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Brazil: Certification of V&M
and Plantar plantations
The
Alert against the Green Desert Movement is a broad network of
opposition to the expansion of large scale eucalyptus tree plantations
in the region which covers the
States of Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro
and Rio Grande do Sul. Its existence
and struggles arose from the proven social and environmental impacts
of these plantations, some of which presently enjoy FSC certification.
A team from
this Network took part in a case study carried out at the end
of 2003 (Certifying the un-certifiable. FSC certification of tree
plantations in Thailand and Brazil” (http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/text.pdf)
and investigated the plantations of V&M and Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos,
certified by FSC through the certifying bodies Société Générale
de Surveillance (SGS) and Scientific Certification Systems (SCS).
V&M
owns 235,886 hectares of land in the State of Minas Gerais, distributed
among 25 properties of between 1,000 and 36,000 hectares. Plantar
is the owner of some 15 rural properties totalizing 280,000 hectares.
The study
observed that some of the certified plantations occupy lands by
encroaching on their originating inhabitants, thus undermining
the struggles of the local peoples to recover their lands.
Other disputes were also identified between small farmers and
the companies regarding the use of agrochemicals, blocking of
roads or the alteration of access to and management of water resources.
In Brazil,
FSC certification has also seriously undermined workers’ rights:
“Nothing can excuse SGS’s and SCS’s absolute silence, in their
Public Summaries and annual monitoring reports, regarding the
serious labour problems in V&M’s and Plantar’s certified forestry
management units, especially given the prominence of the issue
in local political discussion and the Minas Gerais press and on
television. Sub-human labour conditions, excessively long working
hours, child labour, illegal outsourcing, subjection of workers,
irregular transportation, unhealthy and degrading work, blacklisting
of worker leaders, lack of freedom and lack of union autonomy
– all this has been the subject of innumerable articles in the
regional mass media as well as public debates in several municipalities
and the state and federal parliaments.”
Restoring
lands planted with monoculture tree plantations back to forests
is no easy task, either politically or practically. In the case
of certified plantations, the difficulty is even greater and certification
becomes a tool which the plantation owners use to confront the
local communities.
The Brazilian
case study also documents how eucalyptus plantations – including
those of the two certified companies – have been one of the major
causes of destruction of the native cerrado vegetation. As a result,
local communities have been deprived of sustainable means of livelihood.
For the purposes of FSC certification, it may matter little that
the plantation companies burned this cerrado for the sake of charcoal
and eucalyptus plantations, since the destruction took place before
November 1994. Nevertheless, “the impact of the destruction of
the biome is felt up to today, mainly by the local people who
lost much of their flora, fauna and water and suffered the consequences
of the application of agrochemicals. Far from protecting what
native vegetation remains, the thousands of hectares planted with
eucalyptus ended up becoming a hazard.”
The study
contends that the economic and social benefits of products such
as charcoal for steel production or timber for paper pulp production
are “small compared with the negative social impacts of the associated
industrial plantations on the lives of workers and the negative
socio-economic impacts on the life of local communities.”
An issue
related with the certification process as a whole should also
be noted, namely the irregularities in the certification process
that have led to non-observance of FSC criteria and to the influence
of the certifying organizations’ vested interests. The study concludes
that V&M and Plantar’s forestry management infringes national
and international legislation, such as some of the International
Labour Organization’s treaties. Regarding environmental legislation,
V&M and Plantar have failed to observe the resolution requiring
that enterprises of their size must obtain permits through the
submission of an Environmental Impact Assessment.
The report
also documents the fact that V&M and Plantar do not fulfil
some of FSC criteria as the majority of the plantations were established
on lands covered by native “cerrado” vegetation. They contributed
to destroy this threatened biome, simultaneously causing social,
environmental, cultural and economic prejudice.
The FSC
prides itself on its attention to social issues. Consultation
with local people, communities and organizations lies at the core
of its credibility. However, in the case of Brazil, consultation
has been lacking. The Public Summary for V&M enumerates various
“interested parties” with which, according to SGS, “meetings and
discussions were held”, but does not comment on the results of
these meetings and discussions. Trade union members mentioned
in the list of “interested parties” supposedly consulted by SGS
deny that they were consulted during the certification process
in 1998.
Furthermore
the services of the certifying firms are paid by the companies
wishing to obtain certification. This gives the firms a strong
incentive to grant quick certification, without imposing too many
conditions or monitoring the fulfilment of FSC criteria in a strict
way.
Finally,
the reports by the certifying organizations regarding the plantations
owned by these companies lack a careful analysis of the socioeconomic
universe in the places where they have been established and have
not been placed in context. The reports reflect the fact that
the auditors made a subjective interpretation, ranging from the
selection of content and priority items in their study, to the
selection of less critical interlocutors. They made field visits
oriented by an extremely narrow interpretive horizon, ignoring
the territory’s temporal and spatial references.
The conclusion
of the study is that: “after having assessed the certification
of Plantar S. A. and V&M, we can state that any such consumer
certainty would be sadly misplaced."
