The organizations denouncing the forestry and cellulose company are CEPEDES, Via Campesina Brazil, Friends of the Earth Brazil, Friends of the Earth Uruguay, the Centre for Environmental Research (CEA), the Biofilia Institute, SEMAPI and SIndBancarios unions, CIMI, the Agroecological Centre do Extremo Sul Da Bahia, and the World Rainforest Movement (WRM).

These organizations are denouncing that Stora Enso has not complied with labour regulations of Bahia State, Brazil, and that the company was involved in bribes to different authorities.

In Rio Grande do Sul, the company is accused of buying border lands in an illegitimate way, and of trying to influence regulations to acquire lands in areas currently prohibited to foreign companies.

In Uruguay, the expansion of Stora Enso through the creation of a consortium with Chilean company Arauco has caused land ownership concentration, damaging food sovereignty and generating a source of conflict.

According to the organizations, these activities have been supported by the European Union and also by Brazil, Sweden and Finland, which are giving priority to the interests of companies instead of social and environmental justice issues”.

As a result of the activity of Stora Enso, “peasant and indigenous groups and communities are forced to accept an economic development model based on tree monoculture plantations, that does not respect their rights and ways of living and that rejects any alternative to the current capitalist system.”

Photo: Ruben G. Herrera