Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

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31 However, while the Bank confirmed that it had produced reports during its evaluation process, none of these documents are available to the public. The Bank even declined to release the date when the Bank’s Board would meet to discuss the Veracel project. EIB later described this meeting as “the occasion for a useful exchange of information and open and candid discussions”. 118 The Bank’s web-site described the meeting as “a dialogue” with NGOs and stated that EIB had “conducted extensive correspondence on the project with interested NGOs”. After Urgewald and CEE Bankwatch sent a letter (signed by 169 NGOs) to EIB President, Philippe Maystadt, complaining about this misrepresentation of the facts, EIB withdrew these claims from its web-site. At the end of the meeting Marcelo Calazans asked the Bank officials how they felt about supporting the overconsumption of paper in the North. Philippe Guinet, who works on technical assessments of EIB projects, replied, “You’re asking personally. I can’t answer. My feelings cannot influence my work at the Bank. . . . This is a question of global trade and economics.” Exactly. The Veracel project led to a series of lucrative contracts for European and Nordic companies. Pöyry produced a range of feasibility studies 119 and an environmental impact assessment. 120 Pöyry’s Brazilian subsidiary Jaakko Pöyry Tecnologia Ltda subsequently won US$16 million in engineering contracts on the construction of the Veracel pulp mill. 121 Andritz (Austria) won a US$230 million contract to plan and build the fibreline and a white liquor plant. 122 Eka Chemicals (Sweden) won a US$58 million contract to supply chemicals. 123 Degussa (Germany) expanded its hydrogen peroxide plant at Barra do Riacho in Espírito Santo to supply the Veracel pulp mill. 124 Invensys Systems Brazil, (part of the UK-based Invensys Group) won the contract to supply automation systems. 125 Aker Kvaerner (Norway) won a US$110 million contract to build Veracel’s boilers. 126 Metso Automation (a subsidiary of Finnish company Metso Corporation) won a US$7 million order to supply valves and online analysers 127 and Metso Paper won a US$28 million 118 Letter from GabrielLauermann and Yvonne Berghorst (EIB) to Magda Stoczkiewicz (CEE Bankwatch Network/Friends of the Earth International), 29 June 2004. 119 “Combined effort reaps reward as Veracel starts”, Printing World, 2 June 2005. 120 Måns Andersson and Örjan Bartholdson Swedish Pulp in Brazil: The case of Veracel, Swedwatch, 2004, page 25. http://www.swedwatch.org/swedwatch/content/download/157/721/file/Rapport%20Swedwatch.Vercel.pdf 121 “Veracel awards engineering contract to Jaakko Pöyry Group”, press release, 30 July 2003. http://www.paperloop.com/db_area/archive/pponews/2003/wk07_28_2003/29.html “Jaakko Poyry Group Oyj subsidiary wins engineering contracts in Brazil”, Nordic Business Report , 30 July 2003. 122 “Veracel picks Andritz to supply world’s largest fiberline”, press release, 9 July 2003. http://www.paperloop.com/db_area/archive/pponews/2003/wk07_07_2003/37.html “Andritz: Results for the first three Quarters of 2004”, AFX News Limited, 8 November 2004. 123 “Eka Chemicals to operate ‘chemical island’ for Veracel”, press release, 7 August 2003. http://www.paperloop.com/db_area/archive/pponews/2003/wk08_04_2003/57.html Peter Mitchell (2003) “Akzo unit Eka begins construction of Brazil silica sols plant”, Chemical News & Intelligence, 11 December 2003. 124 Anna Jagger (2003) “Degussa to expand Brazil H2O2 plant 50% to 60 kt/yr”, Chemical News & Intelligence, 21 October 2003. 125 “Invensys to automate pulp mill in Brazil”, Control Engineering, 1 August 2004. 126 “100 mln eur island contract from Veracel Pulp Mill”, AFX News Limited, 11 July 2003. 127 “Metso to Supply Valves and Analyzers for Veracel Pulp Mill Project in Brazil”, Metso Corporation press release, 1
32 contract to supply a complete timber yard system. 128 Partek Forest (Finland) won a US$25 million contract, its largest ever, to deliver harvesting equipment to Aracruz and Veracel. 129 Norsul (part of Norway’s Lorentzen Group which owns 28 per cent of shares in Aracruz) built three specially designed ocean-going ships and seven barges to transport pulp bales from Veracel to Aracruz’s port Portocel in Espírito Santo. 130 Veracel controls more than 164,600 hectares of land. Of this total about 78,000 hectares is industrial tree plantations. 131 In addition, Veracel has contracts with farmers to grow eucalyptus on an area covering a total of 10,000 hectares. 132 Just under half of Veracel’s land is set aside for what the company describes as “environmental recovery and preservation”. 133 Veracel’s vast area of plantations exacerbates the problems of land concentration and landlessness in the south of Bahia state, where large numbers of rural people have no land, or too little land to earn a livelihood. Veracel bought much of its land from large landowners, many of them cattle ranchers, but more than 800 people had to leave their homes to make way for Veracel’s operations. 134 José Koopmans, a priest and human rights activist in the South of Bahia, has documented the impact of eucalyptus on local livelihoods for many years. Koopmans states that at least one-eighth of the land that Veracel bought was used for small-scale agriculture. According to Brazilian law, land that the government has distributed through its land reform process cannot be resold. While Veracel denies allegations of any wrong-doing in its land purchases, Koopmans explains that Veracel used people to buy up land on their behalf: “I even got to know a person in 1995 who was used as a front by Veracruz in order to buy land for the company that subsequently was transferred to the corporation,” he told researchers from the Swedish NGO Swedwatch. 135 Veracel and its backers at the EIB claim that the project is environmentally friendly. “The project will have a significant positive impact on the environment,” according to the EIB. “It will help to reverse tropical rain forest destruction, to reduce the pressure for logging on natural forests and to maintain biodiversity.” 136 EIB appears to have forgotten Veracel’s record. In February 1993, one year after Veracel started its plantation operations under the name Veracruz Florestal, the Brazilian authorities temporarily suspended operations after local NGOs and the Union of Forestry Workers documented how the company was clearing the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) to June 2004. 128 “Metso wins timber yard system order from Stora/Aracruz jv worth 25 mln eur”, AFX European Focus, 23 July 2003. 129 “Partek’s biggest”, Forestry & British Timber, 2 January 2001. 130 “Brazil BNDES Finances Construction of Norsul Ships”, O Globo, Latin American News Digest, 21 June 2005. 131 “Land Occupation”, Veracel website: http://www.veracel.com.br/web/en/florestais/ 132 “Forestry partners program”, Veracel website: http://www.veracel.com.br/web/en/florestais/fomento.html 133 “Land Occupation”, Veracel website: http://www.veracel.com.br/web/en/florestais/ 134 De’Nadai, Alacir, Winfridus Overbeek, Luiz Alberto Soares (2005) “Promises of Jobs and Destruction of Work: The case of Aracruz Celulose in Brazil”, World Rainforest Movement, page 37. http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/fase.html 135 Måns Andersson and Örjan Bartholdson Swedish Pulp in Brazil: The case of Veracel, Swedwatch, 2004, page 22. http://www.swedwatch.org/swedwatch/content/download/157/721/file/Rapport%20Swedwatch.Vercel.pdf 136 “EIB loan for reforestation in Brazil”, European Investment Bank press release, 18 October 2001. http://www.eib.eu.int/news/press/press.asppress=130
Page 2 and 3: 1 Plantations, poverty and power: E
Page 4 and 5: 3 CONTENTS Introduction 1. Plantati
Page 6 and 7: 5 New investors have emerged recent
Page 8 and 9: 7 1. Plantations do not plant thems
Page 10 and 11: 9 plantations established on grassl
Page 12 and 13: 11 Nations Food and Agriculture Org
Page 14 and 15: 13 Another reason for the move to t
Page 16 and 17: 15 In his book, “Khor Jor Kor, Fo
Page 18 and 19: 17 Between 1991 and 2006, the numbe
Page 20 and 21: 19 are asking for”, notes WWF. 60
Page 22 and 23: 21 consume fewer goods. Less advert
Page 24 and 25: 23 credit crunch, unstable oil pric
Page 26 and 27: 25 Investment in plantations in the
Page 28 and 29: 27 possible price. Subsidies, linke
Page 30 and 31: 29 2. The anatomy of five pulp proj
Page 34 and 35: 33 make way for its tree plantation
Page 36 and 37: 35 In April 2004, about 2,000 famil
Page 38 and 39: 37 Sappi, Swaziland: 50 years of in
Page 40 and 41: 39 after an assessment by the Soil
Page 42 and 43: 41 impact of the plantations on wat
Page 44 and 45: 43 Advance Agro, Thailand: Deforest
Page 46 and 47: 45 confiscation and liquidation of
Page 48 and 49: 47 management was facing a bankrupt
Page 50 and 51: 49 Indah Kiat, Asia Pulp and Paper,
Page 52 and 53: 51 company owners want profits to b
Page 54 and 55: 53 • US$4.5 billion owed by APP i
Page 56 and 57: 55 explained that “association wi
Page 58 and 59: 57 Indah Kiat faces a series of lan
Page 60 and 61: 59 logging. While the investigation
Page 62 and 63: 61 experimental areas and not from
Page 64 and 65: 63 Staples and Office Depot in the
Page 66 and 67: 65 “the exhaustive studies have c
Page 68 and 69: 67 CEDHA has also filed complaints
Page 70 and 71: 69 of converting grasslands to indu
Page 72 and 73: 71 3. Pulp Inc. Profiles of seven p
Page 74 and 75: 73 Thailand, a power plant for a Ne
Page 76 and 77: 75 Management’s experts the possi
Page 78 and 79: 77 A year after Aracruz’s third p
Page 80 and 81: 79 In January 2003, Pöyry announce
Page 82 and 83:
81 Bank in the early 1990s. Groome
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83 Pöyry’s role in the Baikal Pu
Page 86 and 87:
85 Under carbon financing, Pöyry o
Page 88 and 89:
87 Pöyry is working on second gene
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89 The Confederation of European Pa
Page 92 and 93:
91 CEPI Eurokraft states that “it
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93 sectors need to reduce by 21% co
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95 The ADB’s report notes that th
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97 Nepal In Nepal, the target area
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99 loan for the second plantations
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101 International Finance Corporati
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103 •In December 2000, IFC approv
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105 firm’s activities. After his
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107 safeguards are in practice.
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109 Bank projects are approved by a
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111 •€80 million to Portucel to
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113 The Food and Agriculture Organi
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115 Nevertheless, Poore and Fries n
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117 failure to define industrial tr
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119 FAO’s guidelines recommend th
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121 Rosengren did not reply to my e
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123 Forest Stewardship Council: Mis
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125 body that rubber stamps operati
Page 128 and 129:
127 Criterion 1.6, for example, sta
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129 fast wood plantations have take
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131 Principle 10.8 should prevent t
Page 134 and 135:
133 By April 2004, FSC had, at last
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135 plantations, because it creates
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137 integrated set of common Princi
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139 for clearing areas of Atlantic
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141 Colombia were certified by SGS.
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143 The dissociation became necessa
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145 4. Future planned pulp mills As
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147 Planned pulp projects: 698 Comp
Page 150 and 151:
149 UPM and Sveza Group Vologda Rus
Page 152:
151 paper industry along ecological
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