Brazil

When the first ‘conquistadores’ travelled down the Amazon in the 16th century, they found populous settlements, hierarchical chiefdoms and complex agricultural systems all along the main river. The ‘Indians’, they reported, raised turtles in ponded freshwater lagoons, had vast stores of dried fish, made sophisticated glazed pottery, and had huge jars, each one capable of holding a hundred gallons. They also noted these peoples had flotillas of canoes and traded up into the Andes and down to the mouth of the great river.

At the beginning of the year 2003, a ton of copper cost 1,800 dollars. At the beginning of this year the price rose to approximately US$ 3,600, double its value twelve months before. The deficit in supply was over 500 thousand tons. The scenario, completely different from that predominating over the past few years, could not have been more auspicious for the launching of operations in the largest copper mine ever to exist in Brazil.

There seems to be no truce for the U’wa people in their long resistance in defence of their ancestral rights to life and to their land and in rejection of the oil exploitation projects on their traditional territory (see WRM Bulletins 10, 22, 29 and 38). The Colombia Plan, Ecopetrol and its associated oil companies, the neglectful government, are all threats to the U’wa territory, who believe that it is “the heart of the world. The veins feeding the universe run through this territory. If it is destroyed, the world will bleed to death.”

Between 1950 and 1975, the area of human-established pasture lands in Central America doubled, almost entirely at the expense of primary rainforests. The numbers of cattle also doubled, although the average beef consumption by Central American citizens dropped. Beef production was exported to markets in the United States and in other Northern countries. Between 1966 and 1978 in Brazil 80,000 km2 of Amazon forests were destroyed to give way to 336 cattle ranches carrying 6 million head of cattle under the auspices of the Superintendency for Amazon Development (SUDAM).

For many years, the mangrove forests were seen and actually often officially designated as wastelands, not fit for anything but mosquitoes and smelly swamp. Fortunately, this view of the tidal forests is changing, influenced by recent scientific studies and public awareness campaigns. Mangroves are now seen for their unique natural characteristics supporting high levels of biodiversity, immensely important for the health of wild fisheries and marine ecology.

In June, the World Bank co-organised the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany. This trade fair showcased projects on the look-out for corporate and governmental buyers from industrialised countries for the greenhouse gas emission reduction credits these projects claim to produce.

A new cycle in the increasing of production of eucalyptus pulp for export began in northern Espirito Santo, the southern region of Bahia and north-eastern Minas Gerais, with the opening in 2002 of the new Aracruz Celulose mill. This company increased its annual pulp production from 1.2 to 2.0 million tons, and expects to reach 2.4 million tons. Veracel Celulose, jointly owned by Aracruz and the Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, is currently building its first eucalyptus pulp mill, the biggest in the world, with an annual production capacity of 900 thousand tons.

Pulp mills’ extremely large scale makes it necessary for them to simplify under a central authority not only landscapes, biological diversity and genetic diversity, but also political systems. The sheer size of the mills and the landscape they reorganize around them means that to survive, they need constantly to attract subsidies, stimulate demand – and above all, control resistance, both from ordinary people and from the landscape.

With the presence of a delegate from the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, the third Meeting convened by the Alert Against the Green Desert Network took place in the city of Belo Horizonte on 6 and 7 May. This Network, comprising over 100 member organizations, gathered many representatives of the Landless People's Movement, peasants, indigenous peoples, Afro-Brazilian communities, small farmers and social movements from the States of Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro.

On 8 March, a major mobilization took place on Route BR-101 North in the Brazilian State of Espirito Santo, in the locality of São Mateus. Coinciding with International Women’s Day, and with numerous women participants, close on 600 Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous people, representatives of the Quilombos (Afro-Brazilian communities) and members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (the well-known MST) and of the Small Farmers’ Movement (MPA, a member of the Via Campesina), occupied the highway and halted traffic.

It is not by chance that femininity is linked to nature, to the origins and to mystery. Women are those who make life, suckle the species, communicate oral tradition and are the jealous guardians of secrets. When the conquest of El Dorado started, the great boa woman meandered from the memory of time through the Amazon forest. She was the cosmic serpent, the great river with her long and enormous arms of water, with her quiet havens and warm and fertile lagoons.

The Center for International Forestry Research has implemented a program called Adaptive Collaborative Management of Forests (ACM) for more than five years. At its most extensive, we worked in 11 countries (Nepal, Indonesia, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Madagascar, Bolivia and Brazil); and activities continue in eight. One of the striking elements of this work has been our success at involving women (and other marginalized groups) in our work with communities.