🔗 Share this article

Geometrically precise rows of eucalyptus clones flank the Baixa Verde settlement in Brazil’s northeast. The identical trees present a sharp difference to the remnants of wild Atlantic forest, one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth.

Surrounded by close to 247,000 acres of commercial eucalyptus groves, Baixa Verde exemplifies a uncommon community triumph over a multinational in Brazil. The rural settlement owes its existence due to almost twenty years of court disputes over land rights – but the fight is not over yet.

After fighting to retain their land, the families now face an unparalleled safety emergency characterized by armed clashes, arson and death threats, within a surge of aggression driven by a land dispute that has intensified since 2024.

Disputes over land rights have long been an problem in the region. Securing land deeds is commonly deemed to legitimise land grabs from indigenous populations, and residents had suspected that a wood-pulp manufacturer was planting eucalyptus trees on government property.

During 2008, one of the founders of the Baixa Verde settlement and another community member visited government archives to inspect official papers. They found the page that proved the 1,300 hectares in dispute were publicly owned. “We were certain that it was public land,” says the community leader.

Armed with this evidence, they assembled ninety-one area households and aligned with the Movement of Landless Workers, a social and political group advocating for agrarian reform. Its first action was to take over a section of a tree farm used by the corporation, alleging the firm of utilizing government property.

Two years after the original occupation, the movement won state recognition that the corporation did not legally own the property section cultivated by the company. “This document was a triumph not just for the local land rights movement but for all the social movements of Brazil,” says a community member who grew up in the encampment and is now a key organizer of the movement.

After years of roadblocks and legal battles, the state of Bahia signed an agreement with the corporation and the movement in 2016, restoring 3,200 acres of corporate property to the government and giving each household a plot large enough to grow their own food. Of the 61 families remaining, 53 have moved into their new plots.

“Winning a right to the land means that we now have a place to care for our children,” says the community leader.

---

Despite losing the land, a company representative maintains that the company has always operated with “openness, community and ecological accountability” and respect for the area residents. “The company has never been found guilty of land grabbing and reaffirms that its operational zones are legally regulated and function with the necessary ecological licenses.”

Yet, in the time following the agreement, the households say they have experienced death threats, gunfire, destroyed residences, stolen produce and destroyed fields.

According to the organization, the conflict now centres on plots of land that remain inhabited by agricultural workers affiliated with the regional labor organization. When it was about to lose control of the contested land, the company gave 300 nearby hectares to the labor group – a donation confirmed by the organization’s directors.

“There is a lot of persecution happening around here. Our shelters have been set on fire, as well as our cane plantations.”

Over the past four years, six organizers of the organization have been placed under protective watch by Brazil’s protection programme for human rights defenders, journalists and ecology advocates. The government has recommended that some of these leaders relocate, but due to dedication to the cause and bond to their fought-for property, they have declined.

Due to the life-threatening messages he has obtained, a community pioneer says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I feel genuinely fearful that something is going to happen to my family,” he says.

The movement claims that eight families do not feel sufficiently secure to farm their lands, which remain occupied by farmers allegedly associated with the company.

The corporation says that during the previous fifteen years, it has allocated “more than 20,000 hectares to land redistribution programs, whether through judicial agreements, contributions to the federal land reform agency, donations, or straight purchases, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the region.”

The company also says “the establishment of the communities – from design to parceling and lot definition – was conducted entirely by the regional authorities, without involvement from the company”, and “does not comment on disputes among activist groups”.

A community member is one of the two people who still reside in the original settlement. She says she has been harassed by weapon-carrying individuals who surrounded her house and fired weapons nearby. Because no one lives nearby, the woman – who lives alone – thinks the gunshots were intended to threaten her out of reclaiming her assigned plot.

During August, the state of Bahia approved the eviction of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has not been implemented.

---

Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Emerald Wasteland’

Besides defending against danger and aggression, converting lands previously utilized for single-crop eucalyptus farming into food production is now the main challenge for the Baixa Verde communities. Eucalyptus production is controlled by large multinationals that, since the 1960s, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into monoculture plantations, motivated by global demand.

The country is the world’s largest producer of the tree species, a rapidly developing, thirsty crop, whose fiber is exported to make cardboard and paper products. The majority of the nation’s eucalyptus pulp is shipped to European nations, where it is used to make paper products often promoted as a renewable alternative to synthetic materials – despite the environmental damage resulting from monoculture.

In Bahia, the expansion of these plantations has received the regional nickname “emerald wasteland”, due to the disappearance of native species and the severe shortage of water and land faced by families living near eucalyptus plantations.

A settlement founder grew up in the region and remembers the river before the area was transformed by single-crop tree farming. “We previously traversed it in a canoe. It was full,” he says. “After the company arrived, it dried up.” He attributes the water scarcity to the corporation’s appearance in 1991.

The corporation says it “adopts a mosaic management system, in which eucalyptus is cultivated in plateau areas, while valleys, springs and native vegetation are preserved. This system ensures soil protection, wildlife conservation and the maintenance of water resources.” The company also says it “performs ongoing observation of micro-basins in its operational zone” and “develops reforestation and forest restoration projects in locations adjacent to settlements”.

Within the adjacent region of Minas Gerais, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina has seen its groundwater level decrease by 15 feet over the past 45 years, according to researchers at the state university.

Vegetation under eucalyptus monoculture absorbs 26% of rainfall to restore groundwater levels – versus a half of rainfall intake associated with native forest. Seventy-five percent of farming families surveyed in Minas Gerais reported their harvests suffering by the shortage.

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.

Despite the environmental risks, eucalyptus plantations continue to play a significant role in the emissions trading system, with trees being sold as emission offsets to fossil fuel polluters to counterbalance their pollution. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {