This is being done in a tract of land owned by transnational corporation Veracel Celulose.

Nearly 1500 families of the MST have been occupying this land since early April.

Besides cutting down trees, the landless peasants demand the government to regularize the situation of their families, who advocate for an agroecological model of production, based on an integral agrarian reform.

They claim the implementation of such a reform in the Brazilian rural areas is urgent.

However, the current conditions of land occupation are very poor. The landless peasants do not have the proper infrastructure to settle there.

One of the point persons of the MST in Bahia, complained of how Fast the government finds solutions for corporations like Veracel, while it takes long to answer to basic demands of the population.

They base their demand on a promise made by the government of Bahia state, when it was inaugurated in 2007, of building housing for 5,000 landless people and nearly 1,200 kilometers of road building to improve access to the camp sites.

In this conflicting zone, near the city of Eunapolis there is a record of negative court rulings against Veracel. In mid 2008, a federal court ordered Veracel Celulose to restore areas with vegetation of the Atlantic Forest, which had been afforested between 1993 and 1996.

The MST in Bahia has blockaded roads and occupied public offices several times to expose the impacts caused by the Corporation in the region.

Veracel Celulose’s stocks are owned, in equal shares, by two of the world’s main pulp producers, Stora-Enso and Aracruz.

Only in the South of Bahia state, there are nearly 205,000 hectares of land destined to eucalyptus plantations, the MST website reports.