Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

35
In April 2004, about 2,000 families 146 from the Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement (MST – Movimento
dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) occupied 25 hectares of land and cut down four hectares 147 of
Veracel’s eucalyptus trees. 148 “Nobody eats eucalyptus,” they shouted as they occupied the land 149 and
started planting corn, manioc and beans. 150
Veracel wrote immediately to Brazil’s President, Lula da Silva, demanding “a more energetic action”
from the President. 151 “It’s a very bad sign for investors. The government can’t lose control like this,”
Vitor da Costa, then Veracel’s president, told the Financial Times. 152
After five days, the MST decided to avoid what would probably have been a violent confrontation with
the state police and accepted an offer from the federal governmental agency for land reform in an area
covering 30,000 hectares.
Six months later another protest against Veracel took place. This time, 300 indigenous Pataxó blocked the
BR-101 highway for 19 hours to protest against the fact that Veracel had planted eucalyptus on their
traditional lands. 153
In 2004, the Brazilian NGO FASE Espirito Santo explained the contradiction between the enormous
amounts of money invested in the pulp mill compared to the amount spent on addressing the problem of
landlessness in Brazil – a problem much more immediate to millions of Brazilians than producing pulp
for the international paper industry:
“The occupation of the Landless Peasant Movement, the MST, shows the huge contradiction between two
policies that are priority for the Federal Government but, in practice, cause very different results: on the
one hand, billions of dollars of investments is at the disposition of the export-oriented plantation industry
that will create few concrete jobs and perspectives for the majority of the local people. The Veracel pulp
mill, in construction right now, an investment of US$1.25 billion, will create around 500 direct jobs in the
pulp mill; on the other hand, the MST had to pressure the government with tens of occupations over the
past few weeks, so that a total amount of about US$1 billion will be finally spent this year by the
government, less than the total investment of Veracel, but enough to settle directly around 60 thousand
families, according to the federal government, by the end of 2003. But, while the Veracel pulp mill is in
fact being constructed, the land reform, even with the intended budget, deals with all types of problems
that are causing the present dissatisfaction among the MST and the social movements in Brazil in general,
resulting in a paralysed land reform.” 154
146 “Multiple setbacks erode support for Lula”, Brazil Report,20 April 2004.
147 “MST occupies eucalyptus area of Veracel Cellulose”, FASE Espírito Santo, 7 April 2004.
148 Raymond Colitt (2005) “Brazil is top of the tree in tale that is no pulp fiction”, Financial Times, 21 June 2005.
149 “Ninguém come eucalipto”, O Globo, 6 April 2004.
Paulo Prada (2004) “Landless, and Restless. Brazil’s poor grow more aggressive in property grabs”, The Boston Globe, 24
April 2004.
150 “MST occupies eucalyptus area of Veracel Cellulose”, FASE Espírito Santo, 7 April 2004.
151 “‘Red April’ kicks up a gear”, Latinnews Daily, 7 April 2004.
152 Raymond Colitt (2004) “Brazil’s landless in widespread protests”, Financial Times, 7 April 2004.
153 “Brazilian Indians in the War of Eucalyptus”, Brazzilmag, 4 November 2004.
http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/612/41/
“Indigenous people block a highway – Stora Enso involved”, Conselho Indigenista Missionário, 21 October 2004.
http://www.cimi.org.br/system=news&action=read&id=632&eid=142
154 “MST occupies eucalyptus area of Veracel Cellulose”, FASE Espírito Santo, 7 April 2004.