who is timo piilonen?--tt

Jorge Daniel Taillant Presidente Soluciones Sustentables
07.06.10 4:43 am

Gunns has hired Finnish national Timo Piilonen as Pulp Mill Director Southern Star Corporation to deliver the Bell Bay Mill. And while Gunns touts his credentials and ability to build a world scale pulp mill, Piilonen is really known for his hard and inflexible positions maintained during a very conflictive mega kraft pulp mill project that went up in South America nearly five years ago and that continues to generate serious local conflict.

Piilonens claim to fame is his management of the Finnish companys Oy Metsa Botnias Orion Project on the Argentine-Uruguayan border. Orion has brought ample profits for the pulp mill company but at a cost of billions of dollars in losses and strife to local communities and international trade due to a border conflict caused by the mills disastrous handling of local consultations and diplomatic relations with host countries, principally at the hands of the Finnish Piilonen. A permanent road went up to protest Piillonens project in 2006, and it has never left, locking otherwise friendly communities in an unmanageable dispute.

Piilonen was manager of the project that shook the pulp mill industry like no other ever has, bringing development finance stalwarts like the IFC to its knees, following the discovery that Botnia and IFC had failed miserably in its due diligence to safeguard social and environmental norms. Communities and the Argentine government contested the early Environmental Impact Assessments presented by Botnia, finding serious gaps and inconsistencies, which the IFC tried to cover up and later recognized.

Piilonen was the mastermind of Botnia s implementation in the midst of one of the most controversial pulp mill projects the world has ever seen. Despite claims that it has the most modern technology, the Orion project never achieved its social license to operate, and the vast majority of the community affected and impacted by Orion, to this day, massively oppose Botnia.

The Orion project attracted early financial support from the World Banks IFC and MIGA who helped Botnia amass the heavy investment, exceeding US$1 billion that Piilonen would need to build the world class mill.

Banks such as ING of the Netherlands came to the table with hundreds of millions of dollars, only to walk away when the social and environmental conflict surrounding Piilonens mill began to surface, showing serious problems with local consultations, pollution estimates, as well as lacking knowledge of the local economy and culture. After the independent ombudsman of the World Bank (the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman, CAO) agreed with local communities that Botnia and the IFC had failed to properly consult stakeholders, ING walked away with US$480 million, leaving the finance to other banks like Nordea, a Nordic multinational bank willing to take the risks of the sort of irreconcilable conflict brought by Piilonens project.

Piilonen along with IFC staff misinformed the World Banks Board of Directors in 2005, indicating that the Orion project had broad public support. Ten days later, local communities came out in droves, exceeding 50,000, in a peaceful march across the international bridge and waters of the Uruguay River displaying anger and opposition against the Botnia project, which threatened their pristine environmental ecosystem and eco-tourism industry which depends on clean air, water and rich environmental ecosystems. That march was the largest known environmental march against a World Bank-financed project, and just maybe, the largest environmental march of any kind. The next year 80,000 marched. They year after that 100,000, and the marches repeat themselves each year with similar numbers, the last of which occurred last month seeing some 80,000 people against the Orion project (now owned by UPM).

Piilonens management of the Botnia mill is seen in the pulp mill industry as shrewd and hardline, which is what is typically needed to confront communities resisting the sort of pollution typical of pulp mill production, heavy in contaminating chemicals that accrue in ecosystems. Piilonen has shown nerves of steel in his capacity to stonewall even the most staunch government intervention. Uruguays former President, Tabaret Vasquez, when confronted by his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner to make Botnia come to the table said, Ive got my hands tied with Botnia, they refuse to negotiate.

Piilonens attitude, bowing to no-one, is extremely well-respected in the pulp mill industry, which is probably why Gunns has brought him aboard due to the growing opposition to the Gunns Tamar Valley project.

In Uruguay and Argentina, Piilonen is well known for his unwillingness to engage with local communities, environmental groups or even the national government across the border, which had to resort to an international legal complaint against Uruguay due to Botnias hard line stance.

Piilonens addition to the Gunns team clearly reflects the companys position vis a vis any community or even State intervention to hold the company accountable. Botnias first Head of Communications which served under Piilonen, Marko Janhunen commented to local environmental groups indicating that after Botnias pulp mill conflict in Uruguay, investments around the world in pulp mills will never be the same.

Jorge Daniel Taillant
Presidente Soluciones Sustentables
http://www.soluciones-sustentables.net
Founder and Former President
Center for Human Rights and Environment
http://www.cedha.org.ar