‘Verdant Barrens’: How Farmers Are Winning a Battle with Brazil’s Pulp Production Titan
Geometrically precise rows of eucalyptus clones border the Baixa Verde community in Brazil’s northeast. These identical trees stand in stark contrast to the remnants of native Atlantic woodland, among the planet’s richest biological habitats globally.
Surrounded by close to 247,000 acres of commercial eucalyptus groves, Baixa Verde represents 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 – but the fight is not over yet.
After fighting to retain their land, the households now confront an unprecedented security crisis marked by armed clashes, arson and death threats, within a surge of aggression stemming from a land dispute that has escalated since 2024.
Conflicts over land rights have long been an issue in the area. Obtaining property titles is often considered to legitimise land grabs from indigenous populations, and local people had believed that a pulp-production company was planting eucalyptus trees on public land.
In 2008, a founding member of the Baixa Verde settlement and another community member examined public records to review public documents. They found the page that demonstrated the 1,300 hectares in dispute were publicly owned. “We were certain that it was state property,” says the founder.
With the document in hand, they organized 91 local families and joined the Movement of Landless Workers, a political and social organisation fighting for land redistribution. Their initial step was to take over a section of a eucalyptus plantation operated by the company, alleging the firm of utilizing government property.
Following two years after the initial takeover, the movement secured official acknowledgment that the company did not legally own the property section cultivated by the company. “This ruling was a victory not just for the community property campaign but for all the civil society groups of the country,” says a community member who grew up in the encampment and is now one of the leaders of the movement.
Following many years of obstacles and court fights, the Bahia state government signed an agreement with the company and the movement in 2016, returning 3,200 acres of company land to the public domain and giving each family a parcel large enough to cultivate their crops. 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 care for our youngest ones,” says the community leader.
Although forfeiting the property, a company representative maintains that the company has always functioned with “transparency, social and environmental responsibility” and respect for the local population. “The company has never been found guilty of land grabbing and reaffirms that its operational zones are lawfully governed and function with the necessary ecological licenses.”
Yet, in the years since the agreement, the families say they have encountered death threats, gunfire, burned homes, stolen produce and destroyed fields.
According to the movement, the conflict now centres on property parcels that remain inhabited by agricultural workers affiliated with the regional labor organization. When it was about to lose possession of the disputed property, the corporation gave 300 nearby hectares to the union – a donation confirmed by the union’s leadership.
“We face significant harassment occurring in this area. Our shelters have been burned down, as well as our sugarcane fields.”
During the last four years, six organizers of the movement have been placed under protective watch by Brazil’s protection programme for human rights defenders, journalists and environmentalists. The authorities has recommended that certain organizers move away, but due to dedication to the movement and bond to their fought-for property, they have refused.
Due to the death threats he has received, a community pioneer says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I feel genuinely fearful that an incident may occur to my household,” he says.
The organization states that eight households do not feel safe enough to cultivate their plots, which remain inhabited by farmers reportedly connected to the company.
The company says that over the past 15 years, it has designated “more than 20,000 hectares to land redistribution programs, whether through judicial agreements, donations to the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform, donations, or direct sales, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the territory.”
The firm also says “the creation of the settlements – from design to subdivision and plot allocation – was conducted entirely by the state government, without interference from the corporation”, and “does not comment on disputes among activist groups”.
A community member is among the two individuals who still reside in the original settlement. She says she has been intimidated by armed men who encircled her home and fired weapons nearby. Since no one lives nearby, the woman – who lives alone – thinks the gunshots were meant to intimidate her out of taking possession of her allocated land.
During August, the state of Bahia authorised the removal of union farmers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has not been implemented.
Environmental Challenges and the ‘Emerald Wasteland’
Besides defending against danger and aggression, transforming properties previously utilized for single-crop eucalyptus farming into food production is now the primary difficulty for the Baixa Verde communities. Tree cultivation is controlled by large multinationals that, from the 1960s onward, have been converting farmland and forest into monoculture plantations, driven by international market needs.
Brazil is the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus, a fast-growing, water-intensive plant, whose fiber is exported to make packaging materials and writing materials. The majority of the nation’s eucalyptus pulp is exported to Europe, where it is utilized for creating paper products often marketed as a sustainable substitute to synthetic materials – despite the environmental damage caused by monoculture.
Within Bahia state, the proliferation of these farms has earned the local moniker “green desert”, due to the loss of wildlife and the critical lack of water and land experienced by households residing close to commercial tree farms.
One community leader was raised in the area and recalls the waterway before the area was transformed by eucalyptus monoculture. “We used to cross it in a boat. It was abundant,” he says. “Following corporate establishment, it disappeared.” He links the resource shortage to the company’s arrival in 1991.
The company says it “adopts a mosaic management system, in which trees are grown in plateau areas, while lowlands, water sources and indigenous plants are protected. This model guarantees ground conservation, wildlife conservation and the sustenance of aquatic supplies.” The firm also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of small watersheds in its operational zone” and “creates tree-planting and woodland renewal initiatives in areas near communities”.
In the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais state, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina municipality has seen its aquifer depth decrease by 4.5 metres over the previous four decades, according to researchers at the state university.
Vegetation under eucalyptus monoculture absorbs 26% of rainfall to replenish aquifer reserves – versus a half of rainfall intake linked to indigenous woodland. Three-quarters of agricultural households surveyed in Minas Gerais reported their crops being affected by the shortage.
The cultivation of eucalyptus also poses an increased risk of wildfire. Plantations are so flammable that Chile ruled out eucalyptus as a practical environmental answer after a succession of major blazes in its domestic plantations.
Notwithstanding ecological dangers, commercial tree farms continue to play a significant role in the carbon market, with plants being marketed as emission offsets to petroleum companies to counterbalance their pollution. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {
