogens.