Pulp Factions: Uruguay’s Environmentalists v. Big Paper by Raúl Pierri, Special to CorpWatch January 16th, 2006

cartoon by Khalil Bendib Christmas Eve 2002, Alfredo Bazzini went to draw water from the family well in Las Flores, a small farming town in western Uruguay. What he found was that the water his family depended on for drinking, cooking, washing, and farming had dried up. "It wasn’t only my well that didn’t have any water, all of the wells in town, even the deepest, were empty, and nobody knew what to do," Bazzini recalls. For the residents of Las Flores in the department (province) of Paysandú, this was the climax to a desperate story that began some two years earlier, when the water level in local wells dropped by up to 60 percent. And kept dropping. "When it rained the wells filled up almost to the top, but then the water level would drop to even lower than it had been before," said Bazzini. With no way to bring water in from outside, townspeople watched helplessly as their watermelons and peanuts -- the mainstay crops of the local economy -- began to dry up, too. Eucalyptus as Far as the Eye Can See The culprit, it turns out, is the Eucalyptus tree, or rather the large-scale plantations run by international corporations that are spreading across Uruguay. The tree farms are heavily fertilized by tax subsidies from the federal government and aid from such international financial institutions as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. Las Flores lies just three kilometers east of Piedras Coloradas, the main town in a region that has been afflicted by a growing water shortage since becoming a favored location for this lucrative new crop. Other settlements in the region are also suffering the impact of eucalyptus plantations. The forestry companies are buying up more and more land and the eucalyptus forests are now spreading up to the very doors of the small towns and villages," commented fruit grower David Kertesz. That is what happened at Las Flores. "At first the plantations were far away, but little by little they kept moving closer," Bazzini reported. "When they reached to just a few meters out of town, the water ran out and the land died." "That Christmas Eve we hit rock bottom," Bazzini recounted. "The little water left was gone, and it never came back." The 40 local families who lived off the land were forced to leave everything behind and move away. Only five houses remained occupied. Today, Las Flores is known as Pueblo Seco, "Dry Town." The phenomenon is being repeated throughout the plantation region. Downstream from the San Francisco creek near Piedras Coloradas, local residents no longer have enough water to raise cattle. Nearby, in the village of Colonia 19 de Abril, 25 to 30 meter wells have dried up, and so has most of the surrounding marshland, said Augusto Sande, a farm produce transporter. Now, "to find water you have to dig a well at least 60 meters deep, which costs $4,000, and almost none of the farmers have that kind of money," remarked Sande. Native to Australia, the eucalyptus is ideal for pulpwood production: It grows quickly and is accomplished at scavenging large amounts of water at the expense of other plants. Foreign-owned large-scale plantations of the fragrant trees now occupy more than 700,000 hectares (2,700 square miles) in Uruguay, estimates María Selva Ortiz of the REDES- member of the Friends of the Earth non-governmental environmental network. Botnia of Finland has planted trees on 60,000 hectares (232 square miles) of prime land, while ENCE of Spain already owns 50,000 hectares (183 square miles) and plans to purchase even more, according to Ricardo Carrere, spokesperson for local environmental group Guayabira. But some in the halls of government, the ivory tower, and on the ground question the development. Uruguayan Agriculture Minister José Mujica has publicly called for limiting monoculture tree plantations, to prevent further degradation of the soil and exhaustion of the country’s water supply. Máximo D’Atri, an independent researcher notes that "In all of the locations where there is eucalyptus monoculture forestry, the water supply is running out, and in the areas near these forests, the arable land has suffered irreversible deterioration." And two farm workers who have watched the deterioration first-hand agree. "The more eucalyptus trees they plant, the less water we have. Things are going from bad to worse," said Aníbal Sosa and Mario Díaz Suarez. Pulp Culture The mills will alter not only the environment of the region, but will radically change the culture. Fray Bentos is now a quiet, unassuming urban landscape where practically the only nod to modernity today is an eight-storey building across from centuries-old Artigas Square, the geographical center of the city. It is proud of having few serious social problems and one of the country’s highest life expectancy. The pulp industry "can inject a lot of money into the city and boost business undertakings of every kind," says investment advisor Aldo Manfrini. Already, there is talk of major real estate projects that include a luxury hotel, three shopping malls, two parking lots, two superstores and a privately owned casino, all in the heart of a city currently characterized by narrow tree-lined streets almost free of traffic and quaint single-storey homes. Manfrini commented that some of these projects, including the hotel and casino, "go hand in hand with the needs that will be created by the influx of industrialists and company executives and officials, both foreign and Uruguayan, who will come to Fray Bentos regularly when the mills are in operation." Manfrini admits that the mills will not provide jobs for a very large number of the city’s inhabitants. "But the industrial activity will indirectly bring major benefits for everyone in Fray Bentos," he maintained. A private school and top-rate private hospital are under consideration to serve a new social sector with considerable buying power: the technicians, managers, administrative directors and other specialized personnel that Botnia and ENCE will transfer to Fray Bentos power. Supporters cite the boost that all this activity will give the local economy and envisage a significant upgrade to the region’s transportation system of bridges, highways, and private ports linking the mills to domestic and international commerce. Opponents warn of the potential environmental impact of the pulp mills as well as the negative impact of pollution on tourism, fishing and other activities that currently employ thousands of local residents today. In Las Canteras, one of the city’s most humble neighborhoods, two kilometers away from the city center, Manuel Burgos, 37, an unemployed father of four, is worried. "It’s like being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea," he explains. "You get your hopes up about the opportunities for a better life that could be opened up by the pulp industry, but at the same time you’re afraid that in the end it won’t be like they promised, and that in addition, they won’t be able to control the pollution," Julia Méndez, who is 22, single, a student, and also unemployed, shares Burgos’ doubts, but adds that in any case, it is a risk that has to be taken, because "there are no other prospects in sight in this city." Dionisio Cabral Vitale, a 72-year-old retired fisherman, proposes that the matter should be resolved through a large assembly of the city’s residents, even if the discussions take weeks or months. "Me and a lot of other people are against the mills and especially against the eucalyptus forests, which are taking the water away from 120 families of farmers right here, who would already be finished if the local government didn’t bring them water in tanker trucks. But there are also people in favor of the mills, because they claim there will be more jobs. So I believe that we need to all meet together to reach a decision and tell the government yes or no, because the government never consulted us," he declared. "Trees for pulp production have taken over land formerly used to grow wheat, barley, sunflowers and linseed," said Carrere, who is also the coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM). A large percentage of that land used to belong to small and medium-sized farmers who were driven under by the economic crisis that hit the country between 2000 and 2003. "These farmers, left without capital or any kind of government support, sold their fields to the corporations, and at very low prices," reported Mercedes Borrás, who served as the legal representative of one of the many families strangled by the debts they incurred during the crisis.