The article recounts in detail how Veiga do Lila residents organized to drive Soporcel off their lands. The community gathered to uproot 200 hectares of recently planted eucalyptus trees and succeeded in their demand that a farmer who had been arrested for taking part in this struggle, be freed. Refusing to be swayed by the company’s hollow promises, the community acted swiftly.
“Slowly, a consensus began to build that the easy profit from eucalyptus would be our downfall in the medium term. We did not want to let our land dry up. And we did not want to burn here. We had to destroy that eucalyptus plantation, no matter what it took”, says one of the people involved in the protest in the article. Years after driving Soporcel out, the small village has become “a land of walnut, almond, olive and pine trees. It never burned. On that day in March 1989, the village came together and, as they now say, saved itself. “‘We were right’, they repeat again and again. They all repeat it”, it says in the article published in WRM Bulletin 238. This story is also told in the documentary “Veiga de Lila, 34 Years On”.
In 2001, Portucel acquired Soporcel to form the Portucel Soporcel Group, which is now part of the Portuguese company The Navigator Company, the same company that communities in Mozambique have been fighting against for years. Read about the Veiga do Lila community’s victory over Soporcel here.
Reference:
(1) Iris Ambiente, 2024. Veiga do Lila, 34 Years On