Brazil

The PEFC was set up between 1998 and 1999 by the national forestry interest groups – mainly associations of small-forest owners in several European countries as the Pan European Forest Certification Scheme. It changed to its current name after having endorsed other non-European schemes. The scheme is governed by the PEFC Council, which consists of representatives of national certification schemes and are the PEFC’s members. The PEFC is not a single certification scheme with a single standard, but a programme for the endorsement of national certification schemes.

The Brazilian CERFLOR certification programme, endorsed by the international PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes), was officially launched in 2002 by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade and started to operate in March 2003.

African logging concessions are usually seen as units of forest management. However they are better seen as a kind of currency in a larger system of power politics and exploitation.

We, the undersigned entities and individuals of the Alert Against the Green Desert Network, wish to express our concern about the history and awardees of the FSC certifications in Brazil, thus legitimating large scale tree monocultures, although the systematic violation of social, environmental and economic rights by these large agrochemical plantations has been thoroughly evidenced.

Press Release - September 1, 2006

The case of Veracel Celulose is useful – as are so many others – in revealing the falseness of business discourse on “sustainability.” Veracel is a modern company, owned in equal parts by the Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso and the Norwegian-Brazilian Aracruz Celulose. Veracel is the owner of 164.000 hectares of land, 78,000 of which have been planted with eucalyptus trees in the State of Bahia, where last year its gigantic pulp mill started operating, with an annual production of 900,000 tons of pulp for export.

The Alert against the Green Desert Movement is a broad network of opposition to the expansion of large scale eucalyptus tree plantations in the region which covers the States of Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul. Its existence and struggles arose from the proven social and environmental impacts of these plantations, some of which presently enjoy FSC certification.

On June 1st, 2006, the Seminar on “The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Advance of Agribusiness: issues and challenges” took place in the town of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The Seminar gathered the Tupinikim and Guarani communities and also other communities affected by large-scale monoculture tree plantations, in addition to various sectors of civil society in the State of Espirito Santo, for a thorough reflection on the subject.

By the Alert Against The Green Desert Movement/Brazil The harshness of capital against life but Aracruz Celulose lost the FSC-certificate!

Paulo Henrique de Oliveira, a Tupinikim leader of Caieiras Velhas and Coordinator of the Articulação de Povos e Organizações Indígenas do Nordeste, Minas Gerais e Espírito Santo - APOINME (Articulation of Indigenous People and Organizations from the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo), and Antônio Carvalho, a Guarani chief, travelled to Europe in April/May 2006, to publicise their struggle to demarcate Tupinikim and Guarani lands in Espírito Santo (see WRM Bulletins Nº 94, 96, 102, 103) .

The social and environmental impacts of monoculture eucalyptus plantations have been well documented in many countries. However, the gender dimension has usually been overlooked, thus hiding the differentiated impacts they have on women. The following quotes from a research carried out in Brazil on Aracruz Cellulose’ plantations and pulp mill operation are therefore very useful to shed some light on the issue and to encourage other people to look further into these less well-known impacts.

In 2003, Brazil's Aracruz Cellulose paid Klabin US$610 million to buy its Riocell pulp operations in Rio Grande do Sul. Along with a 400,000 tonnes a year pulp mill and 40,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations came a certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), saying that the plantations were well managed.