Brazil

The struggle between two agricultural projects has stepped up in Brazil. On the one hand, the agro-business project based on the concentration of vast stretches of land, on production for export, on large-scale production and on monoculture plantations, mainly of soybean, eucalyptus, and sugar cane.

On April 26, the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry organized in Stockholm the seminar “Tilting forest industries from North to South”, aimed at discussing the growing tendency of the Swedish tree plantations and pulp industry to invest in Southern Countries such as Brazil, Uruguay and Indonesia.

At the end of April this year, the Brazilian Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST) was host at its Florestan Fernandes National School (Guararema, Sao Paulo) to almost 80 members of social movements and organizations from South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe attending the International Meeting on Monoculture Eucalyptus Plantations. The aim of this meeting was to define an agenda for joint action against the advance of monoculture tree plantations and pulp mills at global Southern level.

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The huge Aracruz Celulose high-tech pulp and paper complex located in Barra do Riacho in the Southeast region of Brazil has led to major conflicts since the company’s encroachment upon land belonging to the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples. However, not only land but also water is being taken over by the company’s mill and large-scale monoculture tree plantations which spread along more than 175,000 hectares in the north of the State of Espirito Santo and the Southernmost part of the Bahia State.

The problem of the loss of territories by peasants and indigenous peoples in favour of industrial projects has several aspects in Brazil and the Landless Peasant’s Movement (MST) has been struggling to counteract this process. We have reported on the successive occupations of land covered with vast monoculture eucalyptus plantations for pulp production – one of such occupations recently involved the women of Via Campesina/MST on the occasion of International Woman’s Day.

Monoculture eucalyptus plantations are advancing over vast areas of the country, occupying traditional peoples’ territories, displacing them, evicting people from rural areas, thus contributing to the creation of poverty belts, with the context of violence and criminality these necessarily imply. And as if this were not enough, they also have their quota of bloodshed.

Ethanol is a biofuel usually made from maize (corn) or sugar cane, which is being enthusiastically promoted as an alternative fuel which can be blended into ordinary petrol or burned directly in special "flex-fuel" engines.

The present energy matrix is basically compounded by oil (35%), coal (23%) and natural gas (21%). The nations of the OECD -- the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- which account for 56% of the planet’s energy consumption are desperately in need of a liquid fuel replacement for oil. Worldwide petroleum extraction rates are expected to peak this year, and global supply will likely dwindle significantly in the next fifty years.

Only available in Spanish -  Por Raúl Zibechi

The Enawene Nawe -- a small Amazonian tribe (over 420) who live by fishing and gathering in Mato Grosso state, Brazil -- are a relatively isolated people who were first contacted in 1974. They grow manioc and corn in gardens and gather forest products, like honey but fishing is their main livelihood and fish are a vital part of their diet, as they are one of the few tribes who eat no red meat. During the fishing season, the men build large dams across rivers and spend several months camped in the forest, catching and smoking the fish which is then transported by canoe to their village.

The Veracel pulp mill is located in the south of the Brazilian state of Bahia, some 45 kilometres from the coast, on the border between the municipalities of Eunapolis and Belmonte. Veracel is a corporation in which the Swedish-Finnish group Stora Enso and the Brazilian Aracruz group have equal shares, today managing one of the world’s largest eucalyptus plantation and industrialization projects.