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Perfectly aligned lines of genetically identical trees surround the Baixa Verde settlement in north-eastern Brazil. The identical trees present a sharp difference to the patches of native Atlantic woodland, among the planet’s richest biological habitats globally.

Bordered by nearly 100,000 hectares of commercial eucalyptus groves, Baixa Verde exemplifies a uncommon community triumph over a multinational in Brazil. The rural settlement owes its existence due to almost twenty years of legal battles over property claims – yet the conflict continues.

After fighting to retain their land, the households now confront an unprecedented security crisis characterized by violent encounters, arson and threats on their lives, within a surge of aggression stemming from a territorial conflict that has intensified since 2024.

Conflicts over property ownership have long been an problem in the area. Obtaining property titles is commonly deemed to validate illegal land seizures from indigenous populations, and residents had suspected that a wood-pulp manufacturer was planting eucalyptus trees on public land.

During 2008, one of the founders of the Baixa Verde settlement and a local activist visited government archives to review public documents. They found the page that demonstrated the 3,200 acres in contention were owned by the government. “We always knew that it was state property,” says the founder.

With the document in hand, they assembled ninety-one area households and aligned with the Landless Workers Movement, a political and social organisation advocating for agrarian reform. Their initial step was to take over a section of a eucalyptus plantation used by the corporation, alleging the firm of utilizing government property.

Two years after the initial takeover, the organization won state recognition that the company did not have legal title to the parcel of land cultivated by the firm. “This ruling was a victory not just for the local land rights movement but for all the social movements of the country,” says a settlement resident who was raised in the settlement and is now a key organizer of the movement.

After years of roadblocks and legal battles, the state of Bahia reached a settlement with the company and the movement in 2016, returning 3,200 acres of corporate property to the public domain and giving each family a plot sufficiently sized to grow their own food. Of the 61 families remaining, fifty-three have relocated into their new plots.

“Winning a right to the land means that we now have a place to care for our children,” says the settlement representative.

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Although forfeiting the property, a company representative maintains that the company has always operated with “transparency, social and environmental responsibility” and consideration for the area residents. “The company has never been found guilty of land grabbing and restates that its production areas are legally regulated and function with the required environmental permits.”

However, in the years since the agreement, the families say they have experienced life-threatening warnings, gunfire, burned homes, taken crops and ruined farmland.

According to the movement, the conflict now focuses on property parcels that remain occupied by farmers affiliated with the regional labor organization. When it was about to lose control of the disputed property, the company donated 740 adjacent acres to the union – a donation verified by the union’s leadership.

“There is a lot of persecution occurring in this area. Our shelters have been set on fire, as well as our cane plantations.”

During the last four years, six leaders of the organization have been assigned protective monitoring by the national defense system for rights activists, communicators and environmentalists. The authorities has suggested that some of these leaders move away, but out of loyalty to the cause and connection with their fought-for property, they have refused.

Because of the death threats he has obtained, a community pioneer says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I feel genuinely fearful that something is going to happen to my household,” he says.

The movement claims that eight families do not feel sufficiently secure to farm their lands, which remain inhabited by farmers reportedly connected to the corporation.

The company says that during the previous fifteen years, it has allocated “over 49,000 acres to agrarian reform initiatives, whether through judicial agreements, contributions to the federal land reform agency, gifts, or straight purchases, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the territory.”

The firm also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to subdivision and lot definition – was managed completely by the regional authorities, without interference from the corporation”, and “does not comment on disputes among activist groups”.

One resident is one of the two people who still live in the original settlement. She says she has been intimidated by armed men who surrounded her house and fired weapons nearby. Since no one lives nearby, the woman – who lives alone – believes the gunfire were meant to intimidate her out of reclaiming her assigned plot.

In August, the Bahia state government authorised the removal of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the decision has not been implemented.

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Environmental Challenges and the ‘Emerald Wasteland’

Besides defending against danger and aggression, transforming properties previously utilized for eucalyptus monoculture into food production is now the primary difficulty for the settlement residents. Tree cultivation is dominated by large multinationals that, from the 1960s onward, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into single-crop farms, driven by international market needs.

The country is the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus, a fast-growing, water-intensive plant, whose pulp is shipped abroad to make cardboard and paper products. Most of the country’s eucalyptus pulp is exported to Europe, where it is utilized for creating stationery items often promoted as a sustainable substitute to plastics – despite the environmental damage resulting from single-crop farming.

In Bahia, the expansion of these farms has received the regional nickname “emerald wasteland”, due to the disappearance of native species and the severe shortage of resources and territory experienced by households residing close to commercial tree farms.

A settlement founder grew up in the region and recalls the waterway before the area was transformed by eucalyptus monoculture. “We previously traversed it in a canoe. It was abundant,” he says. “After the company arrived, it dried up.” He attributes the water scarcity to the corporation’s appearance in 1991.

The company says it “implements a varied management approach, in which eucalyptus is cultivated in plateau areas, while lowlands, water sources and indigenous plants are preserved. This system guarantees ground conservation, animal habitat preservation and the sustenance of aquatic supplies.” The firm also says it “performs ongoing observation of micro-basins 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 municipality has seen its aquifer depth decrease by 4.5 metres over the previous four decades, per scientific studies at the state university.

Plant life in single-crop tree farms takes in just over a quarter of precipitation to restore groundwater levels – compared with a half of rainfall intake linked to indigenous woodland. Three-quarters of farming families interviewed in Minas Gerais reported their crops being affected by the shortage.

The cultivation of eucalyptus also poses an increased risk of forest fire. Plantations are so flammable that Chile rejected the species as a viable climate solution after a succession of major blazes in its domestic plantations.

Despite the environmental risks, eucalyptus plantations continue to have an important function in the emissions trading system, with trees being sold as emission offsets to petroleum companies to counterbalance their pollution. Although facing resistance from activists, in {