Geometrically precise lines of genetically identical trees border the Baixa Verde community in north-eastern Brazil. These uniform trees stand in stark contrast to the patches 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 exemplifies a uncommon local victory over a international corporation in Brazil. This agricultural community exists today due to almost twenty years of legal battles over land rights – yet the conflict continues.
After fighting to keep their territory, the families now confront an unparalleled safety emergency marked by violent encounters, arson and death threats, part of a wave of violence stemming from a territorial conflict that has intensified since 2024.
Disputes over property ownership have long been an problem in the region. Obtaining property titles is often considered to legitimise land grabs from traditional communities, and local people had believed 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 dispute were owned by the government. “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 Landless Workers Movement, a political and social organisation fighting for agrarian reform. Its first action was to take over a section of a eucalyptus plantation used by the corporation, alleging the firm of using public land.
Following two years after the initial takeover, the movement secured official acknowledgment that the company did not have legal title to the property section planted by the company. “This ruling was a triumph not just for the community property campaign but for all the civil society groups of the country,” says a community member who was raised in the settlement and is now one of the leaders of the movement.
After years of roadblocks and legal battles, the Bahia state government reached a settlement with the company and the organization in 2016, restoring 3,200 acres of corporate property to the government and providing each family a parcel sufficiently sized to cultivate their crops. Of the sixty-one households staying, 53 have moved into their new plots.
“Winning a right to the land means that we now have a space to look after our children,” says the settlement representative.
Although forfeiting the property, a corporate spokesperson asserts that the firm has always operated with “openness, community and ecological accountability” and consideration for the area residents. “The company has never been convicted of illegal land acquisition and reaffirms that its operational zones are legally regulated and function with the required environmental permits.”
However, in the years since the agreement, the households say they have encountered life-threatening warnings, gunfire, destroyed residences, taken crops and destroyed fields.
Per information from the movement, the conflict now focuses on property parcels that remain occupied by farmers affiliated with the regional labor organization. When it was about to lose control of the contested land, the company donated 740 adjacent acres to the labor group – a contribution 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.”
During the last four years, six leaders of the organization have been placed under protective watch by Brazil’s protection programme for rights activists, journalists and environmentalists. The authorities has recommended that some of these leaders relocate, but out of loyalty to the movement and connection with their fought-for property, they have refused.
Because of the death threats 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 household,” he says.
The organization states that eight households do not feel sufficiently secure to farm their lands, which remain inhabited by farmers allegedly associated with the corporation.
The company says that over the past 15 years, it has designated “over 49,000 acres to agrarian reform initiatives, whether through court settlements, donations to the federal land reform agency, donations, or straight purchases, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the territory.”
The firm also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to parceling and lot definition – was managed completely by the regional authorities, without involvement from the company”, and “declines to discuss conflicts between social movements”.
A community member is one of the two people who still live in the original settlement. She says she has been intimidated by weapon-carrying individuals who surrounded her house and fired weapons nearby. Since no one lives nearby, the woman – who lives alone – believes 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 labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has not been implemented.
Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Green Desert’
In addition to protecting against danger and aggression, converting lands previously utilized for single-crop eucalyptus farming into food production is now the main challenge for the settlement residents. Tree cultivation is controlled by major international corporations that, since the 1960s, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into monoculture plantations, driven by international market needs.
The country is the global leading grower of the tree species, a fast-growing, water-intensive plant, 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 stationery items often marketed as a renewable alternative to plastics – notwithstanding ecological harm resulting from monoculture.
Within Bahia state, the expansion of these plantations has earned the local moniker “emerald wasteland”, due to the disappearance of native species and the severe shortage of water and land faced by families living near commercial tree farms.
One community leader grew up in the region and recalls the waterway before the area was transformed by single-crop tree farming. “We previously traversed it in a boat. It was abundant,” he says. “After the company arrived, it disappeared.” He links the resource shortage to the company’s arrival 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 model guarantees ground conservation, wildlife conservation and the maintenance of water resources.” The company also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of micro-basins in its operational zone” and “creates tree-planting and woodland renewal initiatives in locations adjacent to settlements”.
Within the adjacent region of Minas Gerais, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina municipality has seen its groundwater level decrease by 15 feet over the previous four decades, according to researchers at Minas Gerais Federal University.
Plant life in single-crop tree farms takes in just over a quarter of precipitation to restore groundwater levels – versus a half of rainfall intake linked to indigenous woodland. Seventy-five percent of farming families interviewed 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 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 carbon credits to fossil fuel polluters to offset their emissions. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {
