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Evaluation
report of V&M Florestal Ltda. and Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos,
both certified by FSC - Forest Stewardship Council Chapter 4 PRINCIPLE 01: Compliance with laws and FSC principles Forest Management shall respect all applicable laws of the country in which they occur and international treaties and agreements to which the country is a signatory, and comply with all FSC Principles and Criteria. Forest management by the V&M and Plantar companies has clearly and constantly infringed Brazilian laws and some of the international treaties signed by Brazil, such as the ILO Conventions and the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (IPESCR). This was a unanimous conclusion reached by the group following the fieldwork carried out around the companies' plantations and based on reports and documentation from various sources gathered in Bello Horizonte. Regarding labour laws, the illegal practices of the two companies have been meticulously reported and recorded in the reports of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) (Final Report of 11 June 2002), in the lawsuits lodged by the Federal Public Ministry of Labour (MPT) of June 2002 and the monitoring actions and procedure undertaken by the Regional Labour Office (DRT) on 11 and 23 March, 2002. According to the CPI's final report (2002):"near on 40 inspectors entered into action." Both V&M and Plantar were investigated, and caught in flagrante, being mentioned in this set of documents as companies practicing "outsourcing that degrades" the working and living conditions of the charcoal workers who are underemployed through illegal outsourcing. According to the MPT, and quoting the specific jurisprudence:
The Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) set up on 23 October 2001, produced a final report dated 11 June 2002, in which the innumerable irregularities of both V&M and Plantar are noted, among 42 other "reforestation" companies. Their crimes are related with the outsourcing process, the precarious labour relationships, the abominable working conditions, slave and child labour, and deforestation of the Cerrado. It is important to note that this is the third CPI, comprising deputies from Minas Gerais, which since 1994 have produced (with the direct assistance of the Public Ministry, the DRI and the rural workers' trade unions) a wide knowledge of the sector. On 16 May 1994, the "Parliamentary Investigation Committee was set up to investigate within 120 days, the existence of slavery for work debts in deforestation and production of charcoal in the north of Minas Gerais" (Parliament, 2002). On 29 June 1995, another commission was set up for the same purpose. Subsequently, on 19 August 1995, a third commission was established "to investigate the complaints against the so-called 'charcoal mafia' that operates mainly in the north of MG" (Parliament, 2002). Faced with so much pressure from the Minas Gerais civil society, the rural workers trade unions, parliamentarians, public promoters and Ministry of Labour inspectors, the companies were obliged to sign an "Adjustment in Behaviour Agreement" which "eliminates the figure of contractor." Some companies signed the agreement, however, according to the promoter, V&M is one of the companies that did not want to sign the "agreement" and refused to change their illegal position regarding labour laws. Even so, the companies that did sign the "adjustment agreement" were surprised in flagrante delicto, not complying with the agreement; this was one of the reasons for the last CPI being established. This Commission finished its work this year, in 2002, with another overwhelming report: "fraudulent outsourcing, crimes against the organization of labour, ecological destruction, infamous remuneration, deterioration of working conditions, 12 hour working days, the hours spent in travelling to and from the workplace were never paid, back problems, hypertension, lung diseases, precocious old age caused by unhealthy working conditions" problems in "housing the workers, hygiene, drinking water, food, transport" and even a "black list" against all the provisions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) regarding freedom of trade union organisation. Furthermore, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been infringed - the right to development, to water, to land - as we will see further on in this report. FSC principles and criteria such as interpreted and applied by SGS and SCS, have been the object of marketing and advertising by the companies, as if the seal made them "immune" to Brazilian laws and international treaties sighed by Brazil. Regarding environmental laws, V&M and
Plantar have openly disregarded one of the main regulations of the Brazilian
environmental law, CONAMA 001/86 resolution, which requires companies
of their size to obtain permits through the submission of a EIA/RIMA
(see also Principle 06). PRINCIPLE 02: Tenure and use rights and responsibilities Long-term tenure and use rights to the land and forest resources shall be clearly defined, documented and legally established. It was impossible to carry out a broad notary survey in the region to corroborate the long-term tenure and use rights of the territory managed by V&M and Plantar. However many of the interlocutrixes we talked to questioned the fact that "restituted lands"* had been occupied in the whole area by a series of companies planting eucalyptus, among them V&M and Plantar. Such "contracts" between the reforestation companies and the State of Exception are about to expire, and therefore the apparent "agrarian stability" of the zone would be compromised. The group noted clear evidence of "disputes" with some neighbours over the property and traditional use and tenure rights. According to the material from interviews with university professors from the UFMG, with NGO technicians and research workers in the northern region of Minas Gerais - even according to the literature consulted - and the innumerable testimonies we gathered in the neighbourhood of the plantations and in the cities of Curvelo, Bocaiuva and Montes Claros, most of the land in the north of Minas Gerais was State owned, that is "restituted land" and leased out on a long term basis, approximately 20 years, to companies planting eucalyptus in the seventies and the eighties. In the memory of older people, who were young in the sixties, seventies and eighties, is the action of "RuralMinas", which controlled the system of conversion of "restituted lands" to "reforested" lands. There is no sure knowledge of the scale or the extension of the "restituted lands" within the territory today held and used by eucalyptus companies in Minas Gerais - close on 2 million hectares. Some of the testimonies we gathered during our fieldwork spoke of very high figures: between 80% and 90% of the land of such companies would be land originally held by the State and of traditional use by the society of Os Gerais*. It is the Cerrado "without palisades" of the writer João Guimarães Rosa. According to the final report of the CPI:
On this same subject "restituted lands in Minas Gerais," the journal ISTOE published a long article on 15 July 1998, with the title: "Some yes, others no. An area of 265,1 thousand hectares which should have been given back to the State, shows that the agrarian policy in Brazil is one for those who are landless and another for the companies." According to the journalists Alan Rodrigues and Luiza Villaméa, "two years ago the government of Minas Gerais should have received 23,6 thousand hectares of the 265,1 that it leased out in 1975 to 19 reforestation companies in the north of Minas and the Valley of Jequitinhonha." According to this article, many of the contracts signed between the companies and the dictatorship in the seventies expire between 1998 and 2002. According to ISTOE:
Some landless families of rural workers hope that:
The assessments made by SGS and SCS to obtain FSC certification in V&M and Plantar respectively, overlooked such information and their reports cannot guarantee with total security that both companies are not involved in the occupation of restituted lands. The public summaries for V&M and Plantar only point out that these companies have the "tenure" of the property, but say nothing about the origin of such tenure and its direct relation to "restituted lands." Nor do they mention the innumerable policies and incentives granted by the central and state government that, during the military government, promoted the unsustainable occupation of the Cerrado. Some of the local inhabitants maintain that
most of the lands were restituted lands in the zone where V&M is
established. They mention as an example the Pé do Morro finca,
which had 5 thousand hectares of land and which is now in the hands
of V&M Florestal. In the case of reforestation companies such as
V&M Florestal, occupation of restituted lands means that they do
not have the real and legal tenure of such areas, contrary to what the
PS states. According to the inhabitants, these lands should be returned
to the local communities at the end of the contract. Some people interviewed
stated that the contract implied that the companies paid the State of
Minas Gerais a given amount, which in turn was invested in the promotion
of eucalyptus cultivation in this State. This is an absolute nonsense!
PRINCIPLE O4: COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND WORKERS' RIGHTS Forest management operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest's multiple products and services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits. The fieldwork, the testimonials by fixed workers at Plantar and V&M, the interviews with outsourced workers, pensioners due to disability, dismissed workers, the visit to the neighbourhoods in the urban outskirts of Curvelo and to the homes of charcoal workers' families, in addition to the documents obtained during the field work, the CPI report, the civil action lodged by MPR, the reports of the DRT and the interviews with the procurator, the deputies and trade union members, all this leaves no doubt. The treatment received by Plantar and V&M's workers, both direct and indirect (and their families living in the urban outskirts) is far from what FSC maintains in its principles and criteria and is even far from Brazilian labour laws. Regarding the surroundings of the company plantations, innumerable disputes have been observed, mainly involving the families of small rural farmers and the companies, either over agrarian problems, limits of the farms, the use of agrochemicals, the deviation of traditional routes or issues relating to water resource management. Regarding urban areas, the companies' strategies, outsourcing, eliminating many jobs and generating little tax revenue, ends up by causing negative effects on the urban economy. Therefore, the social and economic well-being of the charcoal workers and the local communities has not been ensured nor enhanced by the companies under study. Regarding this principle, it is evident that certification has not satisfied one of its main roles: differentiating what is sustainable. Community relations In Curvelo, for example, a municipality were V&M and Plantar have installed eucalyptus plantations, a simple glance at the history of the region, its rural zones and urban outskirts, makes it possible to observe that, before the arrival of the eucalyptus-charcoal companies, before the sixties, there was a considerable number of small and medium-sized companies in the urban area that used Cerrado products as raw material: pasta-making companies, caster-oil factories, leather and tanneries, saddle-makers, shoe factories, liquor factories and other pequi products, cotton-oil factories, textiles, sweet-factories. In the rural zone integrated to the Cerrado, in this territory without palisades, rice, beans and maize was planted and traditional dairy and meat farming was practiced. At that time, Curvelo had a population of approximately 15 thousand inhabitants. The arrival of eucalyptus monoculture, taking over the restituted lands, concentrating and fencing in fields, cutting down the Cerrado, competing with agriculture and stock-raising and uprooting the peasants, finally did away with the bases of the region's traditional economy. The industries benefiting from the raw material from the Cerrado went bankrupt. The grazing crisis destroyed the urban micro-economy that depended on it. Even traditional textile industries that generated many jobs were obliged to close their doors (see photo 1). The pequi is the main symbol of this de-structuring of the economy, the culture and regional society, carried out by companies that call themselves "reforestation companies," among them V&M and Plantar, two of the most important companies, responsible for this de-structuring process. The pequi is habitually consumed by the population in the Cerrado zone and is deeply rooted in the regional culture and cooking. For the Geraizeiros, the Cerrado inhabitants of Minas Gerais, the pequi does not belong to anyone, because it belongs to all. Therefore, they maintain their ancestral right to take it wherever it is, in public or private land, fenced in land or unfenced land, etc., wherever it is, the pequi was always "accessible" to the regional society. Since the sixties, due to logging and installation on a wide scale of eucalyptus plantations, the pequi and all that it represents are under a serious threat. So much so, that at the market in Curvelo we did not find any pequis for sale. Some trades people commented on the difficulty they have in obtaining this fruit, which was previously so accessible. Many of the disputes between the companies and the families of small rural farmers date back to the time the companies were installed. There are a considerable number of complaints linked to V&M, who had promised the small farmers jobs and better living conditions, while these insisted on remaining isolated among the eucalyptus plantations. Some of the older farmers in the zone of Curvelo remembered that for having refused to sell their lands, the company contaminated their streams with agrochemicals, depreciated the price of their lands and obliged them to sell for less. They consider V&M and Plantar to be responsible, due to their management and the use of agrochemicals, for the extinction of fish in their streams, mainly the piau and the piranha that the rural families used as food. In the zone of Bocaiuva, there were cases of cattle dying through poisoning. In Curvelo, some families complained about death by poisoning of rheas and even the disappearance of the Cayman. As we pointed out under Principle 02: Tenure and use rights and responsibilities, various neighbours confirmed the existence of disputes related to the land registration and real demarcation made by V&M and Plantar. According to the farmers, the restituted lands that the companies received from the State were extended on fencing in the land. This problem warrants a special auditing and the certifiers should not have remained silent. Regarding water, an increasingly scarce resource
in the north of Minas Gerais and contaminated by the agrochemicals used
in managing the plantations, indicators are alarming: dozens of municipalities
have declared a "state of public calamity" due to the prolonged
drought affecting them, directly related to large-scale eucalyptus monoculture.
In this zone, according to the CAA technicians in Monte Claros, one
of the greatest compact blocks of eucalyptus plantations in the world
is to be found: 1,200.000 hectares! In the Curvelo zone, near Paiol
de Cima, small farmers say that the company should restore a stream
that has completely dried up and that before the plantations it only
dried up one month a year. The farmers say that following logging of
the eucalyptus and mainly during "re-sprouting," the local
water situation is much more serious. A farmer from a neighbouring community
confirmed this. In order to build this route Plantar even levelled off some 400 m2 of a watering place that should have been considered as a permanent conservation area and contracted three dams on the Boa Morte river, all this for use by the nursery and in detriment to the water consumed by the surrounding inhabitants, who started building cisterns for fear the quality of the water coming from there. Many leaders demanded that Plantar install a system for decantation of water from the nursery. In Paiol de Baixo, some washerwomen complained about the company, as they have to walk further to have access to water that used to be close. According to the local leaders, what had happened was reported to SCS, which agreed to go and visit the site, but once again, it disregarded the problem. The inhabitants of the zone complained about the threats made by the mayor of Curvelo, Maurilio Guimarães to the community leaders: the authority stated, "He is not responsible for those who continue to use the traditional route." According to these same leaders, a manager of Plantar called Marcos Tavares de Deus recognised the damage caused to the communities but stated that the company would have been involved in great expenses had it chosen another solution to install the new nursery. The local population states that the works cost CR$ 45 thousand and that any other solution, as stated by the company, might have cost over CR$ 90 thousand. According to a leader of the affected communities, Plantar did not have any discussions with the community. "All was done more or less in secrecy. First, they built the dam, and then they diverted the route. It took us all by surprise." The SCS reports do not contain any mention of this conflict! Some city councillors, opposing the mayor, state that the water crisis is so serious that there is a specific policy to build 75 thousand artesian wells. The same councillors demand that Plantar be made responsible for a part of the costs. The water crisis and contamination of springs with agrochemicals in the whole Curvelo zone have given rise to a mineral water boom on the local market. According to a councillor from the region, "anyone who is able avoids drinking the water from the COPASA Water Company." According to these interlocutrixes, about 70% of the inhabitants of Curvelo, even some sectors of the most underprivileged classes, prefers not to risk drinking the water of the company in this State, because they fear that the high rate of cancer and kidney problems in Curvelo many be related to the poor quality of the water supplied to the population. Some SENAR (National Service for Rural Learning) instructors complain about the very poor water quality offered there. In Felixlandia, surrounding the Buriti lagoon, Plantar purchased forage lands to plant eucalyptus. The inhabitants of the zone complained that before the eucalyptus plantations, the grasslands offered opportunities for employment of the local population. According to these neighbours of Plantar, the company's eucalyptuses require much less labour and generate considerable unemployment in the local society. In the zone of Curvelo, various interviews with small farmers and cattle ranchers show that companies such as V&M and Plantar, on purchasing lands indiscriminately, end up by inflating the price of land, leading to many small and medium-sized owners selling their land. For example in the year 2000, Plantar purchased a property of approximately 120 hectares with Cerrado vegetation in the zone of the Lagoa do Capim finca. According to the testimony of some local inhabitants, the company logged this vegetation and planted eucalyptus, causing the cattle-ranchers in the zone to fear the agrochemicals used in management and the consequent contamination of its rivers. The arrival of eucalyptus reforestation has deteriorated the services that the Cerrado provided to regional society and has tremendously hampered the sustainable development of a region with an economy in ruins, it has banished family agriculture and cattle raising from rural areas, it has felled the Cerrado and generated the increasing impoverishment of the population. The society feels that V&M and Plantar are unsustainable companies, devastating the way of life of the geraizeiros. To finish off this sub-chapter on community relations, it is worthwhile noting that none of the people interviewed in the surroundings of the V&M and Plantar plantations were aware of FSC certification of the two companies. According to the Public Summaries by SGS and SCS, the local communities had been informed. The inhabitants maintain that the only concern of the companies when they communicate with the neighbourhood is over fires and the fear of a major fire in their plantations. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood receive "correspondence" or printed matter on this issue, telling them how to avoid fires. Labour relations There is nothing that can explain the absolute silence in the respective "public summaries" and "annual monitoring reports" by SGS and SCS concerning the serious problems related to the "labour world" in V&M and Plantar's certified forestry management units. The diverse reports by the certifiers do not address the issue, even in a tangential way, in spite of the fact that it is of public domain in regional society, its representative institutions and entities and even in the press and television media in Minas Gerais. Sub-human labour conditions, excessively long working hours, child labour, illegal outsourcing and subjection of the workers, irregular transportation of workers, unhealthy and degrading work, black lists of the worker leaders, lack of freedom and union autonomy - all this has been the object of innumerable articles in the regional mass media, the issue of various public debates in several municipalities and, for many years has been on the agenda of state and federal parliamentarians in MG in the CIP It has mobilized over 40 inspectors in different proceedings and actions by the Ministry of Labour and its regional DRT office, promoting the action of the Federal Public Ministry of Labour, which led to civil action against the two companies and nothing, nothing of all this has warranted a single word in the SCS and SGS assessment and monitoring reports. The PS by SGS on V&M only praises the company, its initiative and solidarity on the issue of child labour:
In March 2002, V&M, Plantar and 40 other companies were again prosecuted by the DRT, for the illegal exploitation of 646 workers in timber extraction and charcoal production in the areas registered. Immediately, the Regional Labour Official responsible for the operation was removed from his post, which goes to show the political power the companies have over society and the region's public bodies. According to a state union advisor, modern ovens, increasingly used by V&M, do not resolve the problem of the charcoal workers' precarious labour conditions, who continue to be exposed to the danger of the job and the smoke from the ovens, although less than with the conventional ovens (see photo 2). During a visit to the zone of modern ovens in the Santa Cruz finca, at Felixlandia (see photo 3), a worker was found who manages all the ovens in the zone. He worked 12 hours a day, controlling on his own, almost 12 ovens, and at the time of the visit, he was not wearing the protection mask against toxic gases. According to an investigation made in 1994 by the Ministry of Labour (FUNDACENTRO), at the Corredor finca that belonged at the time to the Mannesman Company, carbon monoxide (CO), an odourless toxic gas was found in concentrations of between 2 and 10 times more than the permitted value. Such concentrations were measured in various labour situations of the charcoal workers, when loading the ovens, when a lot of smoke comes out. The presence of CO above the value allowed, gives rise to a process of intoxication and poisoning with serious consequences to the workers. It is not surprising that several informers state that many charcoal workers who had been working for years in charcoal production had died and the health of others was compromised. Furthermore, the union members denounced that one of the enormous doors of an "improved" oven had fallen on a worker, causing his death. This worker was sub-contracted and his family received no compensation. According to the union members, the company has no policy to compensate those people who suffer from work-related diseases or accidents, or to compensate the families of those who have died because of such activity. Furthermore, they maintain that the category of wage earners working with eucalyptus is one of the worst paid categories. For example, they declared that those who work cutting sugar cane earn almost twice as much as those who work with eucalyptus. Although apparently work-related accidents are not very numerous in the V&M Company, the workers say that this is due to the fact that V&M employees are afraid of loosing the basic basket ensured in the Collective Agreement. Therefore, there are no records and frequently the worker obliges himself to work even if he is sick. The concrete number of labour claims is unknown, as the unions do not follow these processes. However, they consider that there are very numerous cases. We will quote some of them. Case 01: Union leader: He had an accident. The accident was not recorded. He had never had any training and/or skills improvement course from the company. Case 02: The wife of this union leader, who also worked for V&M, had an accident in the company. She worked in the kitchen and on going to look for something in the pantry that had no light, an object fell on her head, causing a skull injury. She claimed against the company, but lost. The judge alleged that it had been her fault. According to various informers, no worker has ever won a case with this judge, which goes to show the difficulties of those who have work-related accidents. In the PS by SCS on Plantar, the subject is completely concealed. Not a single line is written! Furthermore, the SCS text shows a deep ignorance regarding worker representation in Curvelo; it states that "No contact was made with the Rural Workers Union in the region because there is none in activity in the city of Curvelo." (SCS PS: page 7). Nothing could be further from the truth! The V&M and Plantar companies, certified with the FSC seal, have since been monitored by the SCS and SGS certifiers, and by CPI. The Federal Public Ministry of Labour and the DRT are gathering explicit proof of infractions and crimes against Brazilian labour laws, which are theoretically less stringent than FSC principles and criteria. However precarious and minimised the Judicial Power of Brazil and Minas Gerais, and however easy it is to elude Brazilian labour laws, in practice, in the case of V&M and Plantar, it has enabled a better monitoring and follow up to be made of the labour processes within the certified FMU, than that of the FSC system with its principles, criteria, models, methods of assessment and monitoring and its "independent" certifiers. Following the mechanisation process of forestry activities and based on degrading and exploiting outsourcing of labour, both V&M and Plantar have ended up by liquidating countless workstations. In 1998, V&M had 3 thousand jobs. In 1999, they dropped to 2,539. In 2000 the figure dropped further to 2,345 and in 2001, there were only 1,908 jobs generated by the company. A detail: of the total number of workers of the company, direct employees dropped from 1,500 in 1998 to 654 in 2001, while the number of indirect employees increased from 1,500 in 1998 to 1,701 in 1999, dropping again in 2001 to 1,254. This picture, presented by SGS itself, did not warrant any real conditioning, and the impact of these dismissals on the life of the workers and their families - left without remuneration and under the care of the urban outskirts, such as those of Curvelo, Pompeu, Bocaiuva or Montes Claroes, where the public services have become overloaded - was minimised. In addition to illegal outsourcing and dismissals
caused by the introduction of new technologies, without a prior impact
study, there were also dismissals related with labour intensification
and over-exploitation. According to the company workers, with the increasing
number of dismissals in V&M, tasks that used to employ 20 workers,
today only employ three, generating more work-related diseases and accidents,
although no records exist. The inhabitants living near V&M's charcoal
depot located near the village of Trevão on the highway declared
that in August 2002 all those working in charcoal packing were dismissed.
In its reports, SGS only related such dismissals to generic movements
of global capital and the industrial cultivation sector in Brazil. In
fact, what is not set out is the need for a company policy, providing
assistance and qualifying dismissed workers for their reinsertion into
the labour market. They loose their income, some benefits such as the
basic basket and health insurance and no company policy exist for those
who have suffered an abrupt impact on their lives. The State unemployment
benefit is insufficient and lasts too short a time to enable these workers
and their families to wait for a new job in decent conditions. If the
FSC seal is expected to be a differentiator, the certified companies
must have specific policies for the families, which without employment
and without income, are cast into social exclusion by the companies
themselves, at the expense of the public powers and regional society.
Regarding the outsourcing process, both V&M and Plantar have been mentioned in the CPI 2002 Report as companies practicing a type of illegal outsourcing, degrading labour conditions. Through a Public Civil Action, Dr. Geraldo Emediato de Souza and Dra. Adriana Augusta de Moura Souza, Federal Public Ministry of Labour inspectors, gathered explicit proof of lack of compliance with labour laws, both at V&M and at Plantar. The Ministry of Labour inspectors made an exhaustive survey on this matter during different municipal inspections. According to inspector Geraldo Emediato, at least Plantar was willing to review its illegal process of outsourcing, signing a "commitment agreement" during 2002. Regarding V&M, the SGS report only states that the company has "minimum standards" in order to accept the services of an outsource contractor company (... MAFLA's response has been to develop a standard for all contractor companies detailing the minimum level required...") (SGS PS: page 8). A former employee of V&M described in detail how the outsource process took place in the sector where he worked in November 1998. This is his testimonial:
His case was similar to his other 20 former co-workers at V&M in the same sector. According to this former employee, V&M and its contracting companies never pay for unhealthy work. Outsourced workers earn by production, but their labour document shows the minimum wage. Furthermore, V&M was accused by various trade union members, by the MPT, the CPI and the DRT of having a "black list" and providing it to local contracting companies so they would not admit the people who were on the list. The company was also accused of re-hiring, after two years, dismissed workers if they had not lodged any labour claim before Justice. The fact, proven and documented by MPT, is a very serious infraction of ILO Conventions 87 and 98, regulating freedom and autonomy of trade union representation. Regarding trade union representation, both V&M and Plantar use procedures that practically prevent the workers from organising in such companies, against the provisions of ILO Conventions 87 and 98. From the testimonies of the interlocutors, when the union members enter to call assemblies or to distribute pamphlets to the workers, they are called to order, and even asked to leave the work site. Another illegal practice followed by the two companies is the distribution of workers in different territories and the high rotation to which they are subject, making it difficult for them to join a specific rural workers union (STR). At all the interviews we had with the workers of both companies, their fear of losing their job or of being persecuted for joining a rural workers union was noticeable, also the fear that their names might be quoted in our report. The most active union workers are constantly sent far from their union bases. We were able to observe that in cases where they are carrying out "rural work" the worker leaders are registered as if they were urban workers to prevent them from becoming rural union members. Furthermore, we were informed that, according to FETAEMG, V&M chooses the rural unions with which it will negotiate. There have been cases of workers receiving an extra bonus for belonging to certain unions that have signed agreements that are favourable to the interests of the company, with clauses violating labour laws. The unions that have attempted resisting end up by having pressure put on them by the members themselves, who do not want to loose the benefit of the extra bonus offered by the company. In this case, there is also non-compliance with FSC principles 1.1 and 1.3. Regarding training provided by the companies, various of the workers interviewed alleged that this is purely symbolic or derisive. If the worker has his own chainsaw, they outsource him and he sub-contracts and pays an assistant (sub-sub-contracting) who learns just as he himself learnt, through observation and practice. Most of the accidents are considered as "personal errors" and the Labour Accident Communication, (CAT) is not filled in. Therefore, the workers are not paid compensation and only in extreme cases are they removed from their functions and pensioned off. In the case of V&M, the workers receive a basic food basket, but if they are off from work one day, even if the sickness is serious and they have a medical certificate, they loose the right to this benefit and feeding their family is compromised for one month. A simple reading of the Collective Labour Agreement of 26/09/2001, signed by V&M and the Rural Workers Union of Pompeu, Bom Despacho, Caetanópolis, Curvelo, Felixlândia and Paraopebas, with the help of the Minas Gerais Federation of Agricultural Workers (FETAEMG) shows a series of clauses flouting Labour laws. Furthermore, we also observed that Brazilian labour law is not complied with regarding the worker's health and security - not only are their lives, but the very survival of their families is placed at risk. From the various interviews with people who are presently working for V&M and Plantar and former workers of these companies, some on sick leave, and others with disability pensions, we were able to note that the worst accidents mainly take place in the maintenance sector and in the plantations. The workers complain about the drinking water that, according to them is of very poor quality in the companies and their FMU. Regarding exposure to the sun, the companies refuse to respond to the constant request of the workers exposed to the sun all day long regarding the need for sun block. There are also cases of people with disability pensions, due to brain problems caused by ant poison, mainly Mirex. Among the symptoms, we noted were speech problems (two people interviewed) and a case of hospitalisation for six months in a mental home outside Minas Gerais, at inland Sao Paulo. We also noted a high number of lung and back problems among the charcoal workers and Repetitive Effort Lesions (REL) in women working in the nurseries, in spite of which they continue working, many with swollen and bandaged hands. From what we could observe, most of the workers affected do not know why their health is seriously affected and they do not receive any information on the subject. V&M does not have a health care policy for people with disability pensions or for those who have been dismissed and their families. As to Plantar, it does not even provide medical assistance to registered and active workers. Although a large number of people working for V&M and Plantar are women, there is no specific gender policy, which causes prejudice to women and their children. None of FSC principles and criteria specifically addresses safeguarding the health of women working in the certified companies, as they should do. Thus, the right to day-care centres for children is violated. As there is no day-care centre near the work place, as soon as they return from maternity leave, the workers find it practically impossible to continue breast-feeding their babies as they usually leave their homes at 5.30 in the morning and get back at 7 o'clock at night. Therefore, breastfeeding is compromised, contributing to raising the malnutrition rate in the region. In addition to a considerable number of women workers showing clear symptoms of REL, we also received complaints about rheumatic diseases, probably caused by the constant manipulation of freezing water and exposure to a very cold working environment in the wintertime. Regarding labour, transport and security conditions, we observed the precariousness of the two companies and their contractors. Transportation of workers is done in old and unsafe vehicles. Furthermore, all the workers interviewed complained that their demands regarding transport were ignored: every day they have to wait almost an hour after work for the companies to take them back home. We received complaints that the DRT and the
local hospitals (with which V&M has an agreement and to which it
provides financial assistance), and local politicians, end up by being
co-opted by the companies as they are feared and carry out the role
of the most powerful actors in the region. PRINCIPLE 05: Benefits from the forest Forest management operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest's multiple products and services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits. The V&M and Plantar companies do not comply with this principle. Regarding eucalyptus plantations, they do not provide multiple products and services to the communities and local economy, but only eucalyptus timber for charcoal, with the possibility of some additional uses, but on a very small scale. Since the eighties, there have been mass worker dismissals, showing that it is difficult to consider eucalyptus plantations as economically viable in terms of supplying jobs. Regarding the other areas of the V&M (107,560 hectares) and Plantar companies, predominantly Cerrado areas, it should be noted that the companies prevent access to the multiple products and services offered by this biome, enclosing areas and in this way, preventing their traditional use by the local communities, hindering the generation of employment and income. Most of the eucalyptus planted by V&M and Plantar are used for charcoal for the iron works and for barbecues. The sole beneficiaries of the eucalyptus plantations are the companies themselves. At the same time, according to trade union members, thanks to certification V&M recently started producing charcoal for barbecues, cuts of timber for wood ovens, tar and powdered charcoal, even for export. Another interesting and viable use of eucalyptus on a small scale is extraction of honey. Little by little, this will disappear due to the substitution of flowering eucalyptus by cloned eucalyptus. This guarantees greater productivity in terms of timber, of greater interest to the company, but prevents local communities from obtaining economic benefits. Social benefits from eucalyptus cultivation and the production of charcoal have increasingly dropped due to the decrease in labour. The union members state that in 1985, the V&M Company still employed nearly 2,500 workers. Today it employs 600 workers, of which 100 belong to the company itself and 500 are outsourced, showing a very high level of dismissals. One of the main reasons is the introduction of the new ovens to make charcoal and machinery to cut trees. According to the report by CPI on the charcoal works, one of these machines substitutes 70 workers. The union members also state that there is a lack of other employment alternatives in the region. There is no company policy regarding reinsertion in the labour market for people dismissed. It is only while they work for the company, if they are not outsourced, that they manage to receive some kind of training. In the PS for V&M, SGS includes the following: "Minor Corrective Action" for the company (Minor 002 4.1.4): ("Certified companies must actively support and promote alternative job opportunities affected by the reduction of staffing in forest and charcoal activities. There is no formal programme to do this") (SGS PS: page 34). According to the PS, the intention of this condition is to provide local trade with eucalyptus to benefit from other uses (such a wood for furniture) and in this way, lower unemployment. The most interested city in this respect was Curvelo as, according to the SGS, "the city is bankrupt and has no industry" (SGS PS: page 36). During our fieldwork, a Curvelo city councillor stated that there really had been some meetings to discuss the subject, but so far, nothing had happened because presently the company is unable to offer eucalyptus that is suitable for making furniture. It should be noted that at the end of the PS, SGS decided to exclude this conditioning, based on the preparation by V&M of a plan. It was noted that the existence of a plan and the organisation of some seminars do not ensure concrete action, that is to say, they do not help to ease the serious unemployment generated by the company. The traditional communities living in Cerrado zones where V&M and Plantar are installed had the customary habit of collective use of the Cerrado. The CPT, the CAA and the union members denounced that when V&M arrived, it started ocupying and fencing in Cerrado zones, even in the "high plateaux" (plains with low vegetation). These zones are of collective use, the local communities used to take their cattle to graze. They also call them "common grasslands" or "loose grasslands" and they are of fundamental value for the Cerrado inhabitants. Dayrell (1998) states that:
The local communities also used to harvest the region's typical fruit, such as the pequi, mangaba, panan and others, in addition to medicinal plants. The land belonged to everyone. On fencing in the Cerrado zones, the companies generated conflicts with the local communities that could no longer benefit from an essential service provided by the native vegetation; the fences caused environmental, social and even cultural damage. According to the union members, the Canabrava community, which lost its collective pastures in the eighties due to the V&M Company, are still indignant today over this company policy. As a form of protest, they use openings in the fencing to let the cattle in to graze, burn down trees out of "pure indignation" and make charcoal out of the company's eucalyptus. In spite of having been fined by the State Forestry Institute (IEF), the dispute has still not been settled in a satisfactory manner. The pequi is a typical fruit of Cerrado zones and in general is sold informally in the streets of the cities in the region. According to the Montes Claros CAA, the pequi harvest may yield up to R$2 thousand per hectare of Cerrado and can be a perfectly viable activity, benefiting from its multiple uses. Dayrell (1998) states the following:
In Montes Claros, 8,500 tons of pequis are marketed during the harvest. Contrary to eucalyptus plantations, this activity is carried out without government support and in the framework of informal economy, although it generates employment and income for the population. It is along these lines that the state deputy, Rogerio Correia prepared the Pro-Pequi Law, promoting th cultivation, extraction, consumption, marketing and processing of this fruit and other and native Cerrado products. The PS by SGS on V&M and the SCS PS on Plantar, do not make any mention of this enormous potential for sustainable Cerrado use, where FSC should give priority to its certification strategies. PRINCIPLE 06: Environmental impact Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes and, by so doing, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest. V&M and Plantardo not respect the native flora and fauna; on the contrary they helped to destroy the Cerrado, a unique biome, burning large areas to produce charcoal and then planted eucalyptus in the seventies and eighties, as did practically all the companies. This process caused impacts affecting the local population, flora and fauna up to the present time: the deterioration in the quality and quantity of water resources, the disappearance of fauna, the predomination of monocultivated trees, the erosion, the application of agrochemicals to extensive monoculture plantations, including a herbicide that FSC prohibited. There is not a single Environmental Impact Assessment or Report (EIA/REIA), as required by Brazilian law. According to the Montes Claros CPT representatives, the V&M company, owner of 47,577 hectares in the region, arrived in the sixties, occupying Cerrado zones and removing the native vegetation with tractors and large chains. At first they used the Cerrado to make charcoal and latter planted eucalyptus. In the district of Bocaiuva, where over 33 thousand hectares of eucalyptus were planted, the natural sources, rivers and streams started drying up. Dayrell (1998) state that:
Following deforestation, the rains frightened the inhabitants because of the quantity of mud and sand draged in from the Cerrado, obstructing the marshes and watercourses. Mr. Geraldo explained:
They finished off the wild animals, an important source of proteins for the geraizeiros. An inhabitant who impotently watched it happen, tells us what he saw.
It should be noted that, according to the PS for V&M, the mean annual rainfall in the zone of Bocaiuva is approximately 1,000 mm. A specialist on the subject, Walter de Paula Lima, one of the most important technical advisers to the sector of eucalyptus companies, stated at a conference in the State of Bahia on the establishment of the Veracel Cellulose company, that in eucalyptus plantations that are in zones where the annual average rainfall is under 1,200 the water balance can be unfavourable and that in this case, water supply will be lower than reflux and this can harm the soils and water springs. According to technicians and union members, the whole (Cerrado) region is a catchment area, providing the excellent conditions of this biome are harnessed. To explain the process of environmental destruction caused by the eucalyptus, the union members quote the case of the 5 thousand hectares Pe do Morro finca. V&M (at that time Mannesman Florestal Ltda.) purchased the finca with Cerrado vegetation and then pulled it up with tractors and chains to plant eucalyptus. Subsequently the small rivers Canabrava, Bom Jardim, Extrema, São Gregorio and Agua Boa dried up. The Tabatinga River which passes through the Pe do Morro finca, also dried up (see photo 4). The union members complained that there is no work being done to restore the rivers or to attenuate the erosion problems (see photo 7). We saw another small river called Vaquejado - this is an example that there are still small rivers with a good flow of water exactly where there are no eucalyptus plantations (see photo 8). At the Meleiro finca belonging to V&M in Curvelo, the river Meleiro is disfigured in various stretches of its bed, where the quality of the water and the flow considerably dropped (see photo 9). We found dried up, degraded sources and eucalyptus plantations on lands that should be permanent conservation lands (see photo 10). Near the Meleiro finca, we found various streams that had become occasional and when we got there they were completely dried up, with dry and degraded sources. Some of the inhabitants interviewed were witnesses to the disappearance of various species of fish in the micro-estuary of the Boa Morte and Paiol streams and the Ribeirão River. The Plantar nursery is located some 12 km from Curvelo. According to the inhabitants, in order to install the nursery, the company deviated a hundred-year old route and thus achieved access to enough good quality water, fundamental for their work, using the waters of the Boa Morte river. The deviation in the route, made without consultations with the community, increased the distance the neighbouring communities have to walk by 5 km (see photo 11). Furthermore, to deviate the route, the company levelled off a watering place (see photo 12). On placing the drainage pipes without due care, they widened the riverbed at that location and made it higher, which changed the water regime of a drainage marsh. The activities at the nursery compromised the surface water in the riverbed and prevented the communities in the drainage zone from using the water as it was contaminated with agrochemicals and fertilisers from the nursery, which is not treated by Plantar. The inhabitants had to install cisterns, as they could no longer use the river water. A sign on the edge of the plain indicates that there is a project under study to restore the Boa Morte river (see photo 13). However, we were able to observe that such a project is limited to abandoning the zone in favour of the eucalyptus plantations. In the municipality of Felixlândia, there is a spring called Cabeceira do Buriti in a clear process of degradation. The small local community is concerned over the Buriti River. The water level of the adjoining reservoir has dropped by almost 2 metres (see photo 14) and its flow has decreased almost 50%. According to the inhabitants, the water supply has fallen since the implementation of the Plantar eucalyptus plantations on grazing lands in the catchment area of the spring water. The inhabitants, which have been there for over 40 years, were never consulted by the company to discuss the subject. They are afraid that they will have to abandon the region if the problem persists. They also mentioned the problem of the application of weed killers before the plantation of eucalyptus, when they learnt of the death of fish, sariamas and rheas. There was never any communication by the company on this use of weed-killer. Finally, they maintain that, to the contrary of agriculture, eucalyptus does not represent a source of employment in the region. According to the Montes Claros CAA, V&M recently purchased land with eucalyptus on it from the Reflorage company, which established itself in the region in 1992. The environmental impacts of this eucalyptus plantation gave rise to a major mobilization of the peoples in the communities that depend on the Richão river: Montes Claros, Mirabela, Coraçao de Jesus and Brasilia de Minas. The local committee for the defence of the Riachão river, the flow of which had considerably diminished, made the following declaration in a letter disseminated on 13/07/2002, under the title of "Riachão letter of commitment":
Along with the purchase of the Reflorage land, V&M inherited an enormous socio-environmental debt towards these families, which has not been definitively solved to date. Due to the diminished river flow, only 12 large estate-holders who live in the zone where the river passes, immediately after the eucalyptus zones, are able to benefit from the waters of the river, making the lives of the 3 thousand families who live downriver very hard. Based on its fieldwork during May and June 1998, in its PS for V&M, SGS affirms that the company "uses relatively few chemicals and is committed to minimising the current use while seeking alternatives) (RP SGS: page 21). Additionally, SGS maintains that (the chemicals used by MAFLA (read: V&M), in general, are not particularly toxic" (RP SGS: page 22). Therefore calls our attention that only in the second monitoring operation in February 2001, does SGS report that the company uses two agrochemicals - the fungicide benomyl and the weed-killer oxifluorofen - two products that FSC prohibited in its provisional policy of the year 2000, considering that they were toxic and residual, according to SGS itself. During the third monitoring in December 2001, V&M stated that they were no longer using benomyl, but that they continued using oxifluorofen and that they had requested an exception from SGS, which in turn, had sent the request to FSC International. We would like to point out that all this is an unmistakable sign that eucalyptus does not adapt well to the Cerrado biome and take the opportunity to recall that in a study by Filgueiras and Pereira, disseminated by the University of Brasilia, 419 species of fungus associated to thousands of Cerrado plants were enumerated (BDT, 1995). Furthermore, the question is how is it that SGS only discovered this matter, which would appear to be serious, at the second monitoring? That is, nearly 3 years after the certification visit. There are two options: either SGS did not correctly assess the agrochemicals applied at the time of certification, or V&M omitted this information at the time. We also ask ourselves, what position did FSC International adopt? We believe it must have accepted the exception requested in December 2001, as during our field visit in October 2002, from the notice boards outside the eucalyptus fincas (see photo 15), we saw that V&M continues to use the seal,. Various people from the local communities and union members interviewed confirmed that V&M uses the method of spraying from a plane. The company maintains that it is only for the application of booms? However, the community and the trade union affirm that they have observed the death of fish and cattle following spraying by plane, which strengthens the suspicion that agrochemicals are applied this way. The trade unionists have also denounced the fact that the company uses tractors to apply ant-killer; thus substituting manual application that obviously represents more expenditure on labour. According to our informers, the consequence is an increase of the products used, that is to say, an increase of the environmental impact. In the third monitoring report by SGS in 2001, it is noted that there has been an increase in the use of ant-killers. However, V&M maintain, "The use is variable, according to the characteristics of each plot of land and species of eucalyptus" (third SGS monitoring report, page 5). According to the PS, V&M lets the understory grow after a year or two to increase biodiversity. At the Pe do Morro finca at Bocaiuva, we were able to observe that there were eucalyptuses approximately 4 years old, without any understory (see photo 16), that is, without any biodiversity. According to a former worker of V&M in
Curvelo, as an environmental policy the Company uses a machine to recover
the tar from charcoal oven smoke. The tar is stored in a 20-thousand-litre
tank. Sometimes the tank is filled before the tank truck goes by. When
this happens, the former worker stated that they bury the excess tar
in a well and contaminate the environment. Additionally, on cleaning
the machine, they spill tar residue on the ground.
A management plan - appropriate to the scale and intensity of the operatiions - shall be written, implemented and kept up to date. The long-term objectives of management and the means of achieving them, shall be clearly stated. The companies comply with this principle regarding the eucalyptus zones, but there is no consolidated management plan for the zones without plantations. According to the PS for certification, there
is a very clear eucalyptus management plan for the V&M's 235,886
certified hectares and for Plantar's eucalyptus. However, for the 107,560
hectares of V&M, which are not zones planted with eucalyptus, but
mainly Cerrado zones, there is no management plan. On the contrary,
a policy exists to avoid the use of the services provided by this extremely
rich biome. This policy prevents sustainable exploitation that could
benefit the local communities. As stated in other parts of this report,
there is a policy to isolate these areas from the local communities,
causing indignation and dissatisfaction among the inhabitants, who have
always used them in a collective way. Neither in the SGS report on V&M,
nor in the one by SCS on Plantar, have we been able to find any element
delving into the traditional Cerrado management made by the local communities,
a subject that has been well studied and is known by entities such as
the Montes Claros CAA.
Our fieldwork enabled us to share this opinion: there is a strong indication that in the areas not under cultivation, no type of management is carried out. Regarding Plantar, the SP does not make any clarification as to the percentage of the area it intends to have certified that is covered with native vegetation. It was only after a requirement by SCS regarding reserve management that it became clear that in the year 2000, two years after certification, the company purchased neighbouring fincas with natural Cerrado cover to add them to the certified area and thus reach 20% of legal reserve - 20% of the property, which according to Brazilian Forestry Law, must be conserved. This means that when the company obtained certification, it had few reserve areas, less than the requirements of the law, and no management plan. PRINCIPLE 08: Monitoring and assessment Monitoring shall be conducted - appropriate to the scale and intensity of forest management -to assess the condition of the forest, yields of forest products, chain of custody, management activities and their social and environmental impacts. During the field visits and visits to the local communities and organisations, we did not find proof of a precise and careful monitoring of the social and environmental impacts of forest management activities. The chain of custody should be constantly monitored. We did not observe any monitoring of the environmental impacts in Plantar and V&M lands. We did not see any signposts indicating the existence of sources, watercourses, lagoons, marshes, streams and rivers, nor their names, which by law should be kept with their respective Areas of Permanent Preservation (APP). Monitoring of watercourses must include measurements of the water level to control variations. We did not see gauges anywhere although practically all the watercourses had been degraded or become occasional and during the field visit, we saw many that had dried up. If the companies had had a plan to monitor social impacts, for example concerning collective grazing lands that were taken away from the local communities, and the precariousness of jobs resulting from outsourcing, certainly these real impacts we observed during our field visit would have been solved. However, although the companies may have detected such problems, why are they not included in the PS? That is, what is the point of having a monitoring plan if it does not lead to concrete action based on problems observed? Regarding the chain of custody, there are doubts about both companies. The Environmental Control Permit attached to this report shows that V&M do Brasil still purchases native charcoal. This shows that there is an official chain of custody: V&M plants the eucalyptus, makes the charcoal and then transports it to the V&M do Brasil factory, in addition to using it for other applications, such as powdered charcoal, charcoal for barbecues and cut and packaged firewood. Furthermore, there is another parallel chain of custody, which starts with the burning of the Cerrado, the purchase of charcoal by local trades-people and transportation to the V&M factory in Bello Horizonte. Regarding Plantar, it is interesting to note that only the certified plantations, less than 5% of the company's area, serve to make charcoal for barbecues. The rest of the areas are devoted to charcoal for the iron works. Due to the complaint against V&M and the similarity of both companies, in addition to the lack of inspection observed in the field, it is necessary to carry out an urgent auditing of Plantar's chain of custody to ensure that the company is not mixing charcoal for barbecues with charcoal for the iron works. We stress the enormous difficulty of distinguishing and inspecting these destinations as we are dealing with the same product: charcoal. Summing up, the issue is the following: charcoal for the ironworks, charcoal packed and sold directly to the consumer or charcoal for any other destination - how can we ensure that the charcoal with the FSC seal is precisely the charcoal from timber from certified management units? In the case of Plantar, this guarantee demands permanent monitoring, as the SCS certified units are scant in relation to the rest of the company's plantations. It is evident that a plan or system for selection and differentiation of the timber, on its own, is not an effective guarantee. The company may have a detailed plan making it possible to define from what land or even from what tree the charcoal is produced, but this on its own does not guarantee that timber from non-certified FMU, or even native timber from the Cerrado is not being used. According to an "invoice" we obtained during our fieldwork, V&M do Brasil still purchases and uses charcoal made from timber from the Cerrado to the north of Minas Gerais. Some lorry-drivers we interviewed told us that between 10 and 15% of the charcoal they transport to V&M do Brasil comes from the Cerrado. The lorry-drivers were a fundamental source of information for those who study and investigate the "charcoal sector" in Minas Gerais - the CPI, the MPT, the DRT, etc. - but neither SGS nor SCS seem to have interrogated them on the two companies they were assessing. Save for a purely technical, abstract and conceptual plan, there is no guarantee that the certified charcoal (finally, it is this charcoal that has the "seal" as a symbolic message to the consumer) really comes from the management units assessed. In the case of Plantar, external and independent monitoring is essential, as it did not certify most of its plantations. In the case of V&M which certified all its FMU, why purchase charcoal coming from the Cerrado? PRINCIPLE 09: Maintenance of high conservation value forests Management activities in high conservation value forest shall maintain or enhance the attributes which define such forests. Decisions regarding high conservation value forests shall always be considered in the context of a precautionary approach. Presently V&M has not managed to satisfy this principle as it is only over the past few years that it has started, for the first time, a process of systematisation of the fauna and flora elements in areas not planted with eucalyptus. SGS monitoring leaves doubts on the availability of sufficient data in order to define high conservation value Cerrado zones, with regard to their fauna and flora. Additionally V&M and Plantar should necessarily consider the local communities and their deep knowledge of this biome to make a sound definition of such places. According to the PS for V&M, it was necessary to apply Major Corrective Action (Major CA) in order to monitor systematically information on some species of fauna within the areas, and to assess the impact of activities carried out by the company in the plantations. In response, the company contacted the Federal Universities of Viçosa and Minas Gerais, which submitted a proposal to gather data with a view to a subsequent monitoring plan. Such action, in addition to some internal measures in the company, turned the Major CA into Minor Corrective Action (Minor CA). During the second monitoring visit in February 2001, over two years following certification, the SGS report maintains that ("a meeting was held with the research team from the UFLA (read: Federal University of Lavras) at which progress on this large-scale, extremely valuable and pioneering research work was discussed" (2nd SGS monitoring: page 4).What is surprising is that this University was not involved in research on the fauna, but on the flora (see below). During the meeting, UFLA stated that less than 50% of the over 1.500 plots of Cerrado had been studied, which led to SGS again turning the Minor CA into a Major CA, as so far, no concrete proposal for monitoring was available. The new Major CA demanded that the company prepare a realistic plan to finalise the survey work and start monitoring. During the third monitoring visit by SGS, ten months later, it was observed that a monitoring plan had started in May 2001, that is to say, three months after the second monitoring, when over 750 plots had still not been studied. It should be remembered that the company's area is located in a very large geographical zone, making fieldwork very difficult. Summing up, what we are questioning is the lack of precision by SGS regarding monitoring of this issue, and also the conclusion reached by the survey work and the fact that monitoring of fauna was started in such a short period, without SGS having made any type of comment on or questioning of the contents of the survey and the monitoring plan. However, they have been holding the FSC seal for nearly four years. SGS demanded another Major CA to gather data, map the native vegetation and protect it in the company's areas through a programme denominated "Programme for management of the Cerrado"- (SGS PS: page 43). Regarding this Action, the company established an agreement with the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) to carry out this work over a 24-month period. Because of this initiative, the Major CA was substituted by a Minor CA. In the first monitoring visit in November 1999, the company estimated that the field survey would be ready at the end of 2000. However, during the second monitoring visit in February 2001, it was observed that less than 50% of the fieldwork had been carried out, that is, plans had not been fulfilled. Therefore, once again, SGS decided to convert this Minor CA into a Major CA requiring a realistic plan to finish the field survey and start the management plan for Cerrado zones. V&M planned the preparation of the management plan for June 2002. During the third monitoring visit in December 2001, the survey of flora had been concluded, that is to say, in ten months they managed to finish over 50% of the fieldwork. According to the SGS, they also established management standards for each area according to the type of alteration noted and the corresponding corrective actions adapted to each situation. In this case, we can only conclude with a questionning of the speed with which the work was finalized, without any objection by SGS, not even regarding the contents of the management plan. In all the research work on the value of Cerrado zones, including the fauna and flora, at no time is it suggested to consult the local communities or to get them to participate. The local communities are the real specialists in the region. Dayrell (1998) tell us that:
Let us compare this quotation with what the PS made by SGS on V&M has to say:
However, it is precisely the local farmers who should be the "educators" as they have a good knowledge of the environment and know how to use and protect it, while the companies have burnt large areas of Cerrado, according to various testimonies of the inhabitants. In the words of the writer João Guimarães Rosa, "A teacher is not one who has always known, but the one who suddenly learnt." (Guimarães Rosa, 1985). Dayrell (1998) writes the following:
The so-called "common grasslands," located in the high plains, have an enormous social and cultural importance, because they were areas of collective use. According to testimonials we gathered in Bocaiuva, the occupation and fencing in of such areas by V&M, even now causes dissatisfaction among the local communities. Regarding Plantar, SCS stated that in the year 2000, the company purchased other lands, for a total of 2,975 hectares of native vegetation, to satisfy a legal requirement of the Brazilian Forestry Code. According to SCS, the company classified the land by conservation area, preservation area and legal reserve area, without any further comments. PRINCIPLE 10: Plantations Plantations shall be planned and managed in accordance with Principles and Criteria 1 - 9, and Priciple 10 and its Criteria. While plantations can provide an array of social and economic benefits, and can contribute to satisfying the world's needs for forest products, they should complement the management of, reduce pressure on, and promote the restoration and conservation of natural forests. For various reasons, V&M and Plantar's
tree plantations do not satisfy FSC principles (from 1 to 9), according
to what we have set out in this report. Most of the plantations are
on land with native Cerrado vegetation, which helped to destroy this
threatened biome and caused social, environmental, cultural and economic
impacts. Furthermore, we denounce the fact that Plantar felled a Cerrado
zone in the year 2000 and that V&M continues to purchase charcoal
made with timber from the Cerrado to produce steel, a practice that
is absolutely contrary to FSC Principle 10. According to the PS for V&M, at the time of certification, the company had not yet established the area to be cut and was using cultivation lands of between 30 to 50 hectares. The SGS demanded a Minor Corrective Action (Minor CA) to oblige the company to establish a fixed size. During the first monitoring by SGS, in November 1999, this Minor CA was excluded, as the company had established a maximum size of 24 hectares for cultivation lands. However, during our field work at the Pe do Morro finca in Bocaiuva, we saw several cultivation lands of between 41.62 to 48.89 hectares, as indicated by some small signs on the edge of the road (see photo 17). According to the PS for V&M, the company
is opening up wildlife corridors every 500 metres in all the eucalyptus
plantations. It was only on the last day of our fieldwork that we observed
the existence of an wildlife corridor, exactly 25 metres wide (see
photo 18).
It should be remembered that one of the PS revisers questioned the effectiveness,
for native fauna, of a corridor only 25 metres wide. This reviser, whose
name does not appear in the PS, maintained, "Wildlife corridors
should be at least 50-100 m wide to be useful.") (SGS PS: page
43). The SGS reacted to this criticism by saying that the subject would
be discussed during the monitoring visits. However, we did not find
any further comment on the matter in the three monitoring reports disseminated
by SGS. |
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