MST Occupies the Area of Veracel in Southern Bahia

By Silvia Adoui From São Paulo, Brazil, NP Radioagencia Week of April 14 The Fazenda Puntumujú, in the extreme south of Bahia, was occupied by the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). Around 1.5 thousand families came, the morning of Wednesday, June 8, at the ranch belonging to the transnational company Veracel Cellulose, arguing that the monoculture of eucalyptus practiced by the company was illegal on the State land in the region. According to the MST, such land should be allocated for land reform. The demonstrators cleared more than twenty hectares of eucalyptus in the fazenda. The movement claims that in the months of June of last year, the Federal Justice ordered Veracel to restore the land, with native vegetation, in all areas covered by their licenses for the planting of eucalyptus released between the years 1993 and 1996. This means that the company should replace 96 thousand hectares of eucalyptus trees with the Atlantic vegetation. Veracel announced that the resort to the decision. The transnational company is one that belongs to two of the largest pulp and paper in the world: the Swiss-Finnish company Stora Enso and Aracruz Celulose. Currently it has around 205 thousand hectares of land in the extreme south of Bahia and produces about nine tons of pulp per year. Most of the pulp is exported