We, the undersigned organisations, members of the Movement Alert Against the Green Desert, the Family Agriculture Forum, the Rural and City Struggles Forum and other national and international signatories participants at the International Seminar on Eucalyptus and its Impacts, concerned about the expansion of eucalyptus monoculture pulpwood plantations in Espirito Santo and southern Bahia, present the following demands:

- We demand the Espirito Santo Parliament to guarantee that Draft Act Nº 252/2001, produced by state Member of Parliament Nasser Youssef, be passed and consequently abolish the veto imposed on that Act by governor Jose Ignacio Ferreira. This Act is a major instrument to regulate eucalyptus plantations in the state of Espirito Santo, whether planted directly by Aracruz or through outgrower schemes promoted by that company, taking into account soil, water and climatic characteristics to define where those plantations can be implemented and making them conditional to the rehabilitation of the Atlantic Forest.

- We demand the government authorities of Espirito Santo and Bahia to intervene immediately in the process of indiscriminate land acquisiton by Aracruz Celulose, which offers prices far beyond market values, concentrates lands and imposes itself as the only possible option to the coffee and cattle-raising crisis, thus growing thanks to the lack of agricultural and land reform policies. An example of this is the Barba Negra farm purchase, in Jaguare, where 12 families live. Aracruz Celulose eliminated the coffee plantations and gave the families a 60-day deadline to leave, arousing desperation and outrage in the city. We propose that both governments intervene through a joint audit which includes all the company’s lands, verifies the legality of the purchasing process and the subsequent planting of eucalyptus and that determines the real area of land occupied by the company in the states of Espirito Santo and Bahia.

- We demand the organizations representing the professionals employed in eucalyptus plantations --such as agronomists and foresters-- to carry out more serious debates on the social, environmental and economic impacts of eucalyptus monocultures, particularly those affecting local communities that have lost their land, water, fisheries and hunting grounds. We defend the professional ethics and repudiate a unilateral vision which grants more importance to events organized by monoculture eucalyptus plantation companies, as the one that will take place in Vitoria on the coming 27 August.

- We demand Aracruz Celulose to pay the pending debt with the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous people, with the Agrobrazilian kilombo communities and with other rural communities, by returning them the lands that belong to them which are currently occupied by the company. We request the company to acknowledge responsibility for the deforestation it caused and help recover and protect the water resources and threatened wildlife, as well as to solve the problems caused to traditional fisherfolk. The company should comply with the worker’s claims --many of whom with labour processes still unsettled-- as well as acknoledge responsibility for outsourcing in charcoal production, which has led to the exploitation of workers and child labour.

- Finally, we demand Aracruz Celulose to have the courage to participate in seminars like this one, where during three days the company’s activities will be subject to debate by the Espirito Santo society, including national and international specialists. However, the company has refused to participate, even when it has the right --or better, the responsibility- to speak. This says much about the authoritarian way in with which Aracruz deals with the Espirito Santo population, the same population which granted its lands to the company, planted and harvested its eucalyptus, built its mills and produced and still produces its paper pulp.

To build our future we need to retrieve our past, recovering economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. If the Espirito Santo and Bahia populations were in the past mere targets of a top-down development process, today we demand a process which prioritises these populations as subjects and active participants in the construction of a more fair society and of a development model which renders a dignified life for everybody.

Vitória, August 21, 2001