• Argentina: Echoes of the plebiscite against Canadian mining exploitation
• Brazil: Social and environmental disaster caused by paper mill
• Brazil: The need to avoid eucalyptus causing the same damage in Sao Paulo as it has done in Minas Gerais
• Uruguay: Inhuman working conditions at a Chilean forestry company plantation

 

- Argentina: Echoes of the plebiscite against Canadian mining exploitation

The streets of the Patagonian town of Esquel still echo with the celebrations held on the resounding victory of "NO" which obtained 81% of the non-binding plebiscite held on 23 March. The monstrous governmental-company propaganda machinery was unable to convince the population to give its support to the exploitation of a gold and silver mine, located some 6 kilometres from the town. The most important town in the Chubut cordillera, inhabited by some 30 thousand people, said NO, and Mining Argentina trembled.

Both the provincial and municipal governments --in favour of "YES"-- had to announce that they would respect the people's will. However, the Federal Mining Council (Consejo Federal Minero - CoFeMin) comprising representatives of the mining provinces ignore the people's will and the Canadian mining company, Meridian Gold Inc. has stated that it will not renounce its extractive intentions.

In the fervour of victory, on 29 March hundreds of inhabitants of Esquel symbolically closed the access route to the deposits. Furthermore, on 2 April, the local Deliberating Council, promulgated an ordinance declaring Esquel a "Non Toxic and Environmentally Sustainable" Municipality. This ordinance prohibits "industrial and mining activities that use leaching with toxic products or any other technique that requires the use of explosives and toxic inputs, or techniques that release into the atmosphere substances of any kind that on their own or in combination with others, could be toxic and/or noxious to human health, to natural resources as a whole, water, soil, flora, fauna, landscape, sources of conventional and non conventional energy and atmosphere, on the basis of environmental values."

Through this ordinance, the zone of mountains, peaks and edges located within the municipal lands, was declared a Specially Protected Landscape Area, in order to preserve its natural characteristics.

For a few days Esquel, a town unknown to millions of Argentines, was the news on the front page of several newspapers. Suddenly it had become incorporated into the global village and the 2000 km separating it from Buenos Aires, seat of political and economic power, had disappeared. Devaluation of Argentine currency has been the signal awaited by companies to start the mining cycle, a new cycle of economy for the country, according to the estimates of the Under-secretariat for Mining. However, the undertaking chosen as a national milestone is resisted by the people.

The promotion policy launched in the nineties, with the exploitation of the gold deposits of Bajo La Alumbrera in Catamarca, and Cerro Vanguardia in Santa Cruz, has suffered an unexpected setback.

Some sights have already been aimed at the Province of San Juan, located in the central west of Argentina, due to the unrest generated in the population by the contamination of the Valle del Cura area. Following an investigation by the local Mining Council in the Lama gold fields, toxic waste was found buried high up the mountain. According to this body, the Barrick Exploraciones Argentina S.A., a company with Canadian capital, did not fulfil commitments taken on in the Environmental Impact Report and will have to pay a fine of some US$80 thousand.

In view of this finding, the "Prensa Geo Minera" publication, linked to interests in the sector, warned a few months ago that "If (Barrick) does not prepare a concrete information programme on environmental protection and relations with the communities, both undertakings (the gold mines at San Juan, Lama and Veladero) could see their implementation endangered, as has happened recently with the gold exploitation project at Esquel, the property of the Meridian Gold company."

While in the province of Catamarca, in the Northeast of Argentina, complaints continue against the leaks in the tailings dike at the gold mine at Bajo La Alumbrera. Contamination from acid leaks in the basin of the Vis Vis River could endanger the north of Argentina's greatest water reserve.

It is true that the Esquel plebiscite does not have any legal force, but it has the enormous power of embodying the people's freely expressed feelings against environmental destruction by mining activities. It also represents the feelings of other peoples which are suffering from the impact of mining in Argentina and which now see Esquel as an example to be followed. With their vote in the plebiscite, the inhabitants of Esquel have placed the mining sector in general and a Canadian company in particular, in a very weak situation.

By: Hernán Scandizzo, e-mail: herscan@data54.com

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- Brazil: Social and environmental disaster caused by paper mill

In Minas Gerais during the last week-end in March, more precisely during the night of Friday 28 a deposit for chemical products belonging to the paper mill "Industria Cataguazes" collapsed. The mill, close to the city of Cataguazes, is located on the Pomba river, where millions of litres of caustic soda, chlorine and other toxic products used in making paper leaked out.

The Pombo River flows into the main river of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Paraiba do Sul, which was also affected by the contamination. A large patch covered the whole river at the height of the Municipality of Sao Joao da Barra, and moved towards the ocean, contaminating on its way the beaches of Atafona, Grussai and Iquipari. Pictures on television showed the rivers Pomba and Paraiba do Sul covered by a white foam, dead fish floating on the surface and long queues of people waiting for water which was taken to them by truck.

It is perhaps the greatest ecological disaster that has ever happened in the country and according to scientists, it will take the ecosystem some 15 years to recover. The spill, estimated at 1,200 million litres of toxic products, affected approximately one million people, and implied that over half a million residents in eight municipalities had no water supply for various days and that for 90 days fishing has been prohibited in the two contaminated rivers. To face the damage that this means to the local fisher-people, the minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, announced that they would receive a monetary compensation of one minimum wage per month during the period that this activity is suspended due to the contamination.

There is a second 700 million-litre tank of toxic material belonging to the company that is also a cause for concern as it is not considered to be safe and preventive measures are being taken.

Some environmental organisations have placed responsibility on the Government of the State of Minas Gerais, in addition to the company, for omissions in monitoring measures. The mill has been closed down and Federal Justice has decreed preventive imprisonment of the company's administrative Director, Felix Santana, and the partner manager, Joao Gregorio do Bem, who may have to face criminal charges. Furthermore, the government announced that it will fine the company for the amount of approximately 15 million dollars. However, it is hard to believe that any figure exists that can compensate for the serious damage, perhaps some of it irreversible, that has been caused to the ecosystem, the economy and the health of the region.

During the public audience of the Environmental Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, spoke about the four goals the Ministry is working towards in the next few years: transversality, social monitoring, strengthening of the environmental sector and sustainable development. The Minister stated that a major effort has to be made to avoid environmental policy from being an isolated policy of the Ministry, and to make it into an integrated government action.

This is certainly a major challenge, as are all the issues that this disaster brings to the forefront, that are far from being solved and perhaps have not been sufficiently discussed: social and environmental costs, corporate responsibility, social monitoring, environmental policy, sustainability of production models, among others. What was made clear is the weakness of the argument of those who propose self-regulation by the companies in the framework of opening up markets and de-regulation.

It is not that the companies ignore environmental issues: most of them boast about their environmental concerns on their web pages. The "Industria Cataguazes de Papel" company itself declares that "environmental preservation through recycling of paper from the major urban centres such as Sao Paulo, Vitoria, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte is the Cataguazes' commitment towards society" and it even argues that "each ton of recycled paper avoids logging an average of 20 to 30 eucalyptus trees, or between 16 to 30 native trees." What will it say now about its "commitment to society"? Sorry? At all events, what is important is to ensure strict monitoring by the State and by society as a whole of company activities so that this type of situation is not repeated. The companies may have good intentions, but they are not charities. What interests them above all is their profitability.

Society must take up these issues with rigor and without being naive, because the companies adapt to the times and carry out all the necessary marketing to continue with their business. However, "accidents" continue to take place. There have been several samples, how many more are needed?

Article based on information from: "Fish, animals and people at risk after caustic soda leak", 04 Apr 2003, Hannah Hoag, Nature.com, http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=975 ; "Brazil fights spread of toxic spill from factory", Andrei Khalip, Boston Globe, Reuters, 03 Apr 2003, http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=976 ; "Decretada prisão dos donos da empresa acusada de vazamento de produtos tóxicos en MG", ambientebrasil.com.br, 03/04/2003, http://www.ambientebrasil.com.br/noticias/index.php3?action=1 ; "Desastre ambiental no Brasil: poluicão do Rio Pomba, EMS-SEMA, http://www.ems-sema.org/portugues/act/03_04_rio.pomba.html ; Información de "Industria Cataguazes de Papel", http://www.cataguazesdepapel.com.br

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- Brazil: The need to avoid eucalyptus causing the same damage in Sao Paulo as it has done in Minas Gerais

In spite of the fact that it is one of the country's most wretched zones, the Valley of Jequitinhonha in Minas Gerais has been the main and paradigmatic goal of the "citizen caravans" of the candidate Lula --in more than one of his presidential campaigns-- and one of the zones chosen to play the new government's strong card --the Hunger Zero plan-- it is odd to note that nothing has been said about the concrete reason (in addition to generic reasons due to socio-economic and perhaps political underdevelopment) that has led this part of the territory of Minas Gerais to such a degraded and economically unsustainable condition. However, some testimonies by representative personalities in the region, during radio interviews on the occasion of the visit by the presidential committee, reported that some 26 years ago the Jequitinhonha was a fertile valley, with many crops and cattle raising and that it started "drying up" due to the substitution of native forests by the indiscriminate plantation of eucalyptus.

Faced by the dramatic previsions of the UNESCO report on the diminishing of springs over the next 20 years --a report submitted to the 3rd World Water Forum held in Kyoto-- and facing the possibility that all the remnants of biodiversity will be damaged, together with the water resources available to supply the largest (and most important) Brazilian city, it would be valuable to discuss the risks of the rapid and on-going substitution of riparian native forests by eucalyptus plantations in the municipalities close to the city, such as Nazaré Paulista --where the Atibainha dam is located, the main spring of the Cantareira System-- Piracaia, Joanopolis and others. Because in this zone, mainly over the past five years, a beautiful and varied native vegetation that harbours natural springs, streams and small rivers and is the habitat of a wealth of wildlife, has given way to monotonous lines of identical trees, that have nothing to attract birds --or any other species of fauna-- and that are quickly cut down to be used as firewood. Only a few areas are left that have resisted illegal logging or the sterile "reforestation" of eucalyptus "cultivation." These are not trees benefiting the cellulose industry --as the zone does not have one nor would it be feasible due to its characteristics-- and still less do such plantations respond to technical criteria for the redistribution and/or preservation of a percentage of native forests. It is only wood that has drunk a lot of water, but that can only be used as firewood…

In the old controversy over the environmental effects of eucalyptus plantations, in spite of the arguments --generally based on scientific work sponsored by major companies that industrially exploit this tree-- endeavouring to present as simple "myths" the damage caused by eucalyptus to soil fertility and to springs, ample bibliography exists proving at least three basic aspects: this tree's high demand for water can deplete ground humidity and harm ground-water recharge, destabilizing the water cycle; the great intake of nutrients by the roots can generate a major deficit in the soil and destabilize the nutrient cycle; the release of chemical substances --or alelopathic effects on the micro-flora-- can alter plant and micro-organism growth and further reduce soil fertility.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and many other international bodies, in addition to universities and European, Indian, Australian and South African scientific institutes, have discussed the issue at length, but very often environmental concerns clash with the interests of industrial groups that rely on this tree of Australian origin, which started to be grown in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century (and in Brazil at the beginning of the twentieth century). Already in 1887, there were reports in South Africa --one of the first countries to establish large-scale eucalyptus plantations-- testifying that the climate of the country was becoming dryer, the previously abundant water sources were decreasing and the watercourses were becoming intermittent.

One hundred years later, in 1987, the Portuguese author, Antero Gonçalves wrote a book with the title of "Eucalyptus and Man," in which he states: "It is not worth continuing to repeat that the eucalyptus is against human beings, it is against the land, it is against water, it is against everything. It is hard to understand how the people in the countryside accept tranquilly and quietly that the best arable lands are corrupted by the infernal globule [Eucalyptus globulus] that threatens to turn us into a desert." In Spain a movement exists promoting the plantation of native species, called the Phoracantha Club, in homage to the beetle [the longhorned borer] that destroys eucalyptus trees.

It is not without reason that the laws of many countries restrict this type of plantation. In Brazil, a law has been adopted in Espirito Santo, prohibiting new plantations of eucalyptus in this state. It would be advisable for Sao Paulo to also establish similar restrictions, at least in areas with important springs, such as the one mentioned above, and thus avoid witnessing in a few years time the still diversified (and not desertified) parts of the Nazare Paulista vegetation --with its native forests, its natural springs, its birds, its monkeys and even wildcats, at only one hour from the capital-- converted into a desolated Jequitinhonha that only lends itself to the visit of tearful caravans of future presidential campaigns, while in Sao Paulo we will have to buy drinking water at the price of gold (or of clean air).

By: Mauro Chaves, e-mail: mauro.chaves@attglobal.net, accessed from: Biodiversidad en América Latina, http://www.biodiversidadla.org/prensa8/prensa962.htm.

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- Uruguay: Inhuman working conditions at a Chilean forestry company plantation

The forestry plan promoted by the Government --based on large monoculture tree plantations of eucalyptus and pine-- promised large profits to the country, among which employment generation. Not only has this objective not been accomplished, but it has also been seen that the scant employment generated is usually temporary and under working conditions that in general leave much to be desired. The events that took place at the beginning of this month are a clear demonstration of what environmental organizations have long been denouncing. The big difference this time is that the complaint was lodged by a Government official.

Following a complaint, the National Customs Office carried out an inspection of a forestry company in the Department of Rivera (in the northeast of Uruguay, bordering with Brazil). The forestry company in question turned out to be Forestal Cono Sur S.A., owning some 26,000 hectares of pine plantations in Uruguay. However, 99% of its shares belong to Forestal Cholguán, which in turn is a subsidiary company of the gigantic Chilean corporation, Arauco that in its home country owns 906,033 hectares of plantations, and against which the Mapuche people have undertaken a bitter fight because the company has appropriated much of their territories.

The complaint was related to the existence of forestry machinery presumably in breach with the customs, that is to say, machinery that had entered the country without paying the corresponding taxes. Great was the surprise of Victor Lissidini, National Customs Director, when he reached the establishment. In addition to confiscating machinery for a value of approximately US$ 300,000, 40 mattresses were found, thrown on the floor, and following a brief reconnaissance, he was able to see that fifty Brazilian undocumented labourers worked there, living in inhuman conditions.

The labourers had been hired by a Brazilian company, which in turn had been hired by the Chilean company to carry out plantation work. The Customs Director explained that the report by the writ-servers from Rivera, set out that the workers slept on the floor, eat leftovers, dressed in rags and in several cases had injuries that had not received adequate medical treatment. "They were living practically under a regime of slavery," he stated.

According to press reports, people from the area have affirmed that it is normal for large companies, mainly engaged in tree plantations, to hire Brazilians to work as "moonlight workers" (that is, without complying with the labour regulations in force), keeping them under miserable conditions.

These working conditions are to be found in the framework of companies owning plantations that carry out most of their activities (from plantation to harvesting) almost exclusively through hiring forestry service companies. These companies are frequently of a hard to control and informal nature, in which one of the most widespread forms of competition is tax evasion and non-compliance with labour laws. Forestry service companies are gaining increasing protagonism and are key to "cost-efficiency."

Given that, in spite of being strongly subsidised, forestry activities do not give rise to considerable profits (the market price of logs that the country exports is very low), in order to make them profitable the forestry companies establish very low prices when outsourcing. The outsourced companies --which obviously want to make their own profits-- transfer these low prices to the last link in the chain…the worker.

Although it is true that some forestry companies do control the quality of the companies hired, this is rather the exception than the rule and in general these are companies which have an image to look after and to cultivate, or which have comparative advantages on the international market.

Who is responsible for this state of affairs? There is no doubt that a large part of the responsibility falls on the companies, which in their eagerness to obtain profits do not hesitate to submit workers to inhuman working conditions. However, in the end, it is the State that must establish and enforce compliance with the rules of the game. The situation shows that the State so far has been an accomplice to the violation of labour legislation.

The former president of Uruguay, Luis Alberto Lacalle (who was a great promoter of plantations) already fostered this activity, highlighting the cheapness of labour in this country. The President of Uruguay, Jorge Batlle, when he took up office, travelled to Santiago, Chile and held meetings with Chilean forestry companies. During these meetings, he exhorted Chilean investors to invest in plantations in Uruguay. It has shown to be one of the few occasions in which the President (of a country that has fallen into the greatest crisis in its history during his government) was successful. The Chileans did invest and the result is now to be seen.

It is important that the Uruguayan people are aware about the implications of this type of "development." However, it is equally important that the world should perceive that what is now being denounced in Uruguay, takes place in practically all the countries of the South where these large-scale plantations are installed. Outsourced labour is already the standard in all of them, be they Brazil or South Africa or Chile or Argentina. International competition takes place by lowering costs and in all cases, the main mechanism for raw material (timber) to continue cheap does not lie in technologies or in the speed of growth (which are similar in all the cases) nor even in the subsidies (which are also similar), but fundamentally in reducing the cost of labour. This is at the cost of the living and working conditions of plantation workers.

Monoculture tree plantations have already clearly shown that they are environmentally unsustainable. They have also shown that they do not solve, but on the contrary, only worsen social problems. Why are they still being promoted?

Article based on information from: the newspaper Ultimas Noticias, http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.uy ; "Plantaciones forestales en la pradera uruguaya", Carlos Pérez Arrarte, http://www.wrm.org.uy/guayubira/plantaciones/pradera.htm ;

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