Brazil

More than a year ago, the Pataxó indigenous peoples re-took an important part of their traditional territory located in the state of Bahia (see WRM Special Bulletin May 2000). Since then, they have been struggling to have their rights recognized by the government, with little support from environmental organizations, many of whom seem to deny them their capacity to manage the forest that rightly belongs to them.

For almost a decade, Aracruz Cellulose has been spending much time and money to portray itself as an example of a socially and environmentally responsible corporation. It has consistently denied the negative impacts of its operations in the Brazilian states of Espirito Santo and Bahia and has gone as far as to state that it has never carried out deforestation operations. A recent information proves the contrary.

In response to the information published by Taiga Rescue Network in Taiga News Summer 2000 edition, issue 32, regarding the social and environmental impacts of Veracel's eucalyptus plantations in the state of Bahia, Antonio Alberto Prado --Public Affairs Manager of the company-- addressed the publishers to explain them that " . . . since its inception, in 1991, Veracel's land management and plantation development has been based on sustainable, ecologically sound principles".

Although the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change has not yet approved plantations and forests as carbon "offsets", the carbon shop is already very active. What follows is an e-mail message advertising Brazil as a place where cheap land and cheap labour is available for energy utilities to dump their carbon emissions: "From: OMNITRADE aaa@yawl.com.br Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:25 AM Subject: Greenhouse gas emissions - An alternative

News about the association of Stora Enso with Aracruz Celulose is certainly bad news for local people in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, dominated by three major pulp corporations: Veracel, Aracruz and Bahia Sul. Veracel will now be jointly owned by Stora Enso and Aracruz (with 10% of the remaining shares in the hands of Brazilian group Odebretch). These three companies own more than 300,000 hectares of fast-growing eucalyptus monocultures, which are having strong negative impacts on water, soils and biodiversity which also impact negatively on local peoples' livelihoods.

The National Agricultural Council (NAC) -representing the interests of big landowners in Brazil- had been trying by all means to oppose any legal initiative to protect the country's forests, which they would systematically consider a limitation to their power on people and land. In fact, about 50% of the land in Brazil is in the hands of just 1% of the population.

Every event happening in Brazil in relation to forests can be considered important, taking into account its huge area, the diversity of forests present in its territory, and the opposing interests at stake.

Five hundred years ago, Portuguese conquistadores in shining armour used their modern weapons against indigenous peoples armed with bows and arrows. Now, police in shining riot gear used their modern weapons against unarmed civilians including indigenous, black and white people protesting against the official celebration of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. The photographs are self explanatory (see photos at http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/tropical_forests/photospataxo2.html ). The reason? Again the "indians".

The Pataxó-Hã-Hã-Hãe indigenous peoples of the Southern region of the State of Bahia are fighting to recover their traditional territories, demarcated in 1936, and consisting of an area of 53,000 hectares that are occupied by nearly 400 ranchers who got their titles illegally from the successive governments of Bahia since the decade of 1960. These lands, which house remnants of the once dense atlantic forest ("mata atlántica"), have been mostly converted into pastures and cacao plantations.

The Tupinikim and Guaraní of Espirito Santo, Brazil, have been struggling for years against powerful Aracruz Celulose in order to defend their traditional lands, that the company started to occupy in 1967. After having suffered intimidation and violence to the hands of the company and the military, and having taken direct actions of occupation of the lands that historically belong to them, in April 1998 the Tupinikim and Guaraní were forced into signing an agreement with the company, which was valid for a period of 20 years.

The importance of a review on the implementation of the Bank's 1991 Forest Policy in Brazil hardly needs to be stressed, given that the country contains almost 27 percent of the remaining moist tropical forests in the world. The OED study states that the average annual forest loss in the Amazon (some 13,000 sq.km/year in the post 1991 period) has slowed down compared to the pre-1991 period, but adding that the precise extent of forest loss remains ambiguous. At the same time, Brazil has been one of the Bank's largest borrowers.

The World Bank is apparently willing to play a major role in the promotion of tree plantations. This can mean good or bad news, depending on the type of plantations it is willing to promote. The country studies provide useful -though incomplete- information on the issue, which we believe the Bank should use as a starting point for its own research on the positive and negative impacts of different types of plantations. It appears clearly that large-scale monoculture tree plantations should not be promoted, given their negative environmental impacts and their few positive social effects.