Brazil

Background A number of participants at the World Social Forum 2004 met in Mumbai and believing that forest issues are in essence social and political and that forest communities are increasingly affected by globalization --and new forms of trade and economic liberalization that comes in its way-- agreed on the need to create a global movement to ensure forest conservation and peoples' rights over forests. The principles on which the movement would be based were agreed upon and circulated by the groups as the Mumbai Forest Initiative - Statement of Principles.

Thousands of people around the world are preparing to travel this month to Porto Alegre, Brazil, to attend the Fifth World Social Forum (WSF). Although many may have very specific agendas, all share the common aim of working together on the task of building another possible world.

In an open letter signed by several social organisations and personalities from Brazil, the Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde (Alert Against the Green Desert Network) denounces and rejects the certification of the huge plantation company and one of the biggest producers of bleached eucalyptus pulp in the State of Espirito Santo, Aracruz Celulose, through the Brazilian government programme CERFLOR.

Proponents of industrial tree plantations often argue that plantations can relieve pressure on forests. Brazil’s pulp and paper industry exposes this myth for the pro-industry propaganda that it is. Rather than growing more wood on less land, the industry grows more wood on more land. Every year the area of plantations increases and every year the area of forest decreases.

The 21,000 Yanomami who live in some 360 widely scattered settlements in the forested mountains and hills between Venezuela and Brazil were largely uncontacted by westerners until the middle of the 20th century. In their myths, the Yanomami recall a far distant time when they lived alongside a big river, ‘before we were chased up into the highlands’ but by the time their existence is first recorded, in the mid-18th century, they were already well established in the Parima hills between the Rio Branco and the Upper Orinoco.

In the first place, it is important to clearly define what we are talking about when we refer to peoples or populations in “voluntary isolation.” This term and similar ones (such as “separate,” “isolated,” “autonomous”) attempt to describe “a situation or a historical context.” The background or basis they all have in common is that they seek to define peoples (ideally) or populations (perhaps closer to reality) that have little or no systematic contact with Western agents (in general commercial companies or missionaries).

When the first ‘conquistadores’ travelled down the Amazon in the 16th century, they found populous settlements, hierarchical chiefdoms and complex agricultural systems all along the main river. The ‘Indians’, they reported, raised turtles in ponded freshwater lagoons, had vast stores of dried fish, made sophisticated glazed pottery, and had huge jars, each one capable of holding a hundred gallons. They also noted these peoples had flotillas of canoes and traded up into the Andes and down to the mouth of the great river.

At the beginning of the year 2003, a ton of copper cost 1,800 dollars. At the beginning of this year the price rose to approximately US$ 3,600, double its value twelve months before. The deficit in supply was over 500 thousand tons. The scenario, completely different from that predominating over the past few years, could not have been more auspicious for the launching of operations in the largest copper mine ever to exist in Brazil.

There seems to be no truce for the U’wa people in their long resistance in defence of their ancestral rights to life and to their land and in rejection of the oil exploitation projects on their traditional territory (see WRM Bulletins 10, 22, 29 and 38). The Colombia Plan, Ecopetrol and its associated oil companies, the neglectful government, are all threats to the U’wa territory, who believe that it is “the heart of the world. The veins feeding the universe run through this territory. If it is destroyed, the world will bleed to death.”

Between 1950 and 1975, the area of human-established pasture lands in Central America doubled, almost entirely at the expense of primary rainforests. The numbers of cattle also doubled, although the average beef consumption by Central American citizens dropped. Beef production was exported to markets in the United States and in other Northern countries. Between 1966 and 1978 in Brazil 80,000 km2 of Amazon forests were destroyed to give way to 336 cattle ranches carrying 6 million head of cattle under the auspices of the Superintendency for Amazon Development (SUDAM).

For many years, the mangrove forests were seen and actually often officially designated as wastelands, not fit for anything but mosquitoes and smelly swamp. Fortunately, this view of the tidal forests is changing, influenced by recent scientific studies and public awareness campaigns. Mangroves are now seen for their unique natural characteristics supporting high levels of biodiversity, immensely important for the health of wild fisheries and marine ecology.

In June, the World Bank co-organised the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany. This trade fair showcased projects on the look-out for corporate and governmental buyers from industrialised countries for the greenhouse gas emission reduction credits these projects claim to produce.