A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

offsets – the fossil economy’s new arena of conflict 311a former cattle-raising farm which did not provide more than 20 jobs.In the same area, we currently have almost 300 permanent employees.In Curvelo, Plantar provides more than 1000 direct jobs, not to mentionindirect ones. Plantar has not caused massive job layoffs and hassignificantly expanded due to forestry management services providedto third parties.Locals: The 4.5 per cent figure doesn’t include other companies’eucalyptus plantations in Curvelo, including those of Cossisa andVallourec & Mannesmann Florestal (a company that is also tryingto get carbon credits for maintaining a plantation operation that hasdisplaced local people). In any case, knowing that Plantar has covered4.5 per cent of the municipality with eucalyptus does not changethe plantations’ impacts on the lives of people nearby. Plantar’s comparisonbetween the 20 workers on a former cattle ranch and the 300workers working there now is misleading. No local people were infact hired. Unemployment in Felixlândia in fact increased. In addition,while eucalyptus plantations may provide employment duringthe first two years – in preparation of the land, planting, pesticide applicationor irrigation – they provide very little work during the subsequentfive years before cutting.It’s true that local people do not use cerrado areas under Plantar’s controlfor fruit collection. These areas are very small and offer little. Butlocal communities have suffered from Plantar’s restrictions on theirtradition of letting their cows graze freely. Plantar has put cattle infenced areas or taken them away to another area without informingthe owner. This has led to cases of lost cattle. Land reform and smallscaleagriculture are the only ways of creating a future for the Brazilianrural population. Tree plantations only worsen the un equal distributionof land in the country. In Espirito Santo, eucalyptus plantationsexpelled thousands and thousands of people into the poor neighbourhoodsof urban centres and an uncertain future. Turning overthe 23,100 hectares of the Plantar project to small-scale diversifiedand ecological agriculture would create at least 23,100 more humanfriendlyjobs, with salaries at least four times higher than those of themajority of Plantar workers, according to the concrete experience ofthe local Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (Movement of SmallPeasants). The Movement is also developing an alternative reforestationproject, using not eucalyptus but tree species with multiple usesand local environmental value.