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Brazil and Uruguay: Stora Enso’s promises
and the harsh reality
For some months now, declarations have
been circulating in Southern Brazil and in Uruguay, both by members
of the Swedish-Finnish company Stora Enso and by Government authorities
of these countries regarding the advantages for the local population
of the installation of the company’s pulp mills in the region.
The president for Latin America of Stora
Enso, Nils Grafström, as well as other high-ranking executives
of the Swedish-Finnish company visit towns in both countries with
the sole aim of announcing wealth, development and environmental
preservation. Something very similar is taking place at this same
time in other Latin American, African and Asian countries, such
as China, where Swedish and Finnish corporate representatives
increasingly affirm the social, economic and environmental benefits
of projects to install thousands of hectares of plantations and
new pulp mills.
However, the facts show that once installed
in the countries of the South, the situation is really very different
from what the companies had promised.
The experience of the Veracel pulp mill
- joint property of Stora Enso and Aracruz and operated by the
former – in the Brazilian State of Bahia is a clear example of
unsustainablility. This is confirmed in a letter we received,
signed by an important group of “men, women and young people,
rural and urban workers, indigenous people, environmentalists,
scientists, professors, students, in which they denounce the situation
of degradation and poverty of the Southern Region of the State
of Bahia, promoted by the pulp company Veracel, a joint venture
of Stora Enso”.
This situation is the result of the
negative social and environmental impacts caused both by the vast
monoculture tree plantations that the company has been establishing
in the region for many years now to make available the necessary
raw material, and by the pulp mill itself that started operating
in 2005, with an annual production of 900,000 tons of pulp for
export.
This letter states that “Over the past
years, Veracel has generated a track record of environmental degradation,
concentration of land, eviction of thousands of workers from the
rural areas to the outskirts of cities, causing significant social
and environmental disruptions”.
Regarding the generation of jobs, the
letter affirms that “Not satisfied with the large number of lands
purchased in the Southern Region of Bahia for the plantation of
eucalyptus, Veracel Celulose now moves forward to the south of
the State ignoring the social impacts this entails. Only
in the municipality of Mascote, the company purchased several
estates. Approximately, 400 workers lost their employment.
Many of these workers moved to the outskirts of nearby cities”.
As is also happening in the case in
Uruguay and many other countries, the signatories of the letter
complain that: “In one of the properties of the Santa Rita group
(made up by 4 ranches) purchased by Veracel … the houses, corrals
and plantations have already been destroyed to eliminate the signs
that human beings once lived there, who depended on that land”.
Additionally and as is already happening
in other regions, the plantations have negative impacts on water
and in this respect, the letter states that: “Throughout
the region, the extensive plantation of eucalyptus has resulted
in the disappearance of several rivers and streams”.
When Stora Enso was installed in Bahía,
it did so on the basis of the same promises of employment, development
and wealth that it is now making in other countries. For instance,
according to the Uruguayan press, “the information handled so
far by Stora Enso” is that during its operational phase it will
generate “some 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.” In Bahia not
only did those promises prove to be false, but the company also
generated rural migration, unemployment and poverty.
We ask ourselves how long these companies
will be able to continue repeating their lies with impunity.
The letter referred to in this article
is available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/LetterStoraEnso.html
