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Razor-straight lines of eucalyptus clones flank the Baixa Verde community in Brazil’s northeast. The uniform trees present a sharp difference to the remnants of wild Atlantic forest, among the planet’s richest biological habitats globally.

Surrounded by close to 247,000 acres of eucalyptus plantations, Baixa Verde represents a rare community triumph over a international corporation in Brazil. This agricultural community owes its existence due to nearly two decades of court disputes over property claims – yet the conflict continues.

Following struggles to keep their territory, the families now face an unprecedented security crisis characterized by armed clashes, arson and threats on their lives, part of a wave of violence stemming from a land dispute that has escalated since 2024.

Disputes over property ownership have historically been an problem in the region. Obtaining property titles is often considered to validate illegal land seizures from indigenous populations, and residents had believed that a wood-pulp manufacturer was planting eucalyptus trees on public land.

During 2008, a founding member of the Baixa Verde settlement and another community member examined public records to review public documents. They found the page that proved the 1,300 hectares in dispute were publicly owned. “We always knew that it was state property,” says the founder.

Armed with this evidence, they organized ninety-one area households and joined the Landless Workers Movement, a social and political group fighting for agrarian reform. Its first action was to occupy an area of a tree farm operated by the company, alleging the firm of utilizing government property.

Two years after the initial takeover, the movement won state recognition that the corporation did not legally own the parcel of land cultivated by the company. “This document was a triumph not just for the community property campaign but for all the civil society groups of Brazil,” says a community member who was raised in the settlement and is now one of the leaders of the movement.

Following many years of roadblocks and court fights, the Bahia state government reached a settlement with the company and the movement in 2016, restoring 3,200 acres of company land to the government and providing each family a parcel large enough to cultivate their crops. Of the sixty-one households staying, fifty-three have relocated into their assigned lands.

“Winning a right to the land means that we now have a space to look after our children,” says the settlement representative.

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Although forfeiting the property, a company representative asserts that the firm has always operated with “transparency, community and ecological accountability” and respect for the area residents. “The corporation has never been found guilty of illegal land acquisition and restates that its operational zones are lawfully governed and operate with the necessary ecological licenses.”

However, in the years since the settlement, the households say they have encountered death threats, shooting incidents, burned homes, stolen produce and destroyed fields.

According to the organization, the conflict now focuses on plots of land that remain occupied by agricultural workers associated with the regional labor organization. When it was about to lose control of the disputed property, the company gave 300 nearby hectares to the union – a donation verified by the union’s leadership.

“We face significant harassment occurring in this area. Our tents have been set on fire, as well as our sugarcane fields.”

During the last four years, six leaders of the movement have been assigned protective monitoring by Brazil’s protection programme for human rights defenders, journalists and environmentalists. The authorities has recommended that certain organizers move away, but out of loyalty to the cause and bond to their fought-for property, they have refused.

Due to the life-threatening messages he has received, one founder says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I am really scared that something is going to happen to my family,” he says.

The organization states that eight households do not feel safe enough to farm their lands, which remain occupied by agricultural workers reportedly connected to the corporation.

The company says that during the previous fifteen years, it has allocated “over 49,000 acres to land redistribution programs, whether through judicial agreements, donations to the federal land reform agency, gifts, or straight purchases, to settle persistent disputes in the territory.”

The firm also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to subdivision and plot allocation – was managed completely by the state government, without interference from the company”, and “does not comment on conflicts between social movements”.

One resident is one of the two people who still live in the old encampment. She says she has been intimidated by weapon-carrying individuals who encircled her home and fired weapons nearby. Because no one lives nearby, the resident – who lives alone – thinks the gunshots were meant to intimidate her out of reclaiming her assigned plot.

During August, the state of Bahia approved the eviction of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on Baixa Verde lots – but the ruling has yet to be enforced.

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Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Green Desert’

In addition to protecting against threats and violence, converting lands previously utilized for single-crop eucalyptus farming into agricultural cultivation is now the primary difficulty for the Baixa Verde communities. Eucalyptus production is dominated by large multinationals that, from the 1960s onward, have been converting farmland and forest into monoculture plantations, driven by international market needs.

The country is the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus, a fast-growing, thirsty crop, whose fiber is exported to make packaging materials and paper products. The majority of the nation’s tree fiber is exported to Europe, where it is used to make stationery items often promoted as a sustainable substitute to synthetic materials – despite the environmental damage resulting from monoculture.

Within Bahia state, the expansion of these farms has earned the local moniker “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.

One community leader grew up in the region and remembers the river before the area was transformed by single-crop tree farming. “We previously traversed it in a canoe. It was abundant,” he says. “After the company arrived, it disappeared.” He attributes the water scarcity to the company’s arrival in 1991.

The corporation says it “adopts a mosaic management system, in which eucalyptus is cultivated in elevated regions, while lowlands, water sources and indigenous plants are protected. This model guarantees ground conservation, wildlife conservation and the maintenance of water resources.” The company also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of small watersheds in its operational zone” and “develops reforestation and forest restoration projects in areas near communities”.

In the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina has seen its groundwater level decrease by 15 feet over the past 45 years, per scientific studies at the state university.

Vegetation under eucalyptus monoculture takes in just over a quarter of precipitation to replenish aquifer reserves – versus a 50% level of absorption associated with indigenous woodland. Three-quarters of agricultural households interviewed in Minas Gerais reported their harvests suffering by the shortage.

The growing of the tree species also presents a heightened danger of wildfire. Farms are highly combustible that Chile rejected the species as a practical environmental answer after a succession of major blazes in its national farms.

Notwithstanding ecological dangers, commercial tree farms continue to have an important function in the carbon market, with plants being marketed as carbon credits to petroleum companies to offset their emissions. Although facing resistance from activists, in {