We, the representatives of Quilombolas (*), Tupinikins, Pataxos, Guarani, fisher-people and peasant communities, and tens of organizations present at the 2nd National Meeting of the Alert Against the Green Desert Network, a movement that struggles against the expansion of monoculture eucalyptus tree plantations for the production of cellulose and charcoal in Espirito Santo (ES), Bahia (BA), Rio de Janeiro (RJ) and Minas Gerais (MG), denounce the serious violation of economic, cultural and socio-environmental rights committed by this agro-industrial exporting model.
Over the past four decades, this model has destroyed the way of life of the local communities. The companies involved continue to invade their lands and have given rise to rural exodus with the consequent dispersion of many communities. In those regions, the rivers have been degraded by pollution caused by wide-spread use of pesticides and a process of desiccation, linked to large-scale plantations, compromising fishing and the quality and quantity of drinking water. The Aracruz Cellulose Company diverted the Doce River to ensure the abusive consumption of 248 thousand cubic metres of water per day, free of cost, by its three pulp mills.
With their development discourse, the companies have encouraged an enormous migration of workers attracted by the promise of employment. Today, thousands of workers are unemployed, many of them mutilated by work associated with great health risks, dismissed as a result of a violent and noxious process of automatisation and out-sourcing. These peoples' loss of dignity becomes manifest in a high rate of child prostitution in the neighbourhoods where the abandoned former workers now live. In the midst of eucalyptus monoculture tree plantations people opposing and resisting them are loosing their cultural identity and wealth and literally suffer a process of deep isolation. Those who oppose this inhuman project are exposed to attempts at co-optation and even threatened with death.
Unfortunately, the State has been an accomplice to these companies' practices. For four decades now, it has been granting loans through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and illegal permits for plantations --not respecting permanent nature conservation reserves-- and factories, one of them built on the grounds of a former indigenous village. Furthermore, the exporting companies owe money to the Social Security Service (INSS in Portuguese) and benefit from the Kandir Law, giving rise to such dramatic circumstances as those of Espirito Santo, where the government of this State owes the Aracruz Cellulose Company over 100 million reales on credit from the ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services). At the same time, the State has left no options to the local population; on the contrary, it is increasingly showing its complicity with company interests to the detriment of its social responsibility and in view of this vacuum, the companies have taken on some State functions, generating a perverse relationship of dependency and deconstructing the local communities' social organizations.
The organizations listed below consider that the consequences of all these problems are related to the present development model funded by the central government and international organizations whose only objective is to seek profit to the detriment of the local populations.
Attempts to revert damage caused by perverse company strategies, for example by introducing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) green label for sustainable management of monoculture tree plantations, have not been successful, what is worse, have been insufficient to reorient the rationale of this agro-industrial model. We recall a recent publication, prepared by a group of Alert Against the Green Desert researchers, showing the flagrant lack of sustainability of the Plantar and V&M Florestal Company eucalyptus plantations in Minas Gerais, which were certified by FSC.
Furthermore, the Network states its opposition to the application of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), to the large-scale plantations of the companies refered to above, because it considers that such a mechanism continues to favour the countries of the North, which would not have to reduce their release of pollutants contributing to global warming. Secondly, we oppose CDM since by increasing the area of plantations, this mechanism is worsening the impoverishment of the populations of the South.
We affirm that there are contradictions between investment in this agro-industrial complex and the Central Government's Zero Hunger Plan. On the one hand, considerable investment, such as that of the pulp mill Veracel Celulose plans to build in Bahia, continues to favour monoculture tree plantations that are mainly aimed at production for export to rich countries, creating very few jobs, legitimising large-scale land-holding, preventing agrarian reform and further increasing rural migration and the despair of thousands of families that will be left with no land and no means of subsistence. On the other hand, the Government has launched a Zero Hunger Plan, attempting to encourage food production, while the best arable lands continue to be occupied by tree plantations. Macro-economic policy goals cannot be achieved by sacrificing not only living conditions, good health, job opportunities and the ability to work but also the way of life of workers and communities that need water and land for fishing and hunting in order to avoid becoming part of the growing contingent of the unemployed in the cities.
It is not enough to come up with provisional ways out of the present economic model. The chosen model revolving around capital accumulation and unrestrained consumption is unsustainable and must be radically changed. Another path must be taken, one in which human beings --men and women-- together, are the central aspect, changing the way in which the planet's natural resources are being used. Aware of the lack of sustainability of the present model, the movements and communities of the Alert Against the Green Desert Network have discussed and carried out new productive experiments that value biodiversity and local knowledge and thereby, build up a different and sustainable relationship with the environment.
In view of the dramatic and unsustainable socio-environmental picture we have drawn and which directly affects many thousands of people, we, the communities and organizations listed below consider unacceptable the proposal made by the sector to increase plantations from 5 million hectares to 11 million hectares over the next 10 years. Furthermore, we consider that in the preparation of the new Pluri-Annual Plan (PAP) and the government's industrial policy, to AN IMMEDIATE HALT AND PARALYZATION OF THE EXPANSION OF FAST-GROWING MONOCULTURE TREE PLANTATIONS IN BRAZIL is a necessity of an extremely urgent nature.
Porto Seguro, 29 June 2003
Signed by:
FASE-ES Victoria (ES) - SINDIPETRO São Mattes (ES) - MST - MPA - Movimento Quilombola São Mateus (ES) - Associação Remanescentes Quilombos Conceição da Barra (ES) - CDDH Teixeira de Freitas (BA) - APEDEMA Río de Janeiro (RJ) - STR São Mateus y Jaguaré (ES) - MDPS Puerto Seguro (BA) - SINDEC Teixeira de Freitas (BA) - STR Itanhém (BA) - AGB Victoria (ES) - APESCA São Mateus (ES) - EFA Montanha (ES) - PT São Mateus (ES) - EFA Bley São Gabriel da Palha (ES) - FASB Teixeira de Freitas (BA) - CEPEDES Eunápolis (BA) - AGB Río de Janeiro (RJ) - Grupo do Jongo São Mateus (ES) - STR Belmonte (BA) - STR Eunápolis (BA) - CIMI Aracruz (ES) - Proyecto Semear Eunápolis (BA) - Terra Viva Itamarajú (BA) - STR Teixeira de Freitas (BA) - SINTERP Eunápolis (BA) - STR Curvelo (MG) - CEDEFES Belo Horizonte (MG) - CPT Bello Horizonte (MG) - Gambá Salvador (BA) - Rede Mata Atlântica - Oásis da Luz Eunápolis (BA) - Federal Deputy Guillherme Menezes (BA) - State deputy councillor Claudio Vereza (ES) - Asesoría Federal Deputy Iriny Lopes (ES) - Aldeia Guarani Aracruz (ES) - Comissão de Meio Ambiente CUT Río de Janeiro (RJ) - STR Mucuri (BA) - STR São Gabriel da Palha (ES) - CUT/BA Eunápolis (BA) - Sindicato dos Vigilantes Eunápolis (BA) - Flora Brasil Puerto Seguro (BA) - Frente de Resistência Pataxó Monte Pascoal (BA) - P. Amigo Tartaruga Puerto Seguro (BA) - EFA Boa Esperança (ES) - CIMI Eunápolis (BA) - Missionárias Comboianas Aracruz (ES) - FASE Nacional Río de Janeiro (RJ).
* From the word "Quilombo" meaning a refuge for slaves having run away from their masters
(T. note).