Large-Scale Tree Plantations

In November 2005, hundreds of quilombolas marched through the streets of São Mateus in northern Espírito Santo to protest against Aracruz Celulose, the world's largest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp. "Aracruz Celulose: you are against the life, return our lands to produce food", "Workers Mutilated by Aracruz Celulose demand their Rights", "President Lula: The future of indigenous people is more important than exporting pulp!" read some of the banners. I took part in the march and walked with the quilombolas, to the sound of drumming, through the town.

Following the violent eviction of the Tupinikim and Guarani villages by tractors of the plantation and pulp company Aracruz Celulose with the support of the Federal Police in January (see WRM Bulletin Nº 102), hundreds and hundreds of international messages of solidarity with the struggle of the indigenous people to recover their legitimate lands were sent to the Brazilian authorities.

A member of the Bretton Woods family since its creation in 1944 together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank continues to be one of the main actors in drawing up and applying macro-economic policies in Southern countries, financing public and private companies in what it qualifies as “development” projects (ranging from the construction of highways to the installation of pulp mills).

Until recently, relatively little was know about the Nordic countries in the South. At the best, Finland, Norway and Sweden were known because of their progressive social legislation, their solidarity against the Southern dictatorships, their composers, such as Sibelius, the Nobel Prize or more popular facts such as famous tennis players and racing car drivers, the Helsinki Olympics or the World Football Cup in Sweden.

In the forests of northern Republic of Congo, the Mbendjele are a hidden people. Living entirely on forest resources, this pygmy tribe has co-existed with their environment for thousands of years. Their impact on the forest is so minimal that from satellite images it is impossible to detect any evidence of these people's hunter-gatherer activities.

Over the past two years I have made an uncomfortable discovery. Like most environmentalists, I have been as blind to the constraints affecting our energy supply as my opponents have been to climate change. I now realise that I have entertained a belief in magic.

On November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) filed an Alien Tort Claims Act case in US District Court in California against the rubber company Bridgestone alleging "forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery" on the Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia, of which Bridgestone is a partner.

United Fiber System's plans to build a pulp empire in Kalimantan received a blow in January 2006, when Deutsche Bank confirmed that it has pulled out of its role as financial advisor to UFS. Five months ago, UFS announced that it had appointed Deutsche Bank's Singapore Branch as Financial Advisor on a proposed acquisition of the Kiani Kertas pulp mill in East Kalimantan. Michael Hoelz, Deutsche Bank's managing director, confirmed in a statement to German NGOs that "Deutsche Bank no longer holds a mandate with UFS".

Monoculture is the main tool used by the large trans-national capitals to appropriate and control land resources and cheap labour in the countries of the South, causing enormous impacts on biological and cultural diversity. Homogenization and the dramatic simplification of the agro-ecosystem enable them to maximize soil exploitation and labour through mechanized tasks that are easy to control and supervise. Sustainability is defined on the basis of codes of profitability and depending on the crop, cycles of ten, fifteen or twenty years are completed and then the land is abandoned.

The struggle of the Tupinikim and Gaurani indigenous peoples is now facing an extremely difficult situation. In February 2005, following their decision to take back their lands occupied by the eucalyptus plantations of the Aracruz Celulosa pulp company, over 100 indigenous families returned to settle in the rural areas from where they had been evicted, thus opening up the door to hopes of a sustainable and decent future (see WRM bulletins 94, 96 and 101).

At the end of December 2005, Ibama – Instituto Brasilero del Medio Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales Renovables (the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) - brought a lawsuit against the Veracel Celulose company. Using satellite imagery and geo-processing, it verified the pulp mill’s irregularities and fined it R$ 320.000 for preventing or hindering the natural regeneration of the Mata Atlântica forest over an area of 1,200 hectares and worsening the situation of this biome.

The traditional January summer siesta in Uruguay has been interrupted, not only by constant rainfall but also because there has been no respite in the advance of the pulp mills. They continue with their advertising campaign, based on falsehoods, which are then repeated as truths. Promises and mirages made to a population with a high rate of unemployment, desperately in need of solutions.