sign-on
the appeal
The extreme south
region of the state of Bahia, which makes up part of the Atlantic
Forest biome, has always been and continues to be one of Brazil’s
most important biogeographic regions. The lack of respect for the
traditional peoples living there and lack of consideration for its
water resources, flora and fauna date back many years and persist
today. Nevertheless, despite the countless forms of social, environmental,
economic and cultural disregard, descendents of the region’s
original communities have survived. For decades these communities
have been subjected to a predatory and exclusionary model of “development”,
an essentially exploitative model whose planning processes place little
importance on human beings, the environment, and basically, life itself.
And this model, operating on the same imperialist principles, is itself
suffering gaping wounds caused by the disease of profits. Aside from
people, it does not take into account the animals, the soil, the plants,
the water and the natural landscape; neither does it take into account
what is most important: the regulatory institutions and agencies that
represent society. Instead, in its hurried, heedless, destructive
and corrupting advance, it devours like a voracious dragon anything
that could actually be called biologically, environmentally and economically
sustainable.
For that reason, as a show of support, the Socio-Environmental Forum
of the Extreme South of Bahia and the undersigned are issuing this
Motion of Public Tribute to the Federal Public Prosecutors and its
representatives based in the extreme south region of Bahia, for filing
the initial suit, and to the federal court for sentencing the company
Veracel on 17 June 2008 as guilty of deforesting vast areas of the
Atlantic Forest and for illegalities in the licensing of its operations.
As a result of this decision, the Brazilian public, which is predisposed
to distrust the country’s judicial bodies and their decisions,
is proud and honoured by the sentence passed down by Federal Justice
Marcio Flávio Mafra Leal, which serves as an inspiration to
continue struggling to build a more just and egalitarian society that
respects life in all the splendour of its biodiversity.
Thanks to its large
financial contributions to political candidates – which does
not preclude the ineffectiveness of the agencies and authorities it
has corrupted – the Veracel company has never been obliged to
comply with Brazilian legislation. As a result, it has accumulated
a lengthy record of legal violations for its carelessness in planting
eucalyptus trees in areas that are meant to be protected, in accordance
with federal legislation, as permanent preservation areas, legal reserves,
and what would shock any environmentally responsible citizen, areas
bordering national parks, as in the case of the Monte Pascoal and
Pau Brazil National Parks. All of these areas are clearly demarcated
and managed by the federal environmental agency IBAMA in the extreme
south of Bahia. In addition to this, its activities have hindered
the regeneration of the Atlantic Forest through the widespread use
of herbicides on vegetation near springs and streams.
We are not issuing
this motion to say that we have won merely one battle, but to clearly
state our condemnation, as a Brazilian and worldwide socio-environmental
movement, of all corrupted and perverted structures within IBAMA,
within the state environmental agency CRA, within the ministries of
the environment, within the legislatures, in short, within all of
the official agencies that are supposed to promote actions to defend,
preserve, protect and restore the conditions needed for the survival
of ecosystems, as a means of contributing to the well-being of the
planet.
With this motion,
we want to remind the worthy representatives of the Federal Public
Prosecutors Office that for many decades, the continued degradation
of the natural exuberance of the Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity “hotspot”
– that is, one of the most important and most endangered repositories
of biological diversity on the planet – has drastically reduced
it, all the way down to a mere 4.82% of its original size in the extreme
south of Bahia, “coincidentally” at the same time as the
arrival of pulp companies in the region. Today monoculture plantations
cover some 700,000 hectares of land planted with eucalyptus trees.
This was only possible thanks to the corrupt structure of private
enterprises representing capital that now permeate the various environmental
agencies and are “constructing” a second state within
the national state, degenerating the natural, moral and ethical process
and working against a model that is just for all and for a healthy
environment.
In the meantime,
the advance of eucalyptus monocultures from the 1980s onwards has
sparked social resistance from communities oppressed by the model
of the “new” society. Throughout the years, the pressure
exerted by the regional socio-environmental movement has led to the
creation of laws restricting the unequal expansion of monocultures
in numerous municipalities. Nevertheless, these municipal laws have
been constantly abused through open acts of co-optation, such as donations
of cars, equipment and services to private individuals. Similar donations
to “third sector” organizations, including cars, computers,
building and electrical supplies and other goods, have come to form
part of an intensive process of social, economic, cultural and environmental
co-optation in which representatives of traditional communities in
the extreme south region of Bahia have become entwined.
In addition to these
examples of co-optation, there is also real and confirmable proof
of the creation of organizations acting under the guise of social,
economic and environmental activism. These groups are created to ideologically
confuse local communities, inculcating the interests of agro-business
capital established in the region through countless inhumane actions:
the expulsion of Afro-Brazilian, indigenous and other traditional
communities from their historical territories; the eviction of families
of small farmers through processes such as trade-offs, land purchases
at deflated prices, and even eviction by force of those who produced
and coexisted in a society with respect for nature and other cultures.
These communities have also been forced to confront the armed militias
employed by the companies to persecute anyone with the courage to
venture onto the vast areas of land under company control in search
of some means of survival.
We want to stress
that there is still a great deal that needs to be done by the distinguished
representatives of these bodies – government agencies, officials,
and especially the Federal Public Prosecutors Office – to defend,
preserve, protect and restore the necessary conditions for life in
the face of the destructive activities of large-scale undertakings
such as eucalyptus plantations in the extreme south region of Bahia.
Faced with this scenario
of environmental destruction, violation of rights and eviction of
traditional communities from their lands in the extreme south of Bahia,
we emphasize the importance of upholding the Federal Justice decision
and ensuring that Veracel’s crimes are punished. We also hope
that, in light of this decision, the federal and state governments
will review the recurring public investments in a sector that, contrary
to its claims, has done nothing to contribute to the region’s
development, but instead has increased poverty and restricted the
productive opportunities of the communities who live in the areas
where it operates.
This motion
is signed by:
CEPEDES – Centre
for Studies and Research for the Development of the Extreme South
of Bahia
CDDH – Centre for the Defence of Human Rights, Teixeira de Freitas
ESPAÇO CULTURAL DA PAZ – Cultural Space for Peace, Teixeira
de Freitas
ESPAÇO CULTURAL DA PAZ – Cultural Space for Peace, Caravelas
SEC – Commercial Employees’ Union, Alcobaça
STR – Rural Workers’ Union, Medeiros Neto
SINDEC – Commercial Employees’ Union of Teixeira de Freitas
