‘Verdant Barrens’: The Way Rural Families Are Triumphing in a Struggle with Brazil’s Pulp Production Titan
Perfectly aligned rows of genetically identical trees flank the Baixa Verde community in north-eastern Brazil. The identical trees present a sharp difference to the remnants of native Atlantic woodland, among the planet’s richest biological habitats on Earth.
Encircled by close to 247,000 acres of commercial eucalyptus groves, Baixa Verde exemplifies a uncommon local victory over a international corporation in Brazil. The rural settlement exists today due to almost twenty years of legal battles over land rights – yet the conflict continues.
After fighting to retain their land, the households now confront an unprecedented security crisis characterized by violent encounters, arson and death threats, within a surge of aggression driven by a territorial conflict that has escalated since 2024.
Conflicts over land rights have historically been an issue in the area. Securing land deeds is commonly deemed to validate illegal land seizures from traditional communities, and local people had suspected that a pulp-production company was planting eucalyptus trees on public land.
During 2008, one of the founders of the Baixa Verde settlement and a local activist visited government archives to inspect official papers. They discovered the document that demonstrated the 1,300 hectares in contention were publicly owned. “We were certain that it was state property,” says the community leader.
Armed with this evidence, they organized 91 local families and aligned with the Landless Workers Movement, a social and political group advocating for agrarian reform. Their initial step was to take over a section of a tree farm used by the company, accusing the company of using public land.
Following two years after the original occupation, the movement secured official acknowledgment that the company did not have legal title to the parcel of land planted by the company. “This document was a victory not just for the local land rights movement but for all the social movements of the country,” says a settlement resident who was raised in the settlement and is now one of the leaders of the movement.
Following many years of roadblocks and court fights, the state of Bahia signed an agreement with the corporation and the organization in 2016, returning 3,200 acres of company land to the government and providing each household a plot sufficiently sized to grow their own food. Of the 61 families remaining, 53 have moved into their assigned lands.
“Securing entitlement to the property means that we now have a space to look after our children,” says the settlement representative.
Despite losing the land, a company representative asserts that the company has always operated with “transparency, social and environmental responsibility” and respect for the local population. “The corporation has never been convicted of land grabbing and reaffirms that its production areas are legally regulated and function with the required environmental permits.”
However, in the years since the agreement, the households say they have encountered death threats, shooting incidents, burned homes, taken crops and destroyed fields.
Per information from the organization, the dispute now centres on plots of land that remain inhabited by farmers affiliated with the local union. When it was facing loss of possession of the disputed property, the corporation donated 740 adjacent acres to the union – a contribution confirmed by the organization’s directors.
“We face significant harassment happening around here. Our tents have been set on fire, as well as our cane plantations.”
During the last four years, six organizers of the organization have been assigned protective monitoring by the national defense system for rights activists, communicators and environmentalists. The government has suggested that certain organizers relocate, but out of loyalty to the movement and connection with their hard-won land, they have refused.
Because of the life-threatening messages he has received, a community pioneer says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I am really scared that something is going to happen to my family,” he says.
The organization states that eight households do not feel safe enough to cultivate their plots, which remain inhabited by agricultural workers reportedly connected to the company.
The company says that during the previous fifteen years, it has allocated “more than 20,000 hectares to agrarian reform initiatives, whether through judicial agreements, contributions to the federal land reform agency, gifts, or direct sales, to settle persistent disputes in the region.”
The firm also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to parceling and lot definition – was conducted entirely by the regional authorities, without interference from the company”, and “does not comment on conflicts between social movements”.
One resident is among the two individuals who still reside in the original settlement. She says she has been harassed by armed men who surrounded her house and fired weapons nearby. Because there are no neighbors close, the resident – who resides by herself – believes the gunshots were meant to intimidate her out of taking possession of her allocated land.
During August, the state of Bahia approved the eviction of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has yet to be enforced.
Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Emerald Wasteland’
In addition to protecting against danger and aggression, transforming properties previously utilized for eucalyptus monoculture into food production is now the main challenge for the Baixa Verde communities. Tree cultivation is dominated by major international corporations that, from the 1960s onward, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into single-crop farms, motivated by international market needs.
The country is the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus, a fast-growing, water-intensive plant, whose pulp is shipped abroad to make packaging materials and writing materials. The majority of the nation’s eucalyptus pulp is exported to Europe, where it is used to make stationery items often marketed as a renewable alternative to plastics – despite the environmental damage resulting from monoculture.
In Bahia, the proliferation of these plantations has earned the local moniker “emerald wasteland”, due to the disappearance of native species and the severe shortage of resources and territory faced by households residing close to eucalyptus plantations.
A settlement founder was raised in the area and recalls the waterway before the area was transformed by single-crop tree farming. “We previously traversed it in a canoe. It was full,” he says. “Following corporate establishment, it disappeared.” He links the resource shortage to the corporation’s appearance in 1991.
The company says it “implements a varied management approach, in which trees are grown in elevated regions, while valleys, springs and native vegetation are protected. This system guarantees ground conservation, wildlife conservation and the maintenance of water resources.” The company also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of small watersheds in its area of operation” and “develops reforestation and forest restoration projects in locations adjacent to settlements”.
Within the adjacent region of Minas Gerais, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina municipality has seen its aquifer depth drop by 4.5 metres over the past 45 years, per scientific studies at Minas Gerais Federal University.
Vegetation under eucalyptus monoculture takes in just over a quarter of precipitation to restore groundwater levels – compared with a half of rainfall intake associated with native forest. Three-quarters of farming families interviewed in Minas Gerais reported their harvests suffering by the scarcity.
The growing of the tree species also presents a heightened danger of forest fire. Plantations are so flammable that Chile rejected the species as a viable climate solution after a series of large wildfires in its national farms.
Notwithstanding ecological dangers, eucalyptus plantations continue to have an important function in the emissions trading system, with plants being marketed as emission offsets to fossil fuel polluters to counterbalance their pollution. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {