Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

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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