Perfectly aligned rows of genetically identical trees flank the Baixa Verde community in north-eastern Brazil. The uniform trees stand in stark contrast to the patches of native Atlantic woodland, among the planet’s richest biological habitats globally.
Surrounded by nearly 100,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations, Baixa Verde represents a rare local victory over a multinational in Brazil. This agricultural community owes its existence due to nearly two decades of court disputes over land rights – yet the conflict continues.
Following struggles to retain their land, the households now face an unparalleled safety emergency characterized by violent encounters, fire attacks and threats on their lives, part of a wave of violence stemming from a land dispute that has intensified since 2024.
Disputes over land rights have historically been an problem in the region. Securing land deeds is commonly deemed to legitimise land grabs from traditional communities, and residents had believed that a pulp-production company was planting eucalyptus trees on government property.
In 2008, a founding member of the Baixa Verde settlement and another community member visited government archives to inspect official papers. They discovered the document that proved the 3,200 acres in dispute were owned by the government. “We were certain that it was state property,” says the community leader.
With the document in hand, they organized 91 local families and joined the Landless Workers Movement, a political and social organisation advocating for agrarian reform. Their initial step was to occupy an area of a tree farm operated by the corporation, accusing the company of using public land.
Following two years after the initial takeover, the organization won state recognition that the company did not have legal title to the property section cultivated by the company. “This document was a triumph not just for the local land rights movement but for all the civil society groups of the country,” says a community member who was raised in the settlement and is now a key organizer of the movement.
After years of obstacles and court fights, the Bahia state government reached a settlement with the corporation and the movement in 2016, returning 1,300 hectares of company land to the public domain and giving each household a parcel sufficiently sized to cultivate their crops. Of the sixty-one households staying, fifty-three have relocated into their assigned lands.
“Securing entitlement to the property means that we now have a space to care for our youngest ones,” says the community leader.
Although forfeiting the property, a corporate spokesperson maintains that the company has always functioned with “transparency, social and environmental responsibility” and respect for the local population. “The corporation has never been convicted of land grabbing and restates that its production areas are lawfully governed and function with the necessary ecological licenses.”
However, in the time following the agreement, the families say they have experienced life-threatening warnings, gunfire, burned homes, taken crops and destroyed fields.
According to the organization, the conflict now centres on property parcels that remain occupied by farmers associated with the local union. When it was facing loss of control of the disputed property, the company donated 740 adjacent acres to the labor group – a donation confirmed by the organization’s directors.
“We face significant harassment happening around here. Our shelters have been set on fire, as well as our sugarcane fields.”
During the last four years, six organizers of the movement have been placed under protective watch by the national defense system for rights activists, journalists and ecology advocates. The government has recommended that some of these leaders move away, but due to dedication to the movement and bond to their fought-for property, they have declined.
Because of the death threats he has obtained, one founder says he has difficulty resting at night. “I feel genuinely fearful that an incident may occur to my family,” he says.
The organization states that eight families do not feel sufficiently secure to farm their lands, which remain occupied by farmers allegedly associated with the company.
The corporation says that over the past 15 years, it has designated “more than 20,000 hectares to land redistribution programs, whether through judicial agreements, contributions to the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform, gifts, or direct sales, to settle persistent disputes in the region.”
The firm also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to parceling and lot definition – was conducted entirely by the state government, without interference from the company”, and “declines to discuss disputes among activist groups”.
One resident is among the two individuals who still live in the original settlement. She says she has been harassed by armed men who surrounded her house and shot at the ground. Since no one lives nearby, the resident – who lives alone – believes the gunfire were intended to threaten her out of reclaiming her assigned plot.
In August, the state of Bahia authorised the removal of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has yet to be enforced.
Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Emerald Wasteland’
In addition to protecting against danger and aggression, transforming properties previously utilized for single-crop eucalyptus farming into agricultural cultivation is now the primary difficulty for the Baixa Verde communities. Tree cultivation is dominated by major international corporations that, since the 1960s, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into monoculture plantations, driven by international market needs.
The country is the world’s largest producer of the tree species, a fast-growing, thirsty crop, whose fiber is shipped abroad to make cardboard and paper products. Most of the country’s tree fiber is shipped to European nations, where it is utilized for creating paper products often promoted as a sustainable substitute to plastics – despite the environmental damage caused by single-crop farming.
Within Bahia state, the proliferation of these farms has received the regional nickname “emerald wasteland”, due to the disappearance of native species and the critical lack of water and land experienced by households residing close to commercial tree farms.
A settlement founder was raised in the area and remembers the river before the region was changed by eucalyptus monoculture. “We previously traversed it in a canoe. It was full,” he says. “Following corporate establishment, it dried up.” He attributes the water scarcity to the corporation’s appearance in 1991.
The company says it “implements a varied management approach, in which trees are grown in plateau areas, while valleys, springs and native vegetation are preserved. This model ensures soil protection, animal habitat preservation and the sustenance of aquatic supplies.” The firm also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of micro-basins in its area of operation” and “creates tree-planting and woodland renewal initiatives in areas near communities”.
In the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais state, the tree cultivation area of Turmalina municipality has seen its aquifer depth decrease by 15 feet over the previous four decades, per scientific studies at the state university.
Plant life in single-crop tree farms absorbs 26% of rainfall to replenish aquifer reserves – versus a half of rainfall intake linked to native forest. Three-quarters of agricultural households surveyed in Minas Gerais reported their crops being affected by the scarcity.
The cultivation of eucalyptus also poses an increased risk of forest fire. Farms are highly combustible that Chile rejected the species as a practical environmental answer after a series of large wildfires in its national farms.
Notwithstanding ecological dangers, eucalyptus plantations continue to play a significant role in the emissions trading system, with plants being marketed as carbon credits to petroleum companies to offset their emissions. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {
