Evaluation report of V&M Florestal Ltda. and Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos,
both certified by FSC - Forest Stewardship Council
Brazil, November 2002
A report written by a research team (*) for the World Rainforest Movement.
Contents:
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 01: SOME COMPANY FEATURES
- V&M Florestal Ltda
- Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos
Chapter 2: THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS THROUGH SGS AND SCS
- The composition of the certifing group and content of the assessment
- Participation of the interested parties in the certification process
- The rational of conditionning
- Public access the the Public Summary (PS)
Chapter 3: REGARDING THE REGION'S SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL
CONTEXT
Chapter 4: VERIFICATION OF FSC PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA
Chapter 5: FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Bibliography
Acronyms
(*) report and field work by:
- Marco Antônio Soares dos Santos André - Articulação do Semi-Árido (ASA) - Espírito Santo.
- Rosa Roldan - Assessora de Meio Ambiente do Central Único dos Trabalhadores (CUT) - Rio de
Janeiro.
- Fábio Martins Villas - Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI) - Espírito Santo.
- Maria Diana de Oliveira - Associação de Geógrafos do Brasil - Minas Gerais.
- José Augusto de Castro Tosato - Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas para o Desenvolvimento do
Extremo Sul da Bahia - CEPEDES - Eunápolis - Bahia.
- Winfried Overbeek - Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional - FASE- Vitória Espírito Santo.
- Marcelo Calazans Soares - Federação de Órgãos para a Assistência Social e Educacional - FASE Vitória - Espírito Santo.
This report is based on research carried out during November 2002 in the Brazilian state of Minas
Gerais, coordinated by WRM with support from the Friends of the Earth biodiversity project.
1
INTRODUCTION
With the aim of contributing to fine tuning the principles and criteria establishing “good
management” and with a view to enhancing the discussion on the FSC* forest certification system,
the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) commissioned two studies to help assess the management
of homogeneous plantations certified by FSC. One of the studies was made in Thailand and the
other in Brazil. Particular attention was paid to Principle 10, on “plantations” and its specificity
within the set of the other principles referring to actual forests.
The idea of carrying out independent studies of this type arose from a concern shared today by many
socio-environmental movements and organisations both in the South and in the North, regarding the
certification of millions of hectares of uniform and large-scale plantations of trees all over the world.
In supplying wood products for unrestricted demand, many of these socio-environmental groups
have questioned the possible “sustainability” of thousands of hectares of a single and uniform
cultivation. It is not surprising that various complaints have been made against certified company
plantations since the FSC included and approved Principle 10 on “plantations.” However, in order
to discuss within FSC improvements to the plantation certification system, in addition to complaints
more elements are necessary. It is along these lines that the idea of a study arose, showing the
results of an assessment of certified companies, based on a critical look at the local situation where
such companies operate. In the case of the plantations assessed in Brazil, we have used as guidelines
the Summary and Public Proceedings (PS) made by the Certifiers, the Brazilian FSC Plantation
Certification Models and the FSC Principles and Criteria.
This study is an attempt to provide elements for discussion of the certification of plantations within
FSC. Here in Brazil we decided to assess two companies: V&M Florestal Ltd., which in January
1999 obtained the FSC seal through SGS for all its managed units: 234,886 hectares, of which
128,326 are planted with eucalyptus. We also assessed Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos that had an
area of 13,287 hectares certified by SCS in two stages between 1998 and 2000.
During one week in October 2002, we listened to the various interested parties and visited the areas
of the companies in the districts of Curvelo and Bocaiúva. We studied the Certification Summary
and Public Proceedings and the Monitoring Reports. We talked to the inhabitants who live near the
company zones, trade union leaders, sub-contracted workers, people who had had accidents,
pensioners, workers who had been dismissed, city councillors, public inspectors, state deputies,
technicians, research workers, academics, non-governmental organisations and representatives of
regional public bodies and entities. We consulted available documentation on the region, academic
theses, public civil legal action, and reports by the Parliamentary Investigation Commissions.
In the first chapter of this report, is a brief description of the two companies, presenting some of
their general features. In chapter 2, a critique is made of the certification process for the two
companies, as carried out by SGS in the case of V&M Florestal and by SCS in the case of Plantar
S.A. Reflorestamentos. Following this, in chapter 3, we comment on the Public Summaries and their
insufficient focus on the historical, economic, social and environmental context in which the
companies participate. Furthermore, we have attempted to provide some elements that were not
considered by the certifiers, but which are of importance in this context. In chapter 4, we record the
lack of compliance by the companies with all the FSC Principles. As a conclusion, final
considerations are made and a bibliography, list of acronyms and other attachments are included.
2
It is important to note that we are not authorised to reveal the name of some of the people
interviewed in this report, as they feared reprisals would be taken by the companies. We can but
respect such requests and fears. In some cases, we decided on our own to conceal the name of the
person, due to the seriousness of the complaint and the power of the companies in taking reprisals.
Therefore, in some cases some names are given as interviewee, local inhabitant and/or trade union
member. We insist that these are real people and that they are at the disposal of FSC-International,
under the condition that the necessary reserve is maintained. If they so request, we are willing to
take FSC-International representatives to talk to these people, and to take them to see the places we
visited and describe. Finally, we emphasise our concern and surprise over the fear these people feel,
because this should not happen when dealing with certifying companies.
Chapter 01:
SOME COMPANY FEATURES
V&M Florestal Ltda.
V&M (Vallourec & Mannesman) Florestal Ltda. (hereinafter V&M), located in the city of Curvelo
(State of Minas Gerais), was founded in the year 2000, three years after the Mannesman Ltda.
Company, founded in 1969, mainly with German capital (Mannesmanröhen-Werke AG), entered
into partnership with the French Vallourec group, setting up V/M Tubes, located in Europe. Its
representative in Brazil is the Grupo V&M de Brasil, of which V&M Florestal Ltda. is part.
The main objective of V&M is to produce timber for charcoal. When it was founded, the company’s
objective was to substitute the use of coal at the V&M Brazil steelworks in Barreiro, Bello
Horizonte. Today, V&M Brazil are self-sufficient regarding their charcoal, supplied by V&M and
annually produce some 450 thousand steel tubes.
The Public Summary (PS) of the certification data, show that V&M has 235,886 hectares of land in
the State of Minas Gerais in four different districts, seen in the table here below, which also
indicates the average charcoal production for each district.
Zone
Curvelo
Bocaiúva
João Pinheiro
Brasilândia
Total
Total area (ha)
46,147
47,577
87,899
54,263
235,886
Area planted (ha)
33,867
33,457
40,567
20,435
128,326
Average charcoal production (m3)
350,000
300,000
390,000
240,000
1,280,000
Source: Public Summary (PS) of V&M Florestal certification (SGS Forestry)
The 235,886 hectares belonging to the company are located in 25 properties of sizes varying from
one thousand to 36 thousand hectares and, according to the company, cultivated lands averaging 25
hectares each are used. In the cultivation zones, the company has planted various kinds of
eucalyptus (E. camaldulensis, E. urophylla, E. cloeziana, E. citridora, E. grandis and E. pellita).
Recently the original plantations have been substituted by cloned plants that ensure greater
homogeneity and productivity and increase the efficiency of this activity, in regard to the policy of
the new owners of the company, the Vallourec Group, who want to make an annual reduction of
between 10% and 15% in production costs. Each property, except the two smallest ones, has a
charcoal stack on its own grounds. The production of charcoal has traditionally been made in small
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round ovens, (see photos 2 and 2a). In 1998, the company still had 1,500 ovens of this type but in
the Public Summary (PS) by the SGS it is stated that the ovens were being gradually substituted by
large ovens which they called “modern” (see photo 3) and in 1998 there were already 300 of these,
following the trend to substitute the traditional ovens. Once produced, the charcoal is transported to
the V&M Brazil factory, covering a distance of 364 km.
There is no concrete data on the area of 107,560 hectares that are not planted with eucalyptus.
According to the PS by SGS, the company has close on 60 thousand hectares of native reserves,
although there is no indication of where such zones are located and the rest of the areas still has to
be differentiated and specified, such as those areas where eucalyptus was planted unsuccessfully and
others having natural forage.
Due to the failure of the first eucalyptus plantations, the company decided to set up its own research
centre totally geared to research on the cultivation of eucalyptus species.
Over all these years, the company has always endeavoured to lower costs to ensure profitability of
the business. A strategy that has shown to be extremely effective is the automation of work, for
example the use of machinery in extraction and transportation of timber. One such machine
substitutes close on 70 chainsaws. The introduction of new charcoal ovens has also left the great
majority of these workers out of a job. Another important strategy to lower costs is the outsourcing
of timber extraction and charcoal production activities, increasing productivity. With these
strategies, the total number of workers has dropped considerably since the eighties, while the
number of outsourced workers today far exceeds the number of stable workers. See the following
table:
V&M Florestal
1998
1999
2000
2001
Stable workers
838
726
672
Outsourced workers
1,701
1,619
1,470
Total
3,000
2,539
2,345
2,142
Source: Public Summary (PS) for V&M Florestal certification (SGS Forestry)
Outsourcing frequently makes work precarious, and is combated by the company through the
adoption of the so-called “minimum models” that must be followed by the outsource companies.
According to the PS, V&M has always supported campaigns against child labour, a problem in the
zone and specifically in charcoal production activities.
The company is installing in all the properties 25-metre wide corridors with native vegetation. There
are 500 metres of eucalyptus between one corridor and the next. These corridors are an important
advertising weapon for the company as it would seem that it is the only company, of the dozens of
companies in the same sector operating in Minas Gerais, which has installed them.
According to the company’s Website on Internet (www.vmtubes.com.br), V&M “employs labour in
the field, taking development to the rural areas of Minas Gerais and even contributes considerably
to the reduction of the greenhouse effect.” This is stated because it uses charcoal in steel production.
Charcoal is considered as a source of energy contributing less to global warming than coal.
4
Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos
Plantar S.A. Reflorestamentos (hereinafter Plantar), founded in 1967, is a corporation of closed
national capital and the shareholders are members of the Moura family. The Plantar Group
undertakes three different kinds of activities:
-
Provision of forestry services to major companies, mainly in the cellulose sector (presently the
company is planting trees in an area of over 350 thousand hectares in various States in Brazil);
Cast iron metal works
Plantation of eucalyptus on their own lands
The company has some 15 plots of land totalling 280 thousand hectares, and its main activity is
eucalyptus cultivation, aimed at the production of charcoal to supply its own iron works. Forest
management on such lands has the same basic features as other companies such as V&M:
-
It was installed at the same time and, partly, in the same zones;
It has chosen monoculture tree plantations of a single species, eucalyptus (the company produces
annually around 10 million plants, increasingly as clones);
It has adopted short term rotation cycles;
Its main activities are timber extraction and charcoal production;
It prefers to outsource its main activities.
Recently the company has started producing charcoal for barbecues that has had a good reception in
the domestic market.
In 1997, unlike V&M, Plantar requested the FSC certificate for only a part of its plantations, that is
to say, some 9,419 hectares in the municipality of Curvelo. In the year 2000 another 3,868 hectares
were added, totalling 13,187 hectares, that is to say, 4.8% of the area is certified. This represents a
minimum percentage if it is compared to the total area belonging to the company.
Certified eucalyptus only serves to produce charcoal for barbecues. In this respect, the certification
is an interesting option for the company as it ensures an increase in the price of the product sold. It
should be noted that in the case of Plantar, certification may be of a strategic nature, given the
company’s concrete attempts at getting its plantations recognised as a Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM), and at selling the so-called “carbon credits.”
However, the fact that the company has only certified a small part of its plantations does not prevent
it from announcing in its Website on Internet (www.plantar.com.br) the following: “The Green Seal
– this certificate ensures that our forest is well managed, according to FSC principles and criteria,
that is to say, it is managed in an environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically
viable way.” It would seem, according to this declaration, that the certificate is valid for all the
company’s cultivations, which does not correspond to the truth.
Chapter 02:
THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS THROUGH SGS AND SCS
In this chapter, we intend to question some aspects of the certification process carried out by SGS in
the case of V&M, and SCS in the case of Plantar. On analysing the Public Summaries (PS), we
5
observe that the certifying companies follow certain steps in their work, that is to say there is a
certain sequence of activities, for which they use manuals, checklists, itineraries and/or defined
methodologies. This leads us to believe that the problems noted tend to occur in other certifications
made by such companies. Here below we will look at some problems worth noting.
The composition of the certifing group and content of the assessment
In the case of Plantar, the SCS group comprised a specialist in Forestry Resource Planning and
Management and another specialist in Environmental Planning and Management. It is worth
mentioning that there was no one from the social and/or economic area in the group. This may
explain, but not justify, why in the PS no study has been made of the local economy, the workers’
situation, the situation of the local communities and other aspects that are not directly related with
silviculture itself, but that are extremely important in the assessment of FSC Principles and Criteria
(see chapter 03). Furthermore, the members of the SCS group did not sufficiently analyse the
environmental history of the area, which underwent a violent process of destruction of the native,
Cerrado vegetation, although they were specialists in Forestry Resources and Environmental
Management.
In the case of V&M, the SGS group involved more people (five members) and was more balanced: a
SGS-Qualifor coordinator, a forestry engineer, an expert in ecology, a sociologist and a university
professor in the area of silviculture and environment. Even so, it may be criticised for the same
reason as the SCS PS: it lacks a sound study of local socio-economics, the workers’ situation, the
local communities’ situation and the environmental situation of the zone.
The absence of these studies seriously compromises a complete assessment that takes into
consideration in a balanced way, all the principles and criteria formulated by the FSC for the
certification of forestry plantations.
Participation of the interested parties in the certification process
The PS referring to the assessment for certification of the V&M company enumerates various
“interested parties” with which, according to SGS “meetings and discussions were held” (PS by
SGS: page 30), without commenting, at least briefly, on the results of such meetings and
discussions. It is worth mentioning that during our fieldwork we heard the trade union members
mentioned in the list of “interested parties” consulted by SGS state that they certainly had not been
taken into account during the certification process in 1998. Some members of a specific trade union
even stated that they had only learnt that the company had obtained the FSC seal during collective
bargaining meetings, at the headquarters of the company in Curvelo, when they saw posters on the
wall advertising certification of the company by FSC.
Regarding Plantar, the PS states that: “the group contacted various companies providing subcontracted services to Plantar, local leaders and NGOs.” Among the “main contacts and
comments” (SCS PS: 2.3, page 4) briefly mentions the result of the meetings with a single NGO
(AMDA) and a local leader (the mayor of Curvelo), both having a favourable opinion towards the
company. It does not mention any service supplying company among the “main contacts and
comments” (PS SCS: 2.3, p. 5). SCS even states that: “it did not contact the Rural Workers Trade
Union in the zone because there is none in activity in the city of Curvelo” (SCS PS: 2.3, page 6)
with no further comments. The fact that there was no trade union in that place and at that time is a
surprising piece of information that SCS should have thoroughly looked into, because of the
6
inhuman nature of the activities being carried out by the workers as we will see further on. A simple
initiative would have been to contact the Minas Gerais Federation of Rural Workers’ Trade Unions
(FETAEMG), in Bello Horizonte or the Federation directly representing the working class in the
eucalyptus zones: the Minas Gerais Extractive Industry Workers Federation (FITIEMG).
Furthermore, it is worth noting that some important leaders and entities that we identified during our
fieldwork are not among the “interested parties” presented by SGS and SCS. These are:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The (Federal) Public Ministry of Labour (MPT) of Bello Horizonte (MG) which for years has
been investigating and prosecuting for illegal activities practically all the companies taking part
in charcoal production and practicing outsourcing, including V&M and Plantar;
The Regional Labour Office (DRT) which recently, in March 2002, prosecuted some 50
companies, among which Plantar and V&M, for illegal outsourcing of labour and for not
respecting the labour environment;
The Parliament of the State of Minas Gerais, which over the past 12 years has set up at least 3
Parliamentary Investigation Commissions (CPI) to investigate the practices of forestry
companies, including those of V&M and Plantar;
The Extractive Industry Workers Federation of Minas Gerais (FITIEMG) in Bello Horizonte
(MG), which represents and defends the interests of the category of wage earners and salaried
employees who work in forestation activities and charcoal production and which has denounced
illegal sub-contracting and slave child labour in the charcoal stacks of companies planting
eucalyptus;
The Federation of Agricultural Workers of the State of Minas Gerais (FETAEMG) that
represents the rural workers trade unions in that state;
The Montes Claros (MG) Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), an organisation originating in the
Catholic Church, which is very much respected due to the fact that it defends the peoples’ right
to the land. It followed closely the first Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) set up in
1994 against the forestation companies, including V&M (which was Mannesman at that time)
and Plantar, verifying the practice of slave labour on the companies property;
the state deputy, Rogerio Correia, author of the so-called Pequi Law (Law 13965/01) promoting
cultivation, extraction, consumption and marketing of pequi*, a typical fruit from the savanna
zones, in addition to other typical fruit;
The Montes Claros Centre for Alternative Agriculture (CAA) which is fully aware of the
impacts of eucalyptus cultivation on the savanna and which develops activities aimed at the
sustainable use of the savannas by the local communities, verifying their economic, social and
environmental sustainability;
The State University of Montes Claros (UNIMONTES) which, since the Pequi Law (Law
13965/01) has become a reference centre with a view to coordinating research, maintaining a
database, preparing and disseminating teaching materials, promoting recovery and valorisation
of the local culture and other activities related to the pequi and other fruit and native Cerrado
products.
The rational of conditionning
The two companies that granted the FSC certificate to V&M and Plantar adopted similar systems to
correct the companies’ lack of compliance with a certain FSC criterion and/or principle. The SGS
uses the terms “Major Corrective Action (MajorCA), which must be adopted in the short term (at the
most some months), if the certification is not to be disqualified, and “Minor Corrective Action”
(MinorCA) that the company must also adopt, although it does not disqualify certification. In turn,
7
SCS uses the term “conditioning,” equivalent to the SGS MajorCA and the term “recommendation,”
equivalent to the SGS MinorCA.
The rationale applied by the certifying organisations is not clear when they decide on MajorAC or
Minor AC, or on a conditioning or on a recommendation. In the case of V&M, the fact that there
was no fauna survey and therefore no monitoring plan warranted a MajorAC by the SGS. The fact
that the company had not adopted any attitude over the mass dismissal of its workers over the last 15
years, contributing to an alarming situation of unemployment, warranted a MinorAC by SGS. To
judge from this example, the problem of unemployment is less important, although the FSC states
on the one hand that “Forest management operations shall maintain or enhance the long-term
social and economic well-being of forest workers and local communities” (FSC: p. 4) and, on the
other hand, maintains that “Forest management should include the research and data collection
needed to monitor, at a minimum the following indicators: {…} c) composition and observed
changes in the flora and fauna” (FSC: p. 8.c2). At no time does FSC clarify what would be more
important: caring for the flora and fauna in their areas or the care of thousands of former workers
that the company has dismissed over the past 15 or 20 years.
Finally, what calls our attention – and we will refer to it further on in this report – is that it would
seem that nothing prevents certification. When in the case of V&M, the SGS verified that there was
no management plan for the non-cultivated zones (45% of the certified area!), it was sufficient for
V&M to submit a programme for a survey of the flora and fauna in the zone and, based on this,
prepare a management plan to avoid the certification being delayed or abandoned. In practice,
regarding this and many other fundamental aspects, it takes years for the company to adapt to the
FSC Principles and Criteria. In many cases of actions that the SGS required of V&M, it was
sufficient for the company to submit plans or programmes without showing any evidence of
concrete and monitored actions, to correct the problems of the company’s inadequacy. In the case
of unemployment mentioned earlier on, the MinorAC, demanding that the company provide
concrete support to generate alternative employment, was no longer in force following the first
monitoring, without the generation of a single alternative job having been verified (see chapter 04 –
Principle 05: Benefits from the forest). Moreover, there are other examples in the report. In this
respect, it is worthwhile asking the following:
-
Can a company be certified based on a “conditioning” that depends on a series of conditions and
recommendations, the number of which in turn depends on the total of the problems observed?
What is the point of imposing conditions and recommendations if they are not sufficiently
monitored and if concrete evidence of the problem having been solved is not demanded?
Shouldn’t there be real evidence that the companies have abided by all the FSC principles and
criteria before granting them the FSC certificate?
Public access the the Public Summary (PS)
None of the “interested parties” we visited had knowledge of the Public Summary (PS) made by
SGS on V&M, and by SCS on Plantar. The trade unions that SGS listed as entities consulted during
the process are to be found on this list. Furthermore, there is a lack of general information on what
the FSC is, that is to say, what this type of forest certification means.
In addition to this, before carrying out our fieldwork, we were able to observe that the PS that is to
say the first and second monitoring visits by SGS referring to certification of V&M, were only
available in English in the SGS-Qualifor Web page on Internet. The report of the third monitoring
8
visit made in December 2001 suddenly appeared in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil! This
means that SGS did not place the PS on certification in Portuguese in the most indicated means of
communication for publication and dissemination at the present time (Internet), making public
access to the information leading to certification of the V&M plantations even more difficult for the
extremely important “interested parties” such as the trade unions, in a country where very few
people know English.
It should be noted that, contrary to SGS, SCS placed a Portuguese version of the Plantar certification
on the Internet, with comments on the monitoring visits. However, it should also be emphasised that
the report it published is more concise than the version on V&M that SGS made available in
English.
Chapter 03:
REGARDING THE REGION’S SOCIAL, ECONOMIC
AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
An enormous gap in the “public summaries” of the FSC certifiers (SGS and SCS) is related to the
general socio-economic context of the territory where the certified management units are located,
both in the case of Plantar and of V&M. References are lacking, even minimum ones, on the
inhabitants of the locality, of the hinterland or surrounded by plantations, their spatial dynamics and
their historic temporality. It is impossible to assess the real impact of eucalyptus monoculture on
nature and on regional society, rural or urban, without a minimum context that makes interpretative
references possible.
How do you assess the impact of the plantations without a temporal cut and comparison with what
the previous situation was? How do you measure benefits and damages unless you insert them in the
regional socio-economic fibre, comparing them with those of other sectors, cultures and land uses?
How do you calculate economic viability of certified management projects without a detailed study
of the central, state and municipal public policies, tax incentives, lines of credit, funding, tax
exemption, research and all the State investment?
The SGS Public Summary made in January 1999, certifying V&M, devotes about three paragraphs
to the subject of “contexts,” on referring to Land Use History (page 5) and to Social Aspects (page
7).
“MAFLA’s (read V&M) plantation area is made up of many small farms (fincas) scattered over
a large area. Most of these farms have been planted with eucalyptus for some time, with many
areas already being replanted after three rotations. The farms were purchased by the company
from farmers who had generally cleared the land for pasture or planted eucalyptus.” (SGS PS:
page 5)
Using a general and imprecise language – scattered with words such as many, large, most, some
time, generally – the summary makes it impossible to undertake a careful interpretation of the real
land use history, as it lacks spatial, temporal and quantitative references. Basic information is
missing, on both the regional micro and macro-territory: the dynamics of the rural zones, the society
that lives around the plantations, their organisations and institutions, traditional communities, the
little villages, rural exodus, family agriculture, community grazing land, the importance of Cerrado
species for medicine, cooking, handicrafts and the construction of housing.
9
On the social aspects, the report limits itself to state that:
“Due to the very dispersed nature of the plantations, there are several communities within the
area covered by MAFLA’s (read: V&M) plantations including Curvelo, João Pinheiro, Bocaiúva,
Brasilândia, Paraopeba and other smaller communities.
The area is largely agricultural, although there is a large hydro-eletric power station. Mannesman
is an important employer and also contributes significantly to local tax revenues.” (SGS PS: p.78)
No reference is made to urban zones, cities and districts around the plantations where the charcoal
workers and their families live, the places where the city infrastructure is concentrated, the
outpatients clinics, schools, churches, the various civil associations, the trade union premises, the
handicrafts and small trade geared to the local market, the feasts and most important dates for major
concentration of people, or to what the communities’ main problems are. None of this has
warranted a single word by the auditors, or their attention while they were there.
The public summary written by SCS in 1998 when it certified the Plantar Company, maintains the
same silence over characterisation of the zone’s socio-economic context. The five paragraphs
devoted to the regional context (article 1.4 Characterisation of the environmental and socioeconomic context) are limited to making a superficial analysis of Brazil in general, commenting on
the 1965 forestry law, a line on the 1967 to 1988 tax incentives, the Minas Gerais State Forestry
Institute (IEF) and IBAMA. It locates by coordinates and altitude the municipality of Curvelo,
where the plantations are located, and even classifies the original vegetation, and that is all!
This is very little to enable FSC to be able to interpret sufficiently the context where the plantations
are located. The public summaries and monitoring reports say more through their gaps and
omissions that what is written in them. A proof of this is that there is no mention in any of them of
the long struggle by the (Federal) Public Ministry of Labour against the illegal sub-contracting made
by various companies planting eucalyptus, either to produce charcoal or cellulose, among them
V&M and Plantar, surprised in flagrante, explicitly infringing the law. The auditing carried out does
not write a single line on the legal procedure lodged by the Regional Labour Office (DRT) in March
2002, when slave labour and child labour was being controlled and the two companies were
summonsed once again. Nor do the summaries say anything about the Investigation Commissions
(CPI) set up over the past eight years in the Parliament of Minas Gerais, where the two companies
were again mentioned. Can these “facts” be ignored? What about the mobilisation of people,
technicians, promoters, trade unions, inspectors, delegates, deputies, senators and journalists?
Between 1998 and 2002, the issue was addressed several times in the main newspapers, television
channels and radios in Minas Gerais. How can one ignore all this over all these years of successive
monitoring and assessment? The certifiers' disregard for the public context of this state has
prevented their access to basic information on the territory where the forestry management units are
located. Even “public domain” information went unnoticed in the FSC auditing. This can imply
serious consequences regarding the “message” that the seal is transmitting to the final consumers:
that this is an environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable product.
The SGS report on V&M, perhaps out of precaution, does make two comments on these “facts,” one
on “unemployment and outsourcing” practiced by the company – linking them to the international
dynamics of globalisation – and the other affirming the proactive position of the company referring
to the eradication of child labour. The SCS summary on Plantar does not even approach the issue, as
10
if nothing was happening around the company or even within it. In this respect, the disregard of the
auditors is inexplicable: the Parliamentary agenda, the actions of MPT and DRT, and the
mobilisation of civil society, all this was in the pages of the newspapers and was one of the most
commented on subjects before, during and even after the certifiers’ assessments. How is it possible
that this did not warrant any attention or at least a few words? The dates do not lie. All these
processes were simultaneous! While the assessment, certification and monitoring of these
companies was going on, their illegal operations were public and notorious.
The absence of a careful reading of the socio-economic universe where the plantations are located
and the lack of a context, prevent a sound assessment being made of the real impacts of eucalyptus
monoculture on the region’s society and environment. The reports reveal a subjective interpretation
by the auditors, starting with their choice of what they will cover and the priority issues to be
analysed, their selection of uncritical interlocutors, going on to the field visit guided by the
narrowest interpretive horizon, lacking temporal and spatial territorial references.
We have required of ourselves to devote part of this report to the forgotten “Cerrado,” forgotten by
the regional public powers and disdained by the certification auditors. Based on an in-depth study
of the native ecosystems and their local use, the auditors would have elements to assess, not only the
impacts of eucalyptus cultivation, but also the “adaptation” of large-scale eucalyptus monocultures
to their environment.
According the the Tropical Database (1995) disseminated by the University of Brasilia, the
savannah is the second largest biome in South America, with 200 million hectares, covering a fourth
of the area of Brazil. There are various types of savannah: the dense savannah (dense forest and
cerrado with trees of between 8 and 15 metres), the savannah (open forest with trees of between 5 to
8 metres), the open savannah (open bushy formations), the rough savannah (grasslands with the
occasional presence of bushes) and the clean savannah (grasslands with scant or no bushes or trees).
Over the past years, the number of research works on this unknown biome with surprising
biodiversity has increased. It has close on 10 thousand species of trees and plants, 195 species of
mammals, and 780 species of fish, 180 of reptiles, and 113 of amphibians. The Cerrado is in danger
because it has been invaded by agriculture and silviculture (large-scale plantations of eucalyptus and
pine) and by urban spread in some zones. In Minas Gerais alone, almost half of this biome has been
destroyed over the past thirty years. The expansion of the agricultural frontier has contributed to
new blights and diseases in such monocultures, according to research by the University of Brasilia
on the changes in phytonemotoid communities caused by the conversion of natural ecosystems into
ecosystems planted with eucalyptus, pine, Soya beans and rice. This explains the need for an
intensive use of agrochemicals to guarantee the productivity of forestry plantations in Cerrado zones
if monoculture is chosen. According to a survey made by the University of Brasilia, the Cerrado
offers various types of services as it has species of timber trees (130), food plants (65), textiles (24),
cork trees (18) trees producing oil and fat (29), medicinal plants (170), plants used for handicrafts
(32), in bee-keeping (167) and hundreds of species having a potential as forage. This data must be
further studied and completed according to various researchers of this biome (University of Brasilia,
2001).
Research work carried out by Carlos Alberto Dayrell at Riacho dos Machados, a Cerrado zone near
Montes Claros shows how, over time, the local populations have learnt how to live harmoniously
and sustainably with the Cerrado
11
“The diversity of the native flora is also of capital importance for the geraizeiros (inhabitants of
the Cerrado). As we observed, extractive activities contribute up to 42% of the annual gross
production and provide, in addition to external income generated by the marketing of some
products, food that is rich in vitamins, minerals and proteins, edible oils, soap, remedies,
medicinal plants, timber, etc. Furthermore, on studying typical family agro-ecosystems, we saw
how they use with certain frequency between 26 and 78 different species of native plants. One
of the families surveyed showed a knowledge of 114 different plants: their use (food, medicinal
or others), their most common location in the landscape, their form of reproduction (seeds or
cuttings) and, in many cases, the month in which they flower or the fruit can be harvested (1)”
(Dayrell, 1998)
The Savannah Network of Non-Governmental Organisations is a group of entities and movements
that struggle for the survival of this biome, defending recognition of the Cerrado as a “National
Heritage,” similarly to the Mata Atlântica and the Amazon region, in compliance with Agenda 21
and the Biodiversity Convention. Furthermore, in order to ensure a sustainable use of the savannah,
the Network defends the instrumentation of Extractive Reserves and Agro-extractive Settlements.
Chapter 04:
VERIFICATION OF FSC PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA
PRINCIPLE 01: Compliance with laws and FSC principles
Forest Management shall respect all applicable laws of the country in which they occur and
international treaties and agreements to which the country is a signatory, and comply with all FSC
Principles and Criteria.
Forest management by the V&M and Plantar companies has clearly and constantly infringed
Brazilian laws and some of the international treaties signed by Brazil, such as the ILO Conventions
and the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (IPESCR).
This was a
unanimous conclusion reached by the group following the fieldwork carried out around the
companies’ plantations and based on reports and documentation from various sources gathered in
Bello Horizonte.
Regarding labour laws, the illegal practices of the two companies have been meticulously reported
and recorded in the reports of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) (Final Report of 11
June 2002), in the lawsuits lodged by the Federal Public Ministry of Labour (MPT) of June 2002
and the monitoring actions and procedure undertaken by the Regional Labour Office (DRT) on 11
and 23 March, 2002. According to the CPI’s final report (2002):“near on 40 inspectors entered into
action.” Both V&M and Plantar were investigated, and caught in flagrante, being mentioned in this
set of documents as companies practicing “outsourcing that degrades” the working and living
conditions of the charcoal workers who are underemployed through illegal outsourcing. According
to the MPT, and quoting the specific jurisprudence:
“the consultative nature of an activity confided to a third party is a fundamental element in the
legality of outsourcing, as the company cannot refuse to carry out the business for which it was
set up, under the penalty of the corporate contract being considered as fraudulent and transferring
to others the risk inherent in the company’s activity” (MPT, 2002).
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The Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) set up on 23 October 2001, produced a final
report dated 11 June 2002, in which the innumerable irregularities of both V&M and Plantar are
noted, among 42 other “reforestation” companies. Their crimes are related with the outsourcing
process, the precarious labour relationships, the abominable working conditions, slave and child
labour, and deforestation of the Cerrado. It is important to note that this is the third CPI, comprising
deputies from Minas Gerais, which since 1994 have produced (with the direct assistance of the
Public Ministry, the DRI and the rural workers’ trade unions) a wide knowledge of the sector. On 16
May 1994, the “Parliamentary Investigation Committee was set up to investigate within 120 days,
the existence of slavery for work debts in deforestation and production of charcoal in the north of
Minas Gerais” (Parliament, 2002). On 29 June 1995, another commission was set up for the same
purpose. Subsequently, on 19 August 1995, a third commission was established “to investigate the
complaints against the so-called ‘charcoal mafia’ that operates mainly in the north of MG”
(Parliament, 2002).
Faced with so much pressure from the Minas Gerais civil society, the rural workers trade unions,
parliamentarians, public promoters and Ministry of Labour inspectors, the companies were obliged
to sign an “Adjustment in Behaviour Agreement” which “eliminates the figure of contractor.” Some
companies signed the agreement, however, according to the promoter, V&M is one of the
companies that did not want to sign the “agreement” and refused to change their illegal position
regarding labour laws. Even so, the companies that did sign the “adjustment agreement” were
surprised in flagrante delicto, not complying with the agreement; this was one of the reasons for the
last CPI being established. This Commission finished its work this year, in 2002, with another
overwhelming report: “fraudulent outsourcing, crimes against the organization of labour,
ecological destruction, infamous remuneration, deterioration of working conditions, 12 hour
working days, the hours spent in travelling to and from the workplace were never paid, back
problems, hypertension, lung diseases, precocious old age caused by unhealthy working conditions”
problems in “housing the workers, hygiene, drinking water, food, transport” and even a “black list”
against all the provisions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) regarding freedom of trade
union organisation.
Furthermore, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been infringed – the right to development,
to water, to land – as we will see further on in this report. FSC principles and criteria such as
interpreted and applied by SGS and SCS, have been the object of marketing and advertising by the
companies, as if the seal made them “immune” to Brazilian laws and international treaties sighed by
Brazil.
Regarding environmental laws, V&M and Plantar have openly disregarded one of the main
regulations of the Brazilian environmental law, CONAMA 001/86 resolution, which requires
companies of their size to obtain permits through the submission of a EIA/RIMA (see also Principle
06).
PRINCIPLE 02: Tenure and use rights and responsibilities
Long-term tenure and use rights to the land and forest resources shall be clearly defined,
documented and legally established.
It was impossible to carry out a broad notary survey in the region to corroborate the long-term
tenure and use rights of the territory managed by V&M and Plantar. However many of the
interlocutrixes we talked to questioned the fact that “restituted lands”* had been occupied in the
13
whole area by a series of companies planting eucalyptus, among them V&M and Plantar. Such
“contracts” between the reforestation companies and the State of Exception are about to expire, and
therefore the apparent “agrarian stability” of the zone would be compromised. The group noted clear
evidence of “disputes” with some neighbours over the property and traditional use and tenure rights.
According to the material from interviews with university professors from the UFMG, with NGO
technicians and research workers in the northern region of Minas Gerais - even according to the
literature consulted - and the innumerable testimonies we gathered in the neighbourhood of the
plantations and in the cities of Curvelo, Bocaiuva and Montes Claros, most of the land in the north
of Minas Gerais was State owned, that is “restituted land” and leased out on a long term basis,
approximately 20 years, to companies planting eucalyptus in the seventies and the eighties. In the
memory of older people, who were young in the sixties, seventies and eighties, is the action of
“RuralMinas”, which controlled the system of conversion of “restituted lands” to “reforested” lands.
There is no sure knowledge of the scale or the extension of the “restituted lands” within the territory
today held and used by eucalyptus companies in Minas Gerais – close on 2 million hectares. Some
of the testimonies we gathered during our fieldwork spoke of very high figures: between 80% and
90% of the land of such companies would be land originally held by the State and of traditional use
by the society of Os Gerais*. It is the Cerrado “without palisades” of the writer João Guimarães
Rosa.
According to the final report of the CPI:
“The greatest areas of restituted lands are to be found in these regions (north, northeast and
northwest of MG). By means of a loan or rental for reforestation and charcoal production, the
State granted a major part of these lands to large iron and steelwork companies. Furthermore, in
accordance with IEF data, presently there are over two million hectares planted with eucalyptus.
Only a quarter of the area was planted with company resources. Therefore, most of the
plantations, that is to say a million and a half hectares, obtained funding from tax incentives
offered until 1986”. In this report, the CPI writes, “Behind these horrible crimes are the large iron
and steelwork companies and cellulose and paper producers.” (Parliament, 2002).
On this same subject “restituted lands in Minas Gerais,” the journal ISTOE published a long article
on 15 July 1998, with the title: “Some yes, others no. An area of 265,1 thousand hectares which
should have been given back to the State, shows that the agrarian policy in Brazil is one for those
who are landless and another for the companies.” According to the journalists Alan Rodrigues and
Luiza Villaméa, “two years ago the government of Minas Gerais should have received 23,6
thousand hectares of the 265,1 that it leased out in 1975 to 19 reforestation companies in the north
of Minas and the Valley of Jequitinhonha.” According to this article, many of the contracts signed
between the companies and the dictatorship in the seventies expire between 1998 and 2002.
According to ISTOE:
“…the companies disregard the commitment they signed, of creating forest districts in exchange
for tax incentives. They did not fulfil their part and, in addition to not giving the land back that
they have exploited for over two decades, they now attempt to incorporate it into their equity,
basing themselves on the law of usocapião which grants the real estate to whoever exploited it
for 20 consecutive years”
Some landless families of rural workers hope that: “the State will recover the restituted lands and
they will be able to settle there and ensure their right to the land, to work and to income.”
14
The assessments made by SGS and SCS to obtain FSC certification in V&M and Plantar
respectively, overlooked such information and their reports cannot guarantee with total security that
both companies are not involved in the occupation of restituted lands. The public summaries for
V&M and Plantar only point out that these companies have the “tenure” of the property, but say
nothing about the origin of such tenure and its direct relation to “restituted lands.” Nor do they
mention the innumerable policies and incentives granted by the central and state government that,
during the military government, promoted the unsustainable occupation of the Cerrado.
Some of the local inhabitants maintain that most of the lands were restituted lands in the zone where
V&M is established. They mention as an example the Pé do Morro finca, which had 5 thousand
hectares of land and which is now in the hands of V&M Florestal. In the case of reforestation
companies such as V&M Florestal, occupation of restituted lands means that they do not have the
real and legal tenure of such areas, contrary to what the PS states. According to the inhabitants,
these lands should be returned to the local communities at the end of the contract. Some people
interviewed stated that the contract implied that the companies paid the State of Minas Gerais a
given amount, which in turn was invested in the promotion of eucalyptus cultivation in this State.
This is an absolute nonsense!
Near the Pé do Morro finca in Bocaiuva, we found two villagers who have land disputes with the
company. The first one had an area of 57 hectares invaded by V&M in the eighties. The company
has already planted and cut eucalyptus twice. He does not accept this occupation of his land and lets
cattle enter the zone under dispute. The other land is that of a rural producer who insisted that he
did not want to be identified because he was afraid the company might persecute him. He affirmed
that nearly all the company managers had gone to visit him. This neighbour also said that all the
lands in the neighbourhood were restituted and that the company had bought the right of tenure from
the State and then bought out, one by one, the occupiers of the restituted land. In his case, he said he
had not lost out, but that the company had fenced in some 120 hectares. He said he took them to
court and managed to recover part of the lands but he does not touch them, as they are Cerrado. He
also stated that there were more disputes of this nature in the zone, as was later confirmed by other
neighbours. They want to take their cattle to the plantations on their lands but state that they are
afraid the cattle will die, as there have already been cases of dead cattle due to the use of
agrochemicals in the eucalyptus plantations.
PRINCIPLE O4: COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND WORKERS’ RIGHTS
Forest management operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest’s multiple products
and services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits.
The fieldwork, the testimonials by fixed workers at Plantar and V&M, the interviews with
outsourced workers, pensioners due to disability, dismissed workers, the visit to the neighbourhoods
in the urban outskirts of Curvelo and to the homes of charcoal workers’ families, in addition to the
documents obtained during the field work, the CPI report, the civil action lodged by MPR, the
reports of the DRT and the interviews with the procurator, the deputies and trade union members, all
this leaves no doubt. The treatment received by Plantar and V&M’s workers, both direct and
indirect (and their families living in the urban outskirts) is far from what FSC maintains in its
principles and criteria and is even far from Brazilian labour laws.
Regarding the surroundings of the company plantations, innumerable disputes have been observed,
mainly involving the families of small rural farmers and the companies, either over agrarian
15
problems, limits of the farms, the use of agrochemicals, the deviation of traditional routes or issues
relating to water resource management. Regarding urban areas, the companies’ strategies,
outsourcing, eliminating many jobs and generating little tax revenue, ends up by causing negative
effects on the urban economy. Therefore, the social and economic well-being of the charcoal
workers and the local communities has not been ensured nor enhanced by the companies under
study. Regarding this principle, it is evident that certification has not satisfied one of its main roles:
differentiating what is sustainable.
Community relations
In Curvelo, for example, a municipality were V&M and Plantar have installed eucalyptus
plantations, a simple glance at the history of the region, its rural zones and urban outskirts, makes it
possible to observe that, before the arrival of the eucalyptus-charcoal companies, before the sixties,
there was a considerable number of small and medium-sized companies in the urban area that used
Cerrado products as raw material: pasta-making companies, caster-oil factories, leather and
tanneries, saddle-makers, shoe factories, liquor factories and other pequi products, cotton-oil
factories, textiles, sweet-factories. In the rural zone integrated to the Cerrado, in this territory
without palisades, rice, beans and maize was planted and traditional dairy and meat farming was
practiced. At that time, Curvelo had a population of approximately 15 thousand inhabitants.
The arrival of eucalyptus monoculture, taking over the restituted lands, concentrating and fencing in
fields, cutting down the Cerrado, competing with agriculture and stock-raising and uprooting the
peasants, finally did away with the bases of the region’s traditional economy. The industries
benefiting from the raw material from the Cerrado went bankrupt. The grazing crisis destroyed the
urban micro-economy that depended on it. Even traditional textile industries that generated many
jobs were obliged to close their doors (see photo 1). The pequi is the main symbol of this destructuring of the economy, the culture and regional society, carried out by companies that call
themselves “reforestation companies,” among them V&M and Plantar, two of the most important
companies, responsible for this de-structuring process. The pequi is habitually consumed by the
population in the Cerrado zone and is deeply rooted in the regional culture and cooking. For the
Geraizeiros, the Cerrado inhabitants of Minas Gerais, the pequi does not belong to anyone, because
it belongs to all. Therefore, they maintain their ancestral right to take it wherever it is, in public or
private land, fenced in land or unfenced land, etc., wherever it is, the pequi was always “accessible”
to the regional society. Since the sixties, due to logging and installation on a wide scale of
eucalyptus plantations, the pequi and all that it represents are under a serious threat. So much so,
that at the market in Curvelo we did not find any pequis for sale. Some trades people commented on
the difficulty they have in obtaining this fruit, which was previously so accessible.
Many of the disputes between the companies and the families of small rural farmers date back to the
time the companies were installed. There are a considerable number of complaints linked to V&M,
who had promised the small farmers jobs and better living conditions, while these insisted on
remaining isolated among the eucalyptus plantations. Some of the older farmers in the zone of
Curvelo remembered that for having refused to sell their lands, the company contaminated their
streams with agrochemicals, depreciated the price of their lands and obliged them to sell for less.
They consider V&M and Plantar to be responsible, due to their management and the use of
agrochemicals, for the extinction of fish in their streams, mainly the piau and the piranha that the
rural families used as food. In the zone of Bocaiuva, there were cases of cattle dying through
poisoning. In Curvelo, some families complained about death by poisoning of rheas and even the
disappearance of the Cayman.
16
As we pointed out under Principle 02: Tenure and use rights and responsibilities, various neighbours
confirmed the existence of disputes related to the land registration and real demarcation made by
V&M and Plantar. According to the farmers, the restituted lands that the companies received from
the State were extended on fencing in the land. This problem warrants a special auditing and the
certifiers should not have remained silent.
Regarding water, an increasingly scarce resource in the north of Minas Gerais and contaminated by
the agrochemicals used in managing the plantations, indicators are alarming: dozens of
municipalities have declared a “state of public calamity” due to the prolonged drought affecting
them, directly related to large-scale eucalyptus monoculture. In this zone, according to the CAA
technicians in Monte Claros, one of the greatest compact blocks of eucalyptus plantations in the
world is to be found: 1,200.000 hectares! In the Curvelo zone, near Paiol de Cima, small farmers say
that the company should restore a stream that has completely dried up and that before the plantations
it only dried up one month a year. The farmers say that following logging of the eucalyptus and
mainly during “re-sprouting,” the local water situation is much more serious. A farmer from a
neighbouring community confirmed this.
With regards to Plantar, there was another significant conflict during the first semester of 2000
between the company and the inhabitants of various rural communities in the zone, related with the
construction of the company’s new nursery and the consequent detour of a route traditionally used
by many inhabitants of Canabrava, Paiol de Cima, Meleiros, Cachoeira do Choro, Paiol de Baixo
and Gomos, among others. According to the declarations of various small farmers, teachers,
students and families from the zone, in addition to trade union members and city councillors, Plantar
diverted the traditional route because it did not want the “dust” (it is a dirt road) to affect the
eucalyptus plants sown in the new nursery. For this reason, the company, with the help of the
Municipal Executive Power, increased by nearly 5 km the distance to reach the route, negatively
affecting students, teachers and the community in general that even today cover the route on foot.
Some 900 students and teachers from the Sergio Eugenio School were particularly affected.
In order to build this route Plantar even levelled off some 400 m2 of a watering place that should
have been considered as a permanent conservation area and contracted three dams on the Boa Morte
river, all this for use by the nursery and in detriment to the water consumed by the surrounding
inhabitants, who started building cisterns for fear the quality of the water coming from there. Many
leaders demanded that Plantar install a system for decantation of water from the nursery. In Paiol de
Baixo, some washerwomen complained about the company, as they have to walk further to have
access to water that used to be close. According to the local leaders, what had happened was
reported to SCS, which agreed to go and visit the site, but once again, it disregarded the problem.
The inhabitants of the zone complained about the threats made by the mayor of Curvelo, Maurilio
Guimarães to the community leaders: the authority stated, “He is not responsible for those who
continue to use the traditional route.” According to these same leaders, a manager of Plantar called
Marcos Tavares de Deus recognised the damage caused to the communities but stated that the
company would have been involved in great expenses had it chosen another solution to install the
new nursery. The local population states that the works cost CR$ 45 thousand and that any other
solution, as stated by the company, might have cost over CR$ 90 thousand. According to a leader
of the affected communities, Plantar did not have any discussions with the community. “All was
done more or less in secrecy. First, they built the dam, and then they diverted the route. It took us all
by surprise.” The SCS reports do not contain any mention of this conflict!
17
Some city councillors, opposing the mayor, state that the water crisis is so serious that there is a
specific policy to build 75 thousand artesian wells. The same councillors demand that Plantar be
made responsible for a part of the costs. The water crisis and contamination of springs with
agrochemicals in the whole Curvelo zone have given rise to a mineral water boom on the local
market. According to a councillor from the region, “anyone who is able avoids drinking the water
from the COPASA Water Company.” According to these interlocutrixes, about 70% of the
inhabitants of Curvelo, even some sectors of the most underprivileged classes, prefers not to risk
drinking the water of the company in this State, because they fear that the high rate of cancer and
kidney problems in Curvelo many be related to the poor quality of the water supplied to the
population. Some SENAR (National Service for Rural Learning) instructors complain about the very
poor water quality offered there.
In Felixlandia, surrounding the Buriti lagoon, Plantar purchased forage lands to plant eucalyptus.
The inhabitants of the zone complained that before the eucalyptus plantations, the grasslands offered
opportunities for employment of the local population. According to these neighbours of Plantar, the
company’s eucalyptuses require much less labour and generate considerable unemployment in the
local society.
In the zone of Curvelo, various interviews with small farmers and cattle ranchers show that
companies such as V&M and Plantar, on purchasing lands indiscriminately, end up by inflating the
price of land, leading to many small and medium-sized owners selling their land. For example in
the year 2000, Plantar purchased a property of approximately 120 hectares with Cerrado vegetation
in the zone of the Lagoa do Capim finca. According to the testimony of some local inhabitants, the
company logged this vegetation and planted eucalyptus, causing the cattle-ranchers in the zone to
fear the agrochemicals used in management and the consequent contamination of its rivers.
The arrival of eucalyptus reforestation has deteriorated the services that the Cerrado provided to
regional society and has tremendously hampered the sustainable development of a region with an
economy in ruins, it has banished family agriculture and cattle raising from rural areas, it has felled
the Cerrado and generated the increasing impoverishment of the population. The society feels that
V&M and Plantar are unsustainable companies, devastating the way of life of the geraizeiros.
To finish off this sub-chapter on community relations, it is worthwhile noting that none of the
people interviewed in the surroundings of the V&M and Plantar plantations were aware of FSC
certification of the two companies. According to the Public Summaries by SGS and SCS, the local
communities had been informed. The inhabitants maintain that the only concern of the companies
when they communicate with the neighbourhood is over fires and the fear of a major fire in their
plantations. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood receive “correspondence” or printed matter on
this issue, telling them how to avoid fires.
Labour relations
There is nothing that can explain the absolute silence in the respective “public summaries” and
“annual monitoring reports” by SGS and SCS concerning the serious problems related to the “labour
world” in V&M and Plantar’s certified forestry management units.
The diverse reports by the certifiers do not address the issue, even in a tangential way, in spite of the
fact that it is of public domain in regional society, its representative institutions and entities and even
in the press and television media in Minas Gerais. Sub-human labour conditions, excessively long
18
working hours, child labour, illegal outsourcing and subjection of the workers, irregular
transportation of workers, unhealthy and degrading work, black lists of the worker leaders, lack of
freedom and union autonomy – all this has been the object of innumerable articles in the regional
mass media, the issue of various public debates in several municipalities and, for many years has
been on the agenda of state and federal parliamentarians in MG in the CIP It has mobilized over 40
inspectors in different proceedings and actions by the Ministry of Labour and its regional DRT
office, promoting the action of the Federal Public Ministry of Labour, which led to civil action
against the two companies and nothing, nothing of all this has warranted a single word in the SCS
and SGS assessment and monitoring reports.
The PS by SGS on V&M only praises the company, its initiative and solidarity on the issue of child
labour:
“Child labour has also been a significant issue in the region and there have been a number of
campaigns to try to eradicate this practice. Mannesman (read V&M) has supported these
campaigns…” (SGS PS: page 8).
In March 2002, V&M, Plantar and 40 other companies were again prosecuted by the DRT, for the
illegal exploitation of 646 workers in timber extraction and charcoal production in the areas
registered. Immediately, the Regional Labour Official responsible for the operation was removed
from his post, which goes to show the political power the companies have over society and the
region’s public bodies.
According to a state union advisor, modern ovens, increasingly used by V&M, do not resolve the
problem of the charcoal workers’ precarious labour conditions, who continue to be exposed to the
danger of the job and the smoke from the ovens, although less than with the conventional ovens (see
photo 2). During a visit to the zone of modern ovens in the Santa Cruz finca, at Felixlandia (see
photo 3), a worker was found who manages all the ovens in the zone. He worked 12 hours a day,
controlling on his own, almost 12 ovens, and at the time of the visit, he was not wearing the
protection mask against toxic gases. According to an investigation made in 1994 by the Ministry of
Labour (FUNDACENTRO), at the Corredor finca that belonged at the time to the Mannesman
Company, carbon monoxide (CO), an odourless toxic gas was found in concentrations of between 2
and 10 times more than the permitted value. Such concentrations were measured in various labour
situations of the charcoal workers, when loading the ovens, when a lot of smoke comes out. The
presence of CO above the value allowed, gives rise to a process of intoxication and poisoning with
serious consequences to the workers. It is not surprising that several informers state that many
charcoal workers who had been working for years in charcoal production had died and the health of
others was compromised. Furthermore, the union members denounced that one of the enormous
doors of an “improved” oven had fallen on a worker, causing his death. This worker was subcontracted and his family received no compensation. According to the union members, the
company has no policy to compensate those people who suffer from work-related diseases or
accidents, or to compensate the families of those who have died because of such activity.
Furthermore, they maintain that the category of wage earners working with eucalyptus is one of the
worst paid categories. For example, they declared that those who work cutting sugar cane earn
almost twice as much as those who work with eucalyptus.
Although apparently work-related accidents are not very numerous in the V&M Company, the
workers say that this is due to the fact that V&M employees are afraid of loosing the basic basket
ensured in the Collective Agreement. Therefore, there are no records and frequently the worker
19
obliges himself to work even if he is sick. The concrete number of labour claims is unknown, as the
unions do not follow these processes. However, they consider that there are very numerous cases.
We will quote some of them. Case 01: Union leader: He had an accident. The accident was not
recorded. He had never had any training and/or skills improvement course from the company. Case
02: The wife of this union leader, who also worked for V&M, had an accident in the company. She
worked in the kitchen and on going to look for something in the pantry that had no light, an object
fell on her head, causing a skull injury. She claimed against the company, but lost. The judge alleged
that it had been her fault. According to various informers, no worker has ever won a case with this
judge, which goes to show the difficulties of those who have work-related accidents.
In the PS by SCS on Plantar, the subject is completely concealed. Not a single line is written!
Furthermore, the SCS text shows a deep ignorance regarding worker representation in Curvelo; it
states that “No contact was made with the Rural Workers Union in the region because there is none
in activity in the city of Curvelo.” (SCS PS: page 7). Nothing could be further from the truth!
The V&M and Plantar companies, certified with the FSC seal, have since been monitored by the
SCS and SGS certifiers, and by CPI. The Federal Public Ministry of Labour and the DRT are
gathering explicit proof of infractions and crimes against Brazilian labour laws, which are
theoretically less stringent than FSC principles and criteria. However precarious and minimised the
Judicial Power of Brazil and Minas Gerais, and however easy it is to elude Brazilian labour laws, in
practice, in the case of V&M and Plantar, it has enabled a better monitoring and follow up to be
made of the labour processes within the certified FMU, than that of the FSC system with its
principles, criteria, models, methods of assessment and monitoring and its “independent” certifiers.
Following the mechanisation process of forestry activities and based on degrading and exploiting
outsourcing of labour, both V&M and Plantar have ended up by liquidating countless workstations.
In 1998, V&M had 3 thousand jobs. In 1999, they dropped to 2,539. In 2000 the figure dropped
further to 2,345 and in 2001, there were only 1,908 jobs generated by the company. A detail: of the
total number of workers of the company, direct employees dropped from 1,500 in 1998 to 654 in
2001, while the number of indirect employees increased from 1,500 in 1998 to 1,701 in 1999,
dropping again in 2001 to 1,254. This picture, presented by SGS itself, did not warrant any real
conditioning, and the impact of these dismissals on the life of the workers and their families - left
without remuneration and under the care of the urban outskirts, such as those of Curvelo, Pompeu,
Bocaiuva or Montes Claroes, where the public services have become overloaded - was minimised.
In addition to illegal outsourcing and dismissals caused by the introduction of new technologies,
without a prior impact study, there were also dismissals related with labour intensification and overexploitation. According to the company workers, with the increasing number of dismissals in
V&M, tasks that used to employ 20 workers, today only employ three, generating more work-related
diseases and accidents, although no records exist. The inhabitants living near V&M’s charcoal
depot located near the village of Trevão on the highway declared that in August 2002 all those
working in charcoal packing were dismissed. In its reports, SGS only related such dismissals to
generic movements of global capital and the industrial cultivation sector in Brazil. In fact, what is
not set out is the need for a company policy, providing assistance and qualifying dismissed workers
for their reinsertion into the labour market. They loose their income, some benefits such as the basic
basket and health insurance and no company policy exist for those who have suffered an abrupt
impact on their lives. The State unemployment benefit is insufficient and lasts too short a time to
enable these workers and their families to wait for a new job in decent conditions. If the FSC seal is
expected to be a differentiator, the certified companies must have specific policies for the families,
20
which without employment and without income, are cast into social exclusion by the companies
themselves, at the expense of the public powers and regional society.
The destiny of the people dismissed from Plantar is no different from those of V&M. The group
visited some neighbourhoods in the poorest outskirts of Curvelo, such as Ponte Nova, Saroba 2,
Mato Engenho, where workers dismissed by Plantar or by its contracting companies live. The
evidence of a labour crime attracted our attention. A worker, whose name we shall not reveal for
security reasons, was dismissed from Plantar when two months pregnant. The dismissal occurred
three years and seven months before the date of our fieldwork. According to the former worker, she
was dismissed because a box containing plants fell down in the nursery where she worked. The
destiny of this worker, like all the others Plantar has dismissed, is no different: critical social
exclusion. In the Ponte Nova neighbourhood, where she lived, explicit child prostitution was
exercised in the streets by the daughters of charcoal workers of V&M, Plantar and their outsource
companies.
Regarding the outsourcing process, both V&M and Plantar have been mentioned in the CPI 2002
Report as companies practicing a type of illegal outsourcing, degrading labour conditions. Through
a Public Civil Action, Dr. Geraldo Emediato de Souza and Dra. Adriana Augusta de Moura Souza,
Federal Public Ministry of Labour inspectors, gathered explicit proof of lack of compliance with
labour laws, both at V&M and at Plantar. The Ministry of Labour inspectors made an exhaustive
survey on this matter during different municipal inspections. According to inspector Geraldo
Emediato, at least Plantar was willing to review its illegal process of outsourcing, signing a
“commitment agreement” during 2002. Regarding V&M, the SGS report only states that the
company has “minimum standards” in order to accept the services of an outsource contractor
company (... MAFLA’s response has been to develop a standard for all contractor companies
detailing the minimum level required...”) (SGS PS: page 8).
A former employee of V&M described in detail how the outsource process took place in the sector
where he worked in November 1998. This is his testimonial:
“When V&M outsourced the “maintenance” sector where I was earning 452 reales, the
contracting company where I was “designated” wanted to pay me the minimum wage at the time,
around 130 reales. The contracting company even wanted to conquer me with the possibility of a
“premium” per hour worked. So, I thought that I would be doing the same job as I used to do at
V&M, but for a salary 75% lower than the previous one. I was loosing the health insurance, the
basic basket and overtime. I had only a few years left before retiring.”
His case was similar to his other 20 former co-workers at V&M in the same sector. According to
this former employee, V&M and its contracting companies never pay for unhealthy work.
Outsourced workers earn by production, but their labour document shows the minimum wage.
Furthermore, V&M was accused by various trade union members, by the MPT, the CPI and the
DRT of having a “black list” and providing it to local contracting companies so they would not
admit the people who were on the list. The company was also accused of re-hiring, after two years,
dismissed workers if they had not lodged any labour claim before Justice. The fact, proven and
documented by MPT, is a very serious infraction of ILO Conventions 87 and 98, regulating freedom
and autonomy of trade union representation. Regarding trade union representation, both V&M and
Plantar use procedures that practically prevent the workers from organising in such companies,
against the provisions of ILO Conventions 87 and 98. From the testimonies of the interlocutors,
21
when the union members enter to call assemblies or to distribute pamphlets to the workers, they are
called to order, and even asked to leave the work site. Another illegal practice followed by the two
companies is the distribution of workers in different territories and the high rotation to which they
are subject, making it difficult for them to join a specific rural workers union (STR).
At all the interviews we had with the workers of both companies, their fear of losing their job or of
being persecuted for joining a rural workers union was noticeable, also the fear that their names
might be quoted in our report. The most active union workers are constantly sent far from their
union bases. We were able to observe that in cases where they are carrying out “rural work” the
worker leaders are registered as if they were urban workers to prevent them from becoming rural
union members. Furthermore, we were informed that, according to FETAEMG, V&M chooses the
rural unions with which it will negotiate. There have been cases of workers receiving an extra
bonus for belonging to certain unions that have signed agreements that are favourable to the interests
of the company, with clauses violating labour laws. The unions that have attempted resisting end up
by having pressure put on them by the members themselves, who do not want to loose the benefit of
the extra bonus offered by the company. In this case, there is also non-compliance with FSC
principles 1.1 and 1.3.
Regarding training provided by the companies, various of the workers interviewed alleged that this
is purely symbolic or derisive. If the worker has his own chainsaw, they outsource him and he subcontracts and pays an assistant (sub-sub-contracting) who learns just as he himself learnt, through
observation and practice. Most of the accidents are considered as “personal errors” and the Labour
Accident Communication, (CAT) is not filled in. Therefore, the workers are not paid compensation
and only in extreme cases are they removed from their functions and pensioned off. In the case of
V&M, the workers receive a basic food basket, but if they are off from work one day, even if the
sickness is serious and they have a medical certificate, they loose the right to this benefit and
feeding their family is compromised for one month. A simple reading of the Collective Labour
Agreement of 26/09/2001, signed by V&M and the Rural Workers Union of Pompeu, Bom
Despacho, Caetanópolis, Curvelo, Felixlândia and Paraopebas, with the help of the Minas Gerais
Federation of Agricultural Workers (FETAEMG) shows a series of clauses flouting Labour laws.
Furthermore, we also observed that Brazilian labour law is not complied with regarding the worker’s
health and security – not only are their lives, but the very survival of their families is placed at risk.
From the various interviews with people who are presently working for V&M and Plantar and
former workers of these companies, some on sick leave, and others with disability pensions, we
were able to note that the worst accidents mainly take place in the maintenance sector and in the
plantations.
The workers complain about the drinking water that, according to them is of very poor quality in the
companies and their FMU. Regarding exposure to the sun, the companies refuse to respond to the
constant request of the workers exposed to the sun all day long regarding the need for sun block.
There are also cases of people with disability pensions, due to brain problems caused by ant poison,
mainly Mirex. Among the symptoms, we noted were speech problems (two people interviewed) and
a case of hospitalisation for six months in a mental home outside Minas Gerais, at inland Sao Paulo.
We also noted a high number of lung and back problems among the charcoal workers and Repetitive
Effort Lesions (REL) in women working in the nurseries, in spite of which they continue working,
many with swollen and bandaged hands. From what we could observe, most of the workers affected
do not know why their health is seriously affected and they do not receive any information on the
subject. V&M does not have a health care policy for people with disability pensions or for those
22
who have been dismissed and their families. As to Plantar, it does not even provide medical
assistance to registered and active workers.
Although a large number of people working for V&M and Plantar are women, there is no specific
gender policy, which causes prejudice to women and their children. None of FSC principles and
criteria specifically addresses safeguarding the health of women working in the certified companies,
as they should do. Thus, the right to day-care centres for children is violated. As there is no daycare centre near the work place, as soon as they return from maternity leave, the workers find it
practically impossible to continue breast-feeding their babies as they usually leave their homes at
5.30 in the morning and get back at 7 o’clock at night. Therefore, breastfeeding is compromised,
contributing to raising the malnutrition rate in the region.
In addition to a considerable number of women workers showing clear symptoms of REL, we also
received complaints about rheumatic diseases, probably caused by the constant manipulation of
freezing water and exposure to a very cold working environment in the wintertime.
Regarding labour, transport and security conditions, we observed the precariousness of the two
companies and their contractors. Transportation of workers is done in old and unsafe vehicles.
Furthermore, all the workers interviewed complained that their demands regarding transport were
ignored: every day they have to wait almost an hour after work for the companies to take them back
home.
We received complaints that the DRT and the local hospitals (with which V&M has an agreement
and to which it provides financial assistance), and local politicians, end up by being co-opted by the
companies as they are feared and carry out the role of the most powerful actors in the region.
PRINCIPLE 05: Benefits from the forest
Forest management operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest’s multiple products
and services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and social benefits.
The V&M and Plantar companies do not comply with this principle. Regarding eucalyptus
plantations, they do not provide multiple products and services to the communities and local
economy, but only eucalyptus timber for charcoal, with the possibility of some additional uses, but
on a very small scale. Since the eighties, there have been mass worker dismissals, showing that it is
difficult to consider eucalyptus plantations as economically viable in terms of supplying jobs.
Regarding the other areas of the V&M (107,560 hectares) and Plantar companies, predominantly
Cerrado areas, it should be noted that the companies prevent access to the multiple products and
services offered by this biome, enclosing areas and in this way, preventing their traditional use by
the local communities, hindering the generation of employment and income.
Most of the eucalyptus planted by V&M and Plantar are used for charcoal for the iron works and for
barbecues. The sole beneficiaries of the eucalyptus plantations are the companies themselves. At
the same time, according to trade union members, thanks to certification V&M recently started
producing charcoal for barbecues, cuts of timber for wood ovens, tar and powdered charcoal, even
for export. Another interesting and viable use of eucalyptus on a small scale is extraction of honey.
Little by little, this will disappear due to the substitution of flowering eucalyptus by cloned
eucalyptus. This guarantees greater productivity in terms of timber, of greater interest to the
company, but prevents local communities from obtaining economic benefits.
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Social benefits from eucalyptus cultivation and the production of charcoal have increasingly
dropped due to the decrease in labour. The union members state that in 1985, the V&M Company
still employed nearly 2,500 workers. Today it employs 600 workers, of which 100 belong to the
company itself and 500 are outsourced, showing a very high level of dismissals. One of the main
reasons is the introduction of the new ovens to make charcoal and machinery to cut trees.
According to the report by CPI on the charcoal works, one of these machines substitutes 70 workers.
The union members also state that there is a lack of other employment alternatives in the region.
There is no company policy regarding reinsertion in the labour market for people dismissed. It is
only while they work for the company, if they are not outsourced, that they manage to receive some
kind of training.
In the PS for V&M, SGS includes the following: “Minor Corrective Action” for the company
(Minor 002 4.1.4): (“Certified companies must actively support and promote alternative job
opportunities affected by the reduction of staffing in forest and charcoal activities. There is no
formal programme to do this”) (SGS PS: page 34). According to the PS, the intention of this
condition is to provide local trade with eucalyptus to benefit from other uses (such a wood for
furniture) and in this way, lower unemployment. The most interested city in this respect was
Curvelo as, according to the SGS, “the city is bankrupt and has no industry” (SGS PS: page 36).
During our fieldwork, a Curvelo city councillor stated that there really had been some meetings to
discuss the subject, but so far, nothing had happened because presently the company is unable to
offer eucalyptus that is suitable for making furniture. It should be noted that at the end of the PS,
SGS decided to exclude this conditioning, based on the preparation by V&M of a plan. It was noted
that the existence of a plan and the organisation of some seminars do not ensure concrete action, that
is to say, they do not help to ease the serious unemployment generated by the company.
The traditional communities living in Cerrado zones where V&M and Plantar are installed had the
customary habit of collective use of the Cerrado. The CPT, the CAA and the union members
denounced that when V&M arrived, it started ocupying and fencing in Cerrado zones, even in the
“high plateaux” (plains with low vegetation). These zones are of collective use, the local
communities used to take their cattle to graze. They also call them “common grasslands” or “loose
grasslands” and they are of fundamental value for the Cerrado inhabitants. Dayrell (1998) states
that:
“The food for cattle in the “suelta” (loose) Cerrado zones is quite diversified. In addition to
native hay, the cattle feeds on an infinite number of roots and shoots that ensure its survival. At
least 32 different species of plants that the cattle eat regularly were mentioned. In general, the
cattle is only taken to zones of cultivated forage when they are about to give birth, at the height
of the drought until the beginning of the rains (August/November) and later, in the middle of the
rainy season (February/April). The rest of the time, whenever possible, the cattle is raised in
open zones” (Dayrell, 1998).
The local communities also used to harvest the region’s typical fruit, such as the pequi, mangaba,
panan and others, in addition to medicinal plants. The land belonged to everyone. On fencing in the
Cerrado zones, the companies generated conflicts with the local communities that could no longer
benefit from an essential service provided by the native vegetation; the fences caused
environmental, social and even cultural damage. According to the union members, the Canabrava
community, which lost its collective pastures in the eighties due to the V&M Company, are still
indignant today over this company policy. As a form of protest, they use openings in the fencing to
24
let the cattle in to graze, burn down trees out of “pure indignation” and make charcoal out of the
company’s eucalyptus. In spite of having been fined by the State Forestry Institute (IEF), the
dispute has still not been settled in a satisfactory manner.
The pequi is a typical fruit of Cerrado zones and in general is sold informally in the streets of the
cities in the region. According to the Montes Claros CAA, the pequi harvest may yield up to R$2
thousand per hectare of Cerrado and can be a perfectly viable activity, benefiting from its multiple
uses. Dayrell (1998) states the following:
“The fruit is harvested practically all the year round, but the main harvest coincides with the
rainy season from October to March. It is mainly young people and women who harvest the
fruit, but when it is for marketing, or to make oil or soap, the men help in the harvest and help to
process the fruit. The fruit most marketed are: pequi, coquinho azedo, panan, murucuya,
cajuzinho andcoco catole. Oil (rufão) is extracted and soap is made from other fruit (macauba
and tingui). They are processed by hand and in general it is the women who do it with the help
of the men. A family at the Tapera finca usually produces an annual amount of 300 litres of
pequi oil. It consumes between 30 and 50 litres per year and sells the rest at prices ranging from
R$ 2 to R$5 per litre. The harvest period provides fruit for the animals (fowl and pigs) with a
certain regularity, mainly when the maize harvest is harmed by the drought.” (Dayrell, 1998).
In Montes Claros, 8,500 tons of pequis are marketed during the harvest. Contrary to eucalyptus
plantations, this activity is carried out without government support and in the framework of informal
economy, although it generates employment and income for the population. It is along these lines
that the state deputy, Rogerio Correia prepared the Pro-Pequi Law, promoting th cultivation,
extraction, consumption, marketing and processing of this fruit and other and native Cerrado
products. The PS by SGS on V&M and the SCS PS on Plantar, do not make any mention of this
enormous potential for sustainable Cerrado use, where FSC should give priority to its certification
strategies.
PRINCIPLE 06: Environmental impact
Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources,
soils and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes and, by so doing, maintain the ecological
functions and the integrity of the forest.
V&M and Plantardo not respect the native flora and fauna; on the contrary they helped to destroy
the Cerrado, a unique biome, burning large areas to produce charcoal and then planted eucalyptus in
the seventies and eighties, as did practically all the companies. This process caused impacts
affecting the local population, flora and fauna up to the present time: the deterioration in the quality
and quantity of water resources, the disappearance of fauna, the predomination of monocultivated
trees, the erosion, the application of agrochemicals to extensive monoculture plantations, including a
herbicide that FSC prohibited. There is not a single Environmental Impact Assessment or Report
(EIA/REIA), as required by Brazilian law.
According to the Montes Claros CPT representatives, the V&M company, owner of 47,577 hectares
in the region, arrived in the sixties, occupying Cerrado zones and removing the native vegetation
with tractors and large chains. At first they used the Cerrado to make charcoal and latter planted
eucalyptus. In the district of Bocaiuva, where over 33 thousand hectares of eucalyptus were planted,
the natural sources, rivers and streams started drying up. Dayrell (1998) state that:
25
“The Cerrado with its peculiar soil and vegetation formation and favoured by underground fauna, was
able to rapidly absorb rainfall, even the most intensive rainfall, and store it in underground water
currents that could be 100 meters deep. The Cerrado soils’ capacity for aborbing rain water was
quoted by the writer Guimarães Rosa, who had a deep knowledge of the Brazilian backwoods, in his
work “Grande Sertão: veredas”:
“The passing Cerrado. The Cerrado is her alone – the space. The sun. The sky not wanting to be
seen. The hard sands. The little bad trees they are so mine. Does it rain there? It rains – and no
puddles appear, currents do not form, it does not produce mud: in a few minutes, the whole rain runs
inside the soil, like an entering oil (Guimarães Rosa, apud Luz & Monção, 1995: 3).
Following deforestation, the rains frightened the inhabitants because of the quantity of mud and sand
draged in from the Cerrado, obstructing the marshes and watercourses. Mr. Geraldo explained:
“As the older people say, the eucalyptus is bad for the waters. But it is not only the fault of the
eucalyptus, it is also the fault of logging that makes the water run towards the headlands and that is
blocking the wells. Not to say that this is a whole subject on its own. You see, logging razes
everything because of the erosion that comes and blocks all the wells.”
They finished off the wild animals, an important source of proteins for the geraizeiros. An
inhabitant who impotently watched it happen, tells us what he saw
In this zone there were many deer, agouties, tatus, partridges, sariamas, parrots – there were many.
Today you do not even hear a cricket singing in the eucalyptus. If one were to come, it would get sick
for sure. All is finished. It was a deception! What was left retreated towards the corners where there
was something green, and to day there is nothing to be seen.”
It should be noted that, according to the PS for V&M, the mean annual rainfall in the zone of
Bocaiuva is approximately 1,000 mm. A specialist on the subject, Walter de Paula Lima, one of the
most important technical advisers to the sector of eucalyptus companies, stated at a conference in
the State of Bahia on the establishment of the Veracel Cellulose company, that in eucalyptus
plantations that are in zones where the annual average rainfall is under 1,200 the water balance can
be unfavourable and that in this case, water supply will be lower than reflux and this can harm the
soils and water springs.
According to technicians and union members, the whole (Cerrado) region is a catchment area,
providing the excellent conditions of this biome are harnessed. To explain the process of
environmental destruction caused by the eucalyptus, the union members quote the case of the 5
thousand hectares Pe do Morro finca. V&M (at that time Mannesman Florestal Ltda.) purchased the
finca with Cerrado vegetation and then pulled it up with tractors and chains to plant eucalyptus.
Subsequently the small rivers Canabrava, Bom Jardim, Extrema, São Gregorio and Agua Boa dried
up. The Tabatinga River which passes through the Pe do Morro finca, also dried up (see photo 4).
The union members complained that there is no work being done to restore the rivers or to attenuate
the erosion problems (see photo 7). We saw another small river called Vaquejado – this is an
example that there are still small rivers with a good flow of water exactly where there are no
eucalyptus plantations (see photo 8).
At the Meleiro finca belonging to V&M in Curvelo, the river Meleiro is disfigured in various
stretches of its bed, where the quality of the water and the flow considerably dropped (see photo 9).
26
We found dried up, degraded sources and eucalyptus plantations on lands that should be permanent
conservation lands (see photo 10).
Near the Meleiro finca, we found various streams that had become occasional and when we got
there they were completely dried up, with dry and degraded sources. Some of the inhabitants
interviewed were witnesses to the disappearance of various species of fish in the micro-estuary of
the Boa Morte and Paiol streams and the Ribeirão River.
The Plantar nursery is located some 12 km from Curvelo. According to the inhabitants, in order to
install the nursery, the company deviated a hundred-year old route and thus achieved access to
enough good quality water, fundamental for their work, using the waters of the Boa Morte river.
The deviation in the route, made without consultations with the community, increased the distance
the neighbouring communities have to walk by 5 km (see photo 11). Furthermore, to deviate the
route, the company levelled off a watering place (see photo 12). On placing the drainage pipes
without due care, they widened the riverbed at that location and made it higher, which changed the
water regime of a drainage marsh. The activities at the nursery compromised the surface water in
the riverbed and prevented the communities in the drainage zone from using the water as it was
contaminated with agrochemicals and fertilisers from the nursery, which is not treated by Plantar.
The inhabitants had to install cisterns, as they could no longer use the river water. A sign on the
edge of the plain indicates that there is a project under study to restore the Boa Morte river (see
photo 13). However, we were able to observe that such a project is limited to abandoning the zone
in favour of the eucalyptus plantations.
In the municipality of Felixlândia, there is a spring called Cabeceira do Buriti in a clear process of
degradation. The small local community is concerned over the Buriti River. The water level of the
adjoining reservoir has dropped by almost 2 metres (see photo 14) and its flow has decreased almost
50%. According to the inhabitants, the water supply has fallen since the implementation of the
Plantar eucalyptus plantations on grazing lands in the catchment area of the spring water. The
inhabitants, which have been there for over 40 years, were never consulted by the company to
discuss the subject. They are afraid that they will have to abandon the region if the problem persists.
They also mentioned the problem of the application of weed killers before the plantation of
eucalyptus, when they learnt of the death of fish, sariamas and rheas. There was never any
communication by the company on this use of weed-killer. Finally, they maintain that, to the
contrary of agriculture, eucalyptus does not represent a source of employment in the region.
According to the Montes Claros CAA, V&M recently purchased land with eucalyptus on it from the
Reflorage company, which established itself in the region in 1992. The environmental impacts of
this eucalyptus plantation gave rise to a major mobilization of the peoples in the communities that
depend on the Richão river: Montes Claros, Mirabela, Coraçao de Jesus and Brasilia de Minas. The
local committee for the defence of the Riachão river, the flow of which had considerably
diminished, made the following declaration in a letter disseminated on 13/07/2002, under the title of
“Riachão letter of commitment”:
“The implantation of eucalyptus monoculture and the major irrigation projects brought with
them disorderly deforestation, an abusive consumption of water and intensive use of
agrochemicals, leading to the extinction of the river source, causing prejudice to nearly 18
thousand people and 3 thousand families” (Riachão letter of commitment, 2002)
27
Along with the purchase of the Reflorage land, V&M inherited an enormous socio-environmental
debt towards these families, which has not been definitively solved to date. Due to the diminished
river flow, only 12 large estate-holders who live in the zone where the river passes, immediately
after the eucalyptus zones, are able to benefit from the waters of the river, making the lives of the 3
thousand families who live downriver very hard.
Based on its fieldwork during May and June 1998, in its PS for V&M, SGS affirms that the
company “uses relatively few chemicals and is committed to minimising the current use while
seeking alternatives) (RP SGS: page 21). Additionally, SGS maintains that (the chemicals used by
MAFLA (read: V&M), in general, are not particularly toxic” (RP SGS: page 22). Therefore calls
our attention that only in the second monitoring operation in February 2001, does SGS report that
the company uses two agrochemicals – the fungicide benomyl and the weed-killer oxifluorofen –
two products that FSC prohibited in its provisional policy of the year 2000, considering that they
were toxic and residual, according to SGS itself. During the third monitoring in December 2001,
V&M stated that they were no longer using benomyl, but that they continued using oxifluorofen and
that they had requested an exception from SGS, which in turn, had sent the request to FSC
International.
We would like to point out that all this is an unmistakable sign that eucalyptus does not adapt well to
the Cerrado biome and take the opportunity to recall that in a study by Filgueiras and Pereira,
disseminated by the University of Brasilia, 419 species of fungus associated to thousands of Cerrado
plants were enumerated (BDT, 1995). Furthermore, the question is how is it that SGS only
discovered this matter, which would appear to be serious, at the second monitoring? That is, nearly 3
years after the certification visit. There are two options: either SGS did not correctly assess the
agrochemicals applied at the time of certification, or V&M omitted this information at the time. We
also ask ourselves, what position did FSC International adopt? We believe it must have accepted the
exception requested in December 2001, as during our field visit in October 2002, from the notice
boards outside the eucalyptus fincas (see photo 15), we saw that V&M continues to use the seal,.
Various people from the local communities and union members interviewed confirmed that V&M
uses the method of spraying from a plane. The company maintains that it is only for the application
of booms? However, the community and the trade union affirm that they have observed the death of
fish and cattle following spraying by plane, which strengthens the suspicion that agrochemicals are
applied this way. The trade unionists have also denounced the fact that the company uses tractors to
apply ant-killer; thus substituting manual application that obviously represents more expenditure on
labour. According to our informers, the consequence is an increase of the products used, that is to
say, an increase of the environmental impact. In the third monitoring report by SGS in 2001, it is
noted that there has been an increase in the use of ant-killers. However, V&M maintain, “The use is
variable, according to the characteristics of each plot of land and species of eucalyptus” (third SGS
monitoring report, page 5).
According to the PS, V&M lets the understory grow after a year or two to increase biodiversity. At
the Pe do Morro finca at Bocaiuva, we were able to observe that there were eucalyptuses
approximately 4 years old, without any understory (see photo 16), that is, without any biodiversity.
According to a former worker of V&M in Curvelo, as an environmental policy the Company uses a
machine to recover the tar from charcoal oven smoke. The tar is stored in a 20-thousand-litre tank.
Sometimes the tank is filled before the tank truck goes by. When this happens, the former worker
28
stated that they bury the excess tar in a well and contaminate the environment. Additionally, on
cleaning the machine, they spill tar residue on the ground.
According to the PS for V&M, the company has adopted a System of Environmental Management
for its areas, a sort of self-monitoring. It is worth noting that the company refuses to hire a team of
specialists to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment and Report (EIA/EIAR), a requirement
of the National Environmental Council (CONAMA) in its resolution 001/86, thus hindering the
work of the state’s environmental authorities, of the IEF and the State Environmental Policy Council
– COPAM (also see Principle 1), according to information from an IEF employee who did not want
to be identified. The company is only willing to deliver a Report and Plan for Environmental
Monitoring (RCA/PCA) which consists of a superficial analysis, without considering measures to
contain negative impacts. Precisely what is important is to contain the negative impacts that are
many and serious, as became evident during our fieldwork. It should also be noted that Plantar does
not have an EIA/EIAR either.
PRINCIPLE 07: Management plan
A management plan – appropriate to the scale and intensity of the operatiions – shall be written,
implemented and kept up to date. The long-term objectives of management and the means of
achieving them, shall be clearly stated.
The companies comply with this principle regarding the eucalyptus zones, but there is no
consolidated management plan for the zones without plantations.
According to the PS for certification, there is a very clear eucalyptus management plan for the
V&M’s 235,886 certified hectares and for Plantar’s eucalyptus. However, for the 107,560 hectares
of V&M, which are not zones planted with eucalyptus, but mainly Cerrado zones, there is no
management plan. On the contrary, a policy exists to avoid the use of the services provided by this
extremely rich biome. This policy prevents sustainable exploitation that could benefit the local
communities. As stated in other parts of this report, there is a policy to isolate these areas from the
local communities, causing indignation and dissatisfaction among the inhabitants, who have always
used them in a collective way. Neither in the SGS report on V&M, nor in the one by SCS on
Plantar, have we been able to find any element delving into the traditional Cerrado management
made by the local communities, a subject that has been well studied and is known by entities such as
the Montes Claros CAA.
Furthermore, the SP for V&M states that:
“field visits showed that though some of these areas are very valuable natural vegetation in a wellpreserved state, other areas are very degraded” (RP SGS: page 20).
Our fieldwork enabled us to share this opinion: there is a strong indication that in the areas not under
cultivation, no type of management is carried out.
Regarding Plantar, the SP does not make any clarification as to the percentage of the area it intends
to have certified that is covered with native vegetation. It was only after a requirement by SCS
regarding reserve management that it became clear that in the year 2000, two years after
certification, the company purchased neighbouring fincas with natural Cerrado cover to add them to
29
the certified area and thus reach 20% of legal reserve – 20% of the property, which according to
Brazilian Forestry Law, must be conserved. This means that when the company obtained
certification, it had few reserve areas, less than the requirements of the law, and no management
plan.
PRINCIPLE 08: Monitoring and assessment
Monitoring shall be conducted – appropriate to the scale and intensity of forest management –to
assess the condition of the forest, yields of forest products, chain of custody, management activities
and their social and environmental impacts.
During the field visits and visits to the local communities and organisations, we did not find proof of
a precise and careful monitoring of the social and environmental impacts of forest management
activities. The chain of custody should be constantly monitored.
We did not observe any monitoring of the environmental impacts in Plantar and V&M lands. We did
not see any signposts indicating the existence of sources, watercourses, lagoons, marshes, streams
and rivers, nor their names, which by law should be kept with their respective Areas of Permanent
Preservation (APP). Monitoring of watercourses must include measurements of the water level to
control variations. We did not see gauges anywhere although practically all the watercourses had
been degraded or become occasional and during the field visit, we saw many that had dried up.
If the companies had had a plan to monitor social impacts, for example concerning collective
grazing lands that were taken away from the local communities, and the precariousness of jobs
resulting from outsourcing, certainly these real impacts we observed during our field visit would
have been solved. However, although the companies may have detected such problems, why are
they not included in the PS? That is, what is the point of having a monitoring plan if it does not lead
to concrete action based on problems observed?
Regarding the chain of custody, there are doubts about both companies. The Environmental Control
Permit attached to this report shows that V&M do Brasil still purchases native charcoal. This shows
that there is an official chain of custody: V&M plants the eucalyptus, makes the charcoal and then
transports it to the V&M do Brasil factory, in addition to using it for other applications, such as
powdered charcoal, charcoal for barbecues and cut and packaged firewood. Furthermore, there is
another parallel chain of custody, which starts with the burning of the Cerrado, the purchase of
charcoal by local trades-people and transportation to the V&M factory in Bello Horizonte.
Regarding Plantar, it is interesting to note that only the certified plantations, less than 5% of the
company’s area, serve to make charcoal for barbecues. The rest of the areas are devoted to charcoal
for the iron works. Due to the complaint against V&M and the similarity of both companies, in
addition to the lack of inspection observed in the field, it is necessary to carry out an urgent auditing
of Plantar’s chain of custody to ensure that the company is not mixing charcoal for barbecues with
charcoal for the iron works. We stress the enormous difficulty of distinguishing and inspecting
these destinations as we are dealing with the same product: charcoal.
Summing up, the issue is the following: charcoal for the ironworks, charcoal packed and sold
directly to the consumer or charcoal for any other destination – how can we ensure that the charcoal
with the FSC seal is precisely the charcoal from timber from certified management units? In the case
of Plantar, this guarantee demands permanent monitoring, as the SCS certified units are scant in
30
relation to the rest of the company’s plantations. It is evident that a plan or system for selection and
differentiation of the timber, on its own, is not an effective guarantee. The company may have a
detailed plan making it possible to define from what land or even from what tree the charcoal is
produced, but this on its own does not guarantee that timber from non-certified FMU, or even native
timber from the Cerrado is not being used. According to an “invoice” we obtained during our
fieldwork, V&M do Brasil still purchases and uses charcoal made from timber from the Cerrado to
the north of Minas Gerais.
Some lorry-drivers we interviewed told us that between 10 and 15% of the charcoal they transport to
V&M do Brasil comes from the Cerrado. The lorry-drivers were a fundamental source of
information for those who study and investigate the “charcoal sector” in Minas Gerais – the CPI, the
MPT, the DRT, etc. – but neither SGS nor SCS seem to have interrogated them on the two
companies they were assessing. Save for a purely technical, abstract and conceptual plan, there is
no guarantee that the certified charcoal (finally, it is this charcoal that has the “seal” as a symbolic
message to the consumer) really comes from the management units assessed. In the case of Plantar,
external and independent monitoring is essential, as it did not certify most of its plantations. In the
case of V&M which certified all its FMU, why purchase charcoal coming from the Cerrado?
PRINCIPLE 09: Maintenance of high conservation value forests
Management activities in high conservation value forest shall maintain or enhance the attributes
which define such forests. Decisions regarding high conservation value forests shall always be
considered in the context of a precautionary approach.
Presently V&M has not managed to satisfy this principle as it is only over the past few years that it
has started, for the first time, a process of systematisation of the fauna and flora elements in areas
not planted with eucalyptus. SGS monitoring leaves doubts on the availability of sufficient data in
order to define high conservation value Cerrado zones, with regard to their fauna and flora.
Additionally V&M and Plantar should necessarily consider the local communities and their deep
knowledge of this biome to make a sound definition of such places.
According to the PS for V&M, it was necessary to apply Major Corrective Action (Major CA) in
order to monitor systematically information on some species of fauna within the areas, and to assess
the impact of activities carried out by the company in the plantations. In response, the company
contacted the Federal Universities of Viçosa and Minas Gerais, which submitted a proposal to gather
data with a view to a subsequent monitoring plan. Such action, in addition to some internal
measures in the company, turned the Major CA into Minor Corrective Action (Minor CA). During
the second monitoring visit in February 2001, over two years following certification, the SGS report
maintains that (“a meeting was held with the research team from the UFLA (read: Federal
University of Lavras) at which progress on this large-scale, extremely valuable and pioneering
research work was discussed” (2nd SGS monitoring: page 4).What is surprising is that this
University was not involved in research on the fauna, but on the flora (see below). During the
meeting, UFLA stated that less than 50% of the over 1.500 plots of Cerrado had been studied, which
led to SGS again turning the Minor CA into a Major CA, as so far, no concrete proposal for
monitoring was available.
The new Major CA demanded that the company prepare a realistic plan to finalise the survey work
and start monitoring. During the third monitoring visit by SGS, ten months later, it was observed
31
that a monitoring plan had started in May 2001, that is to say, three months after the second
monitoring, when over 750 plots had still not been studied. It should be remembered that the
company’s area is located in a very large geographical zone, making fieldwork very difficult.
Summing up, what we are questioning is the lack of precision by SGS regarding monitoring of this
issue, and also the conclusion reached by the survey work and the fact that monitoring of fauna was
started in such a short period, without SGS having made any type of comment on or questioning of
the contents of the survey and the monitoring plan. However, they have been holding the FSC seal
for nearly four years.
SGS demanded another Major CA to gather data, map the native vegetation and protect it in the
company’s areas through a programme denominated “Programme for management of the
Cerrado”- (SGS PS: page 43). Regarding this Action, the company established an agreement with
the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) to carry out this work over a 24-month period. Because of
this initiative, the Major CA was substituted by a Minor CA. In the first monitoring visit in
November 1999, the company estimated that the field survey would be ready at the end of 2000.
However, during the second monitoring visit in February 2001, it was observed that less than 50%
of the fieldwork had been carried out, that is, plans had not been fulfilled. Therefore, once again,
SGS decided to convert this Minor CA into a Major CA requiring a realistic plan to finish the field
survey and start the management plan for Cerrado zones. V&M planned the preparation of the
management plan for June 2002. During the third monitoring visit in December 2001, the survey of
flora had been concluded, that is to say, in ten months they managed to finish over 50% of the
fieldwork. According to the SGS, they also established management standards for each area
according to the type of alteration noted and the corresponding corrective actions adapted to each
situation. In this case, we can only conclude with a questionning of the speed with which the work
was finalized, without any objection by SGS, not even regarding the contents of the management
plan.
In all the research work on the value of Cerrado zones, including the fauna and flora, at no time is it
suggested to consult the local communities or to get them to participate. The local communities are
the real specialists in the region. Dayrell (1998) tell us that:
“Furthermore, on studying typical family agro-ecosystems, we saw how they quite frequently make
us of between 26 and 78 different species of native plants. One of the families investigated, showed a
knowledge of 141 different plants: their use (for food, medicinal, or others), their most common
location in the landscape, their form of reproduction (seeds or cuttings) and, in many cases, the month
in which they flower or their fruit is harvested (2)” (Dayrell, 1998).
Let us compare this quotation with what the PS made by SGS on V&M has to say:
“On (V&M) non-working days, there were three main objectives: (…) to provide some kind of
environmental education: in general in the local agricultural sector the degree of knowledge on soil
and water conservation and protection of the flora and fauna is not very high. Non-working days are
an opportunity for MAFLA management (read V&M) to explain to the local farmers the importance
of such issues” (SGS PS: page 39).
However, it is precisely the local farmers who should be the “educators” as they have a good
knowledge of the environment and know how to use and protect it, while the companies have burnt
large areas of Cerrado, according to various testimonies of the inhabitants. In the words of the
writer João Guimarães Rosa, “A teacher is not one who has always known, but the one who suddenly
learnt.” (Guimarães Rosa, 1985). Dayrell (1998) writes the following:
32
“…gathering firewood is nearly always done by choosing the oldest, driest or fallen wood. When it
is cut down, this is never generalised (except for tilling or for forage), and it is usually cut level,
enabling renewal. It would seem that cutting is done randomly. However, one informant stated that
when they are going to cut wood, if it is an uncommon tree, they always make sure that there is
another, younger one of the same species that can substitute it. Once I saw a geraizeiro (read,
inhabitant of the Cerrado), pulling up plants in a grassy zone. I asked him why he did not pull up
some species and he answered by telling me of the use of the species he had not pulled up” (Dayrell,
1998).
The so-called “common grasslands,” located in the high plains, have an enormous social and
cultural importance, because they were areas of collective use. According to testimonials we
gathered in Bocaiuva, the occupation and fencing in of such areas by V&M, even now causes
dissatisfaction among the local communities.
Regarding Plantar, SCS stated that in the year 2000, the company purchased other lands, for a total
of 2,975 hectares of native vegetation, to satisfy a legal requirement of the Brazilian Forestry Code.
According to SCS, the company classified the land by conservation area, preservation area and legal
reserve area, without any further comments.
PRINCIPLE 10: Plantations
Plantations shall be planned and managed in accordance with Principles and Criteria 1 – 9, and
Priciple 10 and its Criteria. While plantations can provide an array of social and economic benefits,
and can contribute to satisfying the world’s needs for forest products, they should complement the
management of, reduce pressure on, and promote the restoration and conservation of natural
forests.
For various reasons, V&M and Plantar’s tree plantations do not satisfy FSC principles (from 1 to 9),
according to what we have set out in this report. Most of the plantations are on land with native
Cerrado vegetation, which helped to destroy this threatened biome and caused social, environmental,
cultural and economic impacts. Furthermore, we denounce the fact that Plantar felled a Cerrado
zone in the year 2000 and that V&M continues to purchase charcoal made with timber from the
Cerrado to produce steel, a practice that is absolutely contrary to FSC Principle 10.
This report shows that the companies investigated, V&M and Plantar, did not comply with various
elements of FSC Principles 1 to 9, making certification illegitimate. Among such elements, we
include environmental, social, economic and cultural impacts. Many informers complained that the
first thing these companies did was to burn the Cerrado to obtain charcoal and then plant eucalyptus.
However, for FSC, this fact has no influence on certification as deforestation took place before
November 1994. Nevertheless, the impact of the total destruction of this biome on the cultivation
zones is felt up to today, mainly by the local populations who lost much of their flora and fauna and
their water resources and suffered from the consequences of the application of agrochemicals. Far
from protecting the still remaining native vegetation, the thousands of hectares planted with
eucalyptus end up by becoming a hazard. We would stress that according to the inhabitants of
Curvelo, Plantar felled a Cerrado area of some 120 hectares, which it had purchased in 2000 in the
zone of Lagoa do Capim.
33
According to the PS for V&M, at the time of certification, the company had not yet established the
area to be cut and was using cultivation lands of between 30 to 50 hectares. The SGS demanded a
Minor Corrective Action (Minor CA) to oblige the company to establish a fixed size. During the
first monitoring by SGS, in November 1999, this Minor CA was excluded, as the company had
established a maximum size of 24 hectares for cultivation lands. However, during our field work at
the Pe do Morro finca in Bocaiuva, we saw several cultivation lands of between 41.62 to 48.89
hectares, as indicated by some small signs on the edge of the road (see photo 17).
According to the PS for V&M, the company is opening up wildlife corridors every 500 metres in all
the eucalyptus plantations. It was only on the last day of our fieldwork that we observed the
existence of an wildlife corridor, exactly 25 metres wide (see photo 18). It should be remembered
that one of the PS revisers questioned the effectiveness, for native fauna, of a corridor only 25
metres wide. This reviser, whose name does not appear in the PS, maintained, “Wildlife corridors
should be at least 50-100 m wide to be useful.”) (SGS PS: page 43). The SGS reacted to this
criticism by saying that the subject would be discussed during the monitoring visits. However, we
did not find any further comment on the matter in the three monitoring reports disseminated by SGS.
Various persons interviewed complained that V&M do Brasil, a company belonging to the same
owner as V&M and which consumes charcoal produced by V&M, still purchases charcoal made
from wood from the Cerrado and produced by large landowners and/or people occupying the
restituted lands. The Cerrado, with its enormous biodiversity, is a threatened biome. A person
interviewed who did not want to be identified, gave us a sample of the use that is made of native
charcoal: an Environmental Monitoring Permit (see attached). This Permit, issued by the State
Forestry Institute (IEF) on 25 October 2002, authorised the transportation of 60 metres of native
timber from Curvelo to V&M do Brasil S.A. in Bello Horizonte. This steelworks uses charcoal as a
source of energy for steel production. The use of native charcoal is an extremely serious action, due
to the essential proposal that tree plantations should be renewable sources of timber, precisely to
avoid the felling of native vegetation, in this case the Cerrado. According to some lorry-drivers
interviewed, this practice exists because there is no type of inspection on the highway. We went
from Curvelo to Montes Claros and were able to note the absence of any type of inspection. This
fact is equally serious given the justification made by the company that their plantations help to
conserve the Cerrado, when in fact the company does not comply either with what it disseminates or
with what the Brazilian legislation establishes.
Chapter 05:
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The aim of this report is not to lessen the importance of FSC or of forest certification in general. On
the contrary, this work attempts to help achieve a fundamental objective that FSC has defended
since its creation: to guarantee that consumers who purchases products with the FSC seal, can be
certain that the product they are buying comes from a zone where the forests are managed in a
sustainable way, with social, economic and environmental benefits in the local context where they
are practiced. After having assessed the certification of V&M and Plantar S.A. – in 1998, V&M
with over 235 thousand hectares became the largest company with the FSC seal for forest
plantations in Brazil – we are totally sure that today, in the case of plantations, such certainty does
not exist.
34
We consider that FSC members, who will be the first to receive this report, must examine – of
course basing themselves on other studies and reports – in which cases the certification of forestry
plantations needs to be corrected in order to ensure the seal’s credibility, taking into account the
principles and criteria, but also the procedure adopted at present on certifying organisations and the
way in which they carry out the certification process, a subject that is questioned in this report.
As a contribution to this discussion, we would like the following to be considered:
-
-
regarding local populations and economies, this case study clearly show the enormous contrast
between the social, economic and environmental “poverty” of eucalyptus monoculture
plantations and the social, cultural, economic and environmental “wealth” of managing a natural
forest, in this case the Cerrado. For final consumers, it would be a lack of transparency and
credibility if the product can bear the FSC seal without knowing whether the product they have
bought comes from an “industrial” plantation of exotic species belonging to a mega-company
located in the middle of the Cerrado or from a cooperative of local communities that manages
the Cerrado and its endogenous species in a sustainable way. FSC would increase its credibility
enormously if it were to establish a distinction between the certification of a zone with native
vegetation (a natural forest, savannah, etc.) and a zone with monoculture tree plantations, two
very different things.
The need to establish this distinction is more evident if it is considered that FSC’s first nine
principles and criteria were prepared for the management of native forests and not for the
management of monoculture tree plantations. Principle 10 was prepared to address, specifically,
the situation of plantations, but compliance with the nine first principles is always required. This
report shows that many of the objections to the first ten principles are applicable to all largescale monoculture tree plantations certified by FSC.
-
Let us look at some examples:
- benefits from the forest (Principle 05) are limited to a single one (eucalyptus for a
specific purpose: charcoal, cellulose, etc.), generating conflicts with traditional and
collective use of the native vegetation made by the local communities;
- due to the substitution of native vegetation, the instrumentation of modern monoculture
management never achieves the conservation of biodiversity and its associated values
(Principle 06); on the contrary, it always causes significant impact on the quantity and
qualaity of water, flora and fauna biodiversity and soil protection;
- in the regions where plantations are installed, the economic and social benefits
(Principle 10) of products such as charcoal aimed at steelworks or timber for the
production of cellulose are insignificant if compared with the negative social impacts on
the lives of the workers and the negative socio-economic impacts on the life of local
communities. This is well documented in the publications of many countries where there
are large-scale monoculture tree plantations.
-
the separation of the FSC seal – a new seal only for native forest products and one for tree
plantation products – necessarily demands the preparation of new principles and criteria for
forestry plantations. We believe that the basis for these principles and criteria can only be built
on a wide-ranging debate on what is considered sustainable management in the context of
modern silviculture. This debate leads to another, much more profound discussion: what type of
sustainable society do we want?
35
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as NGO representatives from the environmental, social, indigenous and union areas, we believe
that the new “sustainability” of large-scale tree plantations depends, primarily, on acceptance by
the local communities; necessarily they will be the first to be invited to participate in the
discussion, together with FSC members. Of course, no silviculture system is equal to the
Cerrado biome, extremely rich in environmental, social, cultural and economic services.
Furthermore, we are sure that the present model is very inadequate because it provides
practically no benefit to the local population; on the contrary, it causes negative impacts.
-
we consider that this new model of silviculture must achieve certain diversity in the composition
of tree plantations, that is to say, in the cultivated land and not through “wildlife corridors.”
There is no doubt that the loss of homogeneity in the plantations will reduce the production of
timber, but on the other hand, it will increase the possible social, environmental and economic
benefits, in addition to ensuring a better ecological balance, as shown by agro-ecology. In this
way, it will increase the insertion and adaptation of forestry plantations to the local environment,
not only from an ecological standpoint but also from social, economic and cultural
considerations.
We hope that many members of FSC, consumer groups and company representative will want to
take part in this well advanced discussion, with good results in various areas of agriculture. At the
same time, we know that the market rationale, for example the cellulose market, makes it difficult to
have this type of discussion on a model. Competition only admits discussion if it is to further
increase productivity, without considering any other parameter. However, we believe that it is
necessary to make this effort, although adhesion might be scant to start with, because we would
remind everyone of those who, because of the present model of eucalyptus plantations and other
large scale monocultures:
-
have lost their lands, their collective use land, their sources of survival;
have had accidents or died in activities extracting timber and producing charcoal and have been
poisoned by agrochemicals;
have lost their sources of water and fish;
have lost their employment in the companies
have lost their childhood and their hope of a better life.
Very often, these real impacts are due to the increasing consumption by consumers, mainly from the
countries of the North. This is another challenge for FSC, if we want a truly sustainable future.
We believe that FSC has two paths ahead:
-
-
to continue certifying mega-plantations such as those of V&M and take over a large chunk of
the market although receiving constant complaints that increasingly undermine its
credibility; or
to thoroughly revise its certification policy for forestry plantations and recuperate the
legitimacy that so many people from the North and from the South and even us who have
written this report, are still willing to endorse.
36
Notes:
(1) This survey was made, based on a document prepared by the UFLa (Federal University of
Lavras, 1995), “Survey of Cerrado plant species” showing a total of 249 plants recognised by the
geraizeiros in the north of Minas Gerais.
* Lands that do not have an owner, nor are they of public use, but are not incorporated to the private
domain either (Translator’s note).
* Name given to the region. The word geraizeiros is derived from this name: inhabitants of Os
gerais. (Translator’s note).
(2) This survey was made based on a document prepared by the UFLa (Federal University of
Lavras, 1995), “Survey of Cerrado plant species” showing a total of 249 plants recognised by the
geraizeiros in the north of Minas Gerais.
(3) It is important to note that most of the native species of the Cerrado renew after having been cut.
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MINISTERIO PÚBLICO DE TRABAJO: Fiscalía Regional de Trabajo de la 3 ª Región;
Coordinadora de defensa de los intereses difusos y colectivos – CODIN. Ação Civil Pública
(con pedido de acción preliminar). Bello Horizonte, 03-06-2002.
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RED SABANA DE ORGANIZACIONES NO GUBERNAMENTALES. Carta de Montes
Claros. Montes Claros, 20-06-1999.
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SCIENTIFIC CERTIFYING SYSTEMS (SCS). Sumário Público 01 – Plantar S.A. (Curvelo
– Unise MG-02). Oakland (EUA), March 2001.
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SOCIEDAD GENERAL DE VIGILANCIA (SGS) SILVICULTURA – PROGRAMA
QUALIFOR. Forest Certification Public Summary Report: Mannesman Florestal Ltda.
(MAFLA) (public summaries with reports of the first, second and third monitoring). London,
17-01-1999.
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galeria. Brasilia: Embrapa, 2001.
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Acronyms
Major AC - Major Corrective Action
Minor AC – Minor Corrective Action
AMDA – Association for the Environmental Defense of Minas Gerais (acronym in Portuguese)
PPA – Permanent Preservation Area
CAA – Centre for Alternative Agriculture
CAT – Communication of a Labour-related Accident (acronym in Portugese)
COPAM – State Environmental Policy Council (acronym in Portuguese)
CPI – Parliamentary Investigation Committee (acronym in Portugues)
CPT – Pastoral Land Commission (acronym in Portugese)
DRT- Regional Labour Office (acroym in Portugese)
EIA/RIMA – Environmental Impact Assessment and Report (acronym in Portuguese)
FETAEMG – Minas Gerais Federation of Rural Workers Trade Unions (acronym in Portuguese)
FITIEMG – Minas Gerais Federation of Workers in the Extractive Industry (acronym in Portugese)
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FSC – Forest Stewardship Council
IEF – State Forestry Institute (acronym in Portuguese)
MAFLA – Mannesman Florestal Ltda. (in 2000 it became V&M Florestal Ltda.)
CDM – Clean Development Mechanism
MG – Minas Gerais (State of Brazil)
MPT – Public (Federal) Labour Ministry
ILO – International Labour Organisation
IPESCR
- International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ¿?????
RCA/PCA – Report and Plan for Environmental Monitoring (acronym in Portuguese)
PS – Public Summary Report of certification assessment
SCS – Scientific Certification Systems
SENAR – National Service for Rural Learning (acronym in Portugues)
SGS – General Society for Monitoring (acronym in French)
STR – Rural Workers Union (acronym in Portuguese)
UFLA – Universidad Federal de Lavras
UFMG – Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais
FMU Forestry Management Unit
UNIMONTES – Universidad Estadual de Montes Claros
V&M – Vallourec & Mannesman Florestal Ltda.
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