21 September: National Day of Struggle in Brazil Against Monoculture Tree Plantations

21 September: National Day of Struggle in Brazil
Against Monoculture Tree Plantations
Alert Against the Green Desert Movement

Once again, two demonstrations took place today in Espirito Santo to protest against the ongoing planting of 2 million hectares more of monoculture tree plantations in Brazil, taking place with massive support from the Federal and State governments. The day of protest, 21 September, was chosen during the III National Meeting of the Alert Against the Green Desert Movement, held in May this year. September 21 is the Day of the Tree, a very symbolic date for this National Day of Struggle.

One demonstration took place in the community of Vinhático, municipality of Montanha, in the north of Espirito Santo. More than 1000 members of local communities, the Movement

of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and the Movement of Small Peasants (MPA) pulled up 20-day old eucalyptus seedlings from a property of about 1.800 hectares, which is now being planted with sugarcane and eucalyptus and in the process of being sold by its owner to Aracruz Celulose. In the north of the State of Espirito Santo, the Aracruz Celulose Company is increasingly seeking to expand its eucalyptus plantations on its own and on farmers’ lands. After pulling up the eucalyptus seedlings, the peasants went to the town of Montanha where a march and a public meeting took place, joined by hundreds of local people.

The other demonstration took place in the community of Vila do Riacho, municipality of Aracruz, also in the North of Espirito Santo, where about 700 people, including community members and members of the MST, MPA, Tupinikim and Guarani Indians and supporting organizations, destroyed approximately 4 hectares of eucalyptus plantations and stopped a truck, destroying its load of some 4,000 eucalyptus seedlings. Following this, the demonstrators marched to the Aracruz pulp mills and a symbolic fire with eucalyptus wood was lit in front of the entrance gates of the industrial complex.
The night before, more than 1000 people from the local community of Vila do Riacho joined a ecumenical celebration to denounce infringements of the local population’s rights by Aracruz and its local allies, such as the municipality and the police forces. Many of the people from this community suffer

from hunger and have no prospect of improving their situation, although surrounded by a multinational company that showed a US$ 135.5 million profit during the first six months of 2004. The greater the profit of Aracruz, the greater the misery of the local population!

During the activities in Vila do Riacho, an open letter to public opinion was launched by the community of Vila do Riacho, Tupinikim and Guarani Indians and the Alert Against the Green Desert Movement.

The contents of this letter were as follows:

21 September: National Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations:

Open letter to the population

We, the inhabitants of Vila do Riacho, Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous communities and members of the Alert against the Green Desert Network, wish to denounce all forms of violence practiced by the Aracruz Celulose company since it was founded 36 years ago against local communities living in the surroundings of the company’s pulp mills and eucalyptus plantations,.

Aracruz Celulose destroyed all these peoples’ forms of subsistence: it destroyed their rivers, it destroyed the Atlantic forest, it invaded our lands and caused social and environmental chaos. How is it that Aracruz Celulose, while promising development, work and better living conditions, has succeeded in going entirely unpunished?

Infringements of the law are countless: the population of Vila do Riacho has been a victim of constant abuse from the military and environmental police, as well as from the armed police force of Aracruz Celulose itself (VISEL). The people’s right to circulate inside the plantation area has been restricted; workers have had their tools seized and/or destroyed; local people are being threatened; adolescents are being threatened and arrested; families are having their homes invaded; citizens are accused of theft without any proof; small landholders have their rights infringed, their houses destroyed and seedlings pulled up. The angered population asks: what can they do when the police, supported by public money, with the function of offering security to the citizens, changes itself in an instrument of terror, at the service of the private interests of Aracruz Celulose?

Fisher-people can no longer fish; drinking water has been contaminated, making children and adults ill, forcing an unemployed population to buy mineral water or to walk kilometers in search of safe drinking water. And all because the production process of Aracruz Celulose consumes a daily amount of water corresponding to the same amount that a city of 2 and a half million people consumes per day, without paying a penny for it! Furthermore, in looking after its economic interests, the company does not respect any ethical, environmental or social principle. It dams rivers, crosses through the Caboclo Bernardo channel water from another water basin (the Doce River), it floods properties, diverts river courses (the Gimuna River) and contaminates water with the widespread use of agrochemicals in its plantations. By doing this, the company is contributing to incalculable and irreversible environmental damage. Once again the local population asks: why does Aracruz, with this perverse practice, succeed in getting a reward for being a company that defends the environment?

Our local populations that used to live in an autonomous way as small peasants, farm laborers, fishermen and –women, and independent workers, are today fenced in by eucalyptus plantations, without any prospect of employment. For many of our workers, no immediate alternative for survival is available other than the production of charcoal. However, they cannot do this either. The company, with all its horror, has persecuted those collecting eucalyptus residues and treated them as if they were criminals, in an attempt to make the presence of local communities near its plantations increasingly difficult. Once again the population asks: with so many negative impacts, why does the company receives public funding and fiscal incentives? Meanwhile, we are left with the bad smell, the pollution, toxic risks and total neglect by the State and Municipality.

Aracruz Celulose wants to ignore its past, characterized by the destruction of the local people’s culture and livelihood. It only wants to look forward, talking about creating development. We ask: development for whom? For us, discussion of the past is an essential matter. “Ask to the old people about the damage that Aracruz has caused here! Then we shall remember this company for all that we have lost and how much it will cost Aracruz to repair all the losses and impacts that it has caused”.

Alert Against the Green Desert Movement
21 September 2004 – National Day of Struggle against monocultures eucalyptus tree plantations