UPDATE: Taking on Big Cellulose: Brazilian Indigenous Communitiues Reclaim Their Land

...We had to leave...

...Yet by the time he left office in January, he had not done so...

...NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 update Taking on Big Cellulose: Brazilian Indigenous douglAS engle / lAtInphoto.org A 2002 campaign ad next to a eucalyptus grove...

...In all, AC appropriated about 100,000 acres, or 41% of land in Aracruz, leaving just 100 acres for the Tupinikim...

...The occupation had the full support and participation of the MST, indicating the movement’s increasingly confrontational stance to­ward Lula...

...But due to this process of the advance of agribusiness, and because agribusiness is taking control of the indigenous lands, the struggles of the indigenous become more similar to the struggle of the landless...

...A NACLA investigation supported by the Samuel Chavkin Investigative Journalism Fund finds that the growing unity of various factions of rural civil society, and their increasing militancy—especially as manifested in the tactic of nonviolent occupations—have greatly boosted the indigenous struggle...

...When AC arrived, it paid a func­tionary to go from village to village, house to house, to inform us that AC was buying the land, and that the land had been sold to AC,” dos Santos re­members...

...There is no doubt it resulted from the unrelenting pres­sure on the government from rural civil society, whose growing voice of discontent, especially from the MST, and the threat of further mobiliza­tions and more radical actions, ulti­mately forced Genro to fulfill his pre­decessor’s promise...

...This was easy, since there were no formal registers of indigenous populations or their lands...

...The compa­ny’s net income in 2006 was $455.3 million, an increase of 25% from the previous year...

...The company has never paid taxes on its water use...

...The police had stayed in an AC guest­house the night before the attack and later used it to detain and interrogate several wounded indigenous leaders...

...FUNAI decided wrong,” says José Luiz Braga, AC’s legal director and general attorney...

...Taking place on International Wom­en’s Day, the action also symbolized the increasing articulation of femi­nism within the Via Campesina, espe­cially by the Movement of Campesina Women...

...The dictatorship both subsi­map as an epicenter of resistance to agribusiness...

...In 1979, the Tupinikim and Guarani occupied 500 acres of AC’s land in Espírito Santo, leading to a proposal from the National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI), the federal agency that oversees indige­nous affairs, to demarcate 16,000 acres for them...

...By Isabella Kenfield I n late august, brazilian minister of justice “It is still difficult to believe,” says Winnie Over-Tarso Genro shocked many with his decision beek of the Federation for Social and Educational to demarcate about 27,000 acres of land for Assistance (FASE), an NGO based in Vitória, Es-Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous communities pírito Santo, which has supported the Tupinikim in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo...

...O ver the years, the mst, the Tupinikim and Guarani, and, more recently, the quilombo­las, have led the fight against agribusi­ness and land concentration, primarily relying on nonviolent occupations to pressure the state and society...

...So-and-so sold, so you must too...

...Moreover, the corporation had the full support of municipal, state, and federal govern­ments, and was able to acquire land through a variety of ways, including grilagem, or falsifying deeds...

...They are two totally contradic­tory proposals...

...Genro’s decision testifies to the grow-military dictatorship’s national economic develop­ing capacity and organization of the country’s rural ment plan, which centered on agro-industrial pro-civil society, which continues to put Brazil on the duction for export...

...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS update for its eucalyptus plantations...

...Yet on the morning of January 20, 2006, about 120 federal police raided the two aldeias, attacking the Tupini­kim and Guarani with rubber bullets and tear gas from the ground and from helicopters...

...Less than two weeks after the action against AC, the Via Campe­sina nonviolently occupied Syngenta’s experimental site in Santa Tereza do Oeste, Paraná, which the MST con­trolled for almost one and a half years...

...The major­ity of AC’s shares are held by foreign­ers, with the Safra Bank of New York and the Norwegian Lorentzen Group each owning 28...

...Finally, in November 2006, ex-min­ister Bastos promised the Tupinikim and Guarani that he would demarcate their land by the end of the year...

...In the 1970s, AC continued its expansion to the north of Espírito Santo, where it invaded the territory of about 12,000 quilombola families, rural Afro-Brazilians descended from escaped slaves who had lived in the Linharinhos region since their ances­tors migrated there...

...In 2003, BNDES helped finance the con­struction of the Veracel factory in Bahia (owned jointly by AC and Stora Enso) with a $546 million loan, the largest given to a private company by BNDES under Lula.3 “These companies are buying lands with public money from BNDES, lands that should be used for agrarian re­form,” says Idiane Pinheiro, 34, a mem­ber of the MST for 17 years.4 Agrarian reform, she adds, has virtually disap­peared from the national agenda under Morais, another member of the MST, eucalyptus impedes various types of production...

...have driven backed agribusiness interEucalyptus monocul­ ests...

...It is not a question of returning the land,” he says, “because those lands didn’t, at any moment, belong to the Tupinikim...

...Dos Al­meida Silva says the police even burned his shirt...

...Antônio dos Santos, 71, a Tupinikim chief living in the aldeia of Pau Brasil, remembers how as a child and married man with young children, he and his community lived from hunting, fish­ing, gathering, and small-scale agricul­ture in the coastal Atlantic rain forest...

...It re­ mains to be seen how the president will negotiate these contradictions...

...According to FASE, almost all of AC’s pulp is exported to Europe, the Unit­ed States, and China (each year, the United States consumes an average 728 pounds of paper per person, Eu­rope 431, and Brazil 132...

...Given the overall advance of agri­business interests in Brazil, Genro’s decision in August to demarcate the 27,000 acres for the Indians was surprising to all...

...Indeed, AC’s desire for more land, coupled with its capacity to pay high prices, has driven up land values and increased ownership concentration, so that today agrarian reform is slower than under the previous administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso...

...Those who remained found their land increasingly unus­able and their livelihoods destroyed, because eucalyptus monoculture cre­ates “green deserts,” growing rapidly and in the process secreting an acid into the soil, killing native plants and animals, and depleting freshwater sources...

...These occupations came in response to these corporations’ illegal introduc­tion of genetically modified crops into Brazil...

...The victory against AC also high­lights nonviolent occupations as a powerful tactic to voice dissent and demand radical social and economic change for society’s most excluded populations...

...But most importantly, it rep­resented the growing global resistance to agribusiness...

...Val­dir dos Almeida Silva, 44, a Tupinikim chief, was shot three times with rubber bullets, including once in the head...

...But AC refused to relinquish the land and pressured FUNAI to re­tract the decision...

...Later that month, a federal judge ordered the property to be returned to AC, but the ruling was overturned by Espírito Santo’s federal public minister because the Tupinikim had occupied an area that FUNAI had declared theirs...

...Because if you don’t sell, you are going to be a prison­er here...

...We planted every­thing and lived from that...

...In the United States, companies including Proc­tor & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark purchase its pulp to produce brand-name products like Kleenex, Scott, Charmin, and Bounty...

...dized AC and granted it massive tracts of land Isabella Kenfield is an Associate at the Center for the Study of the Americas (gobalalternatives...

...With solidarity from landless and campesino movements, indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani communities in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo have successfully reclaimed their land from Aracruz Celulose S.A., a mammoth multinational cellulose company that illegally appropriated it in the 1970s...

...According to FASE, in 2003 AC con­sumed 322,000 cubic yards of water a day—the same amount consumed by a city of 2.5 million...

...The Tupinikim and Guarani returned to oc­cupy the remaining 27,000 acres of their land in July of this year, reconstructing the aldeias of Olho d’Água and Corrego d’Ouro...

...march of 17,000 through Brasília to the Square of the Three Powers (ju­diciary, executive, and legislative), where it raised a banner that read “We accuse the three powers of im­peding agrarian reform...

...It also sparked outrage and indignation among the rural social movements, as it symbolized the state’s complete betrayal to rural civil society under Lula...

...Accord­ing to a report published by the World Rainforest Movement in 2005, the company generates one job per every 455 acres of land, while family farming generates 2.5 jobs per acre.5 The loss of rural livelihoods caused by the expan­sion of AC and other agribusiness cor­porations in rural Brazil has expelled rural families, forcing them to move to urban areas that are often plagued by unemployment and violence...

...Federal Deputy Iriny Lopes told the 2 newspaper A Gazeta that the relation­ship between the federal police and AC in the action was “illegal and immoral...

...In total, the Tupinkim and Guarani regained only 17,500 acres, or about 40% of the land FUNAI had decided was theirs...

...The Syngenta occupation also drew international support and result­ed in state governor Roberto Requião’s attempt to expropriate the site from the multinational in November 2006, though this effort appears to have been stopped by the federal government...

...So theTupinikimand Guarani “auto­demarcated” the land with a second occupation in 1980...

...With 380,000 acres throughout the state, AC is today the largest land­owner in Espírito Santo, and togeth­er with its holdings in Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Rio Grande do Sul, it owns more than 1 million acres, most of which are planted with eucalyptus, according to Overbeek...

...AC gave a short time, and if the person didn’t leave, it would go and destroy the house...

...More than half of AC’s pulp is used to produce toilet paper, tissue, and paper towels, while 22% is used to produce writ­ing and printing paper...

...With the latest global craze for Brazil’s ethanol, especially in the United States, his administration is advancing Brazil’s agro-industrial sector full-throttle...

...In September 2006, they cut and burned several hundred acres of AC’s eucalyptus plantations, and for two days the following December, they and about 500 MST members occupied the port through which AC and three other corporations export cellulose, costing them an estimated $21 million...

...You saw the communities unit­ing in the decision to construct that aldeia, to recover the old aldeias, and to bring back the Indians who are no lon­ger on the aldeias...

...They cut down the eucalyptus trees and built two large community buildings where the aldeias of Corrego d’Ouro and Olho de Água had once been, and people began liv­ing there...

...AC’s territorial expansion is part and parcel of the explosion of other monocultures throughout Brazil, in­ cluding soy and sugarcane, for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), which owns 12.5% of the corporation...

...he said...

...The large amount of water con­sumed by eucalyptus plantations and cellulose factories also affects produc­tion, for example milk, an important source of income for settled families...

...But not everyone gave up...

...AC also impedes agrarian reform by shrinking rural labor markets...

...It was really beautiful,” Almeida re­calls...

...According to Andréia Almeida, a Tupinikim living in Pau Brasil, all the accords did was alienate her commu­nity from the land that had provided the basis of their identity, making them dependent on the corporation...

...This is unjustifiable in any place in the world...

...He argues that the land the Tupinikim are claiming was originally occupied by the Guaytaches, who were enemies of theirs...

...Today if you talk about family ag­riculture, talk about [agrarian reform] settlements, you come up against the problem of agribusiness,” Pinheiro says...

...Our perception is that the federal government is not interested in deciding this question,” Overbeek says, noting that while Lula repeatedly refused to meet with indig­enous representatives, he did receive Carlos Aguiar, the president of AC, in December 2006...

...The type of eu­calyptus being planted here does not flower, and so does not produce honey because the bees can’t collect pollen from the trees,” she says...

...Since taking power in up land values tures obstruct the viability of 2003, his administration has small producers on agrarian and increased maintained state support reform settlements, further ownership for, and ownership of, AC compromising land redistri­ through the National Bank concentration...

...neco vArellA / lAtInphoto.org NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 update W ith the support of civil society organizations and rural social movements like the Movement of the Landless Ru­ral Workers (MST), President Luis Iná­cio Lula da Silva was elected in 2002 on a platform that included agrarian reform, a crucial issue in Brazil, the country with the world’s most unequal land distribution—1.6% of landown­ers control almost half the country’s arable land, and 3% of the population owns two thirds of it.2 Lula decried this in a 2000 inter­view with the magazine Caros amigos...

...Brazil’s largest producer of eucalyptus-derived cellulose donated $200,000 to lula...

...multinationals...

...bution...

...Indeed, the pre­vious June, at its fifth Na­tional Conference, the MST refused to let the president speak and publicly revoked its support for him with a In May, the government licensed AC to experiment with genetically modified eucalyptus trees, a move that will undoubtedly advance its quest to produce ethanol...

...Two months later, during the second UN International Conference on Agrar­ian Reform and Rural Development in Porto Alegre, about 2,000 members of the Via Campesina, an international movement comprising more than 150 organizations, entered and destroyed AC’s laboratory in Barra do Ribeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, uprooting more than 1 million eucalyptus tree seed­lings and costing AC $400,000.6 Par­ticipants included members of the six Brazilian organizations that compose the Via Campesina, including the MST, the Movement of Campesina Women (MMC), the Movement of Small Farm­ers, the Movement of Those Affected by Dams, the Pastoral Land Commis­sion, and the Pastoral Rural Youth...

...Twelve were wounded...

...It was a good life,” he says...

...In May, the gov­ernment licensed the company to ex­periment with genetically modified eucalyptus trees, a move that will undoubtedly advance its quest to produce ethanol...

...Yet the process of de­marcation is far from over, since Lula must still ratify Genro’s decision...

...De­stroyed the home and the person...

...Its pulp factory in Barra do Riacho, Espírito Santo, is the largest in the world, an­nually producing 2.1 million tons...

...Five years later, they returned to demand more land, forcing FUNAI to initiate the first of several technical studies, officially published in 1997, which concluded that they had a right to 45,000 acres in Aracruz...

...In the decisive moments of struggle by the Indians,” he says, “the campesino movements were there...

...The police also used AC-owned trac­tors to raze the Tupinikim’s dwellings and then burned the remains...

...But the Aracruz region was also “the last refuge” of the Tupinikim, according to a 2002 report by the Brazilian Platform for Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Human Rights (DhESCA).1 In 1970, there were 40 Tupinikim aldeias, or villages, in Aracruz, according to Overbeek...

...With interest in second-generation agro-fuels from eucalyptus growing, AC is set to reap some of the spoils...

...And in the early 1960s a Guarani community arrived there after a decades-long migration from southern Brazil, where it had been dispossessed of its lands, and joined a Tupinikim aldeia called Caieiras Velhas...

...Our agriculture was in clearings, planting corn, beans, manioc, banana, potato, and yams...

...According to the 2002 DhESCA report, Rezende’s action was illegal under the Federal Constitution, which states that “the Minister has no legal power to reduce indigenous land already identified as such...

...so far he has remained silent on the issue...

...You are going to be without a way to leave.’ Whoever sold was de­luded, was deceived, and so sold...

...As a result, FU­NAI demarcated 11,000 acres for them in 1988...

...With this latest vic­tory under its belt, Brazil­ian rural civil society will likely be inspired to fur­ther amplify its struggle against agribusiness...

...It’s a trend that took off in 2004, when various so­cial movements occupied Monsanto’s experimental test site in Ponta Grossa, Paraná, where the MST remained for more than a year...

...For and Guarani in their struggle since the 1980s...

...Perhaps because of the MST, Brazil has become a key battle­ground in this struggle, as multination­als commit crimes with impunity and social movements become increasingly militant...

...We had our day-to-day survival...

...Every form more land and But Lula, who accepted of monoculture used by it’s ability to more than $200,000 from agribusiness,” Pinheiro says, AC for his two electoral pay high prices “is a problem for agriculture, campaigns, has increasingly biodiversity, and water...

...According to Maria Lula...

...Because soon after, AC came with a tractor, a machine, that destroyed everything...

...She lives in Curitiba, Brazil...

...0 AC illegally appropriated land from the Tupinikim and Guarani, build­ing its first factory in an aldeia called Macacos...

...We had liberty to go into the forest and pass the entire day hunting and fishing, without prob­lems...

...That functionary arrived and said, ‘You have to sell...

...Accord­ing to Overbeek, the MST’s solidarity with the indigenous movement was crucial...

...B uoyed by the growing solidar­ ity and force of the campesino movements, the Tupinikim and Guarani further radicalized their strug­gle...

...Moreover, restoring the Tupinikim’s land, now reduced to a green desert, will take years of work and cost millions of dollars...

...This only AC’s desire for occurs in Brazil because we controlled by other giant have a coward president...

...almost 40 years, the land has been controlled by The surprise comes because AC has enjoyed Aracruz Celulose S.A., or AC, the world’s largest massive state support since its founding in the Ara­producer of cellulose made from bleached euca-cruz region of Espírito Santo in 1972 as part of the lyptus pulp...

...net), where she researches agrar­ian reform, social movements, and agri­business...

...Sev­eral foreigners also participated...

...In May 2005, about 100 families occupied the remaining 27,000 acres to pressure Márcio Tomás Bastos, Lula’s first federal public min­ister, to demarcate it...

...His decision was a blow both to AC and to the power of agribusiness, which until then had seemed unstoppable...

...In 2006, the company’s production reached 3.1 million tons, amounting to 27% of the global supply...

...While the police action allowed AC to retake control of the area, it was politically damaging for the corpora­tion, giving the indigenous struggle increased international attention and support...

...The action, for which 38 people are being prosecuted, demonstrated the emerging alliance between Brazil­ian indigenous movements and those united under the Via Campesina, an al­liance that strengthened after the police raid in Espírito Santo...

...The Votarantim Group of Brazil also owns 28...

...Of course there are differences of organization, of the ISABellA kenfIeld NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 update peoples, of the indigenous struggles for the demarcation of indigenous areas,” says Pinheiro, who participated in the action...

...In 1998, then minister of justice Íris Rezende demarcated only 6,300 acres and brokered a series of accords, as they were called, between the Tupinim­kim and Guarani and AC, which were NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS update essentially payments from the com­pany in exchange for their land (AC says it has paid the communities about $13 million...