We’ve all heard about the deforestation of the Amazon, but what’s it like to be caught between the loggers and the people living in the forests? Mauricio Torres is employed by the Brazilian government to monitor this front line. He tells Adrian Barnett how he has come up against corruption and violent aggression – and how his faith lies with the rural poor, who have nothing to lose but the trees
What do you do?
I am a human geographer. My particular interest is in the transformations that occur in the lives of the rural people of the when outside forces arrive. These changes are often called “development” or “progress” by the government and the companies involved, but not often by the people they affect.
Who do you work with?
Sometimes with indigenous peoples, but primarily with what a traditional sociologist would call the rural poor. These are known as caboclos, beiradeiros or ribeirinhos. They generally live along the sides of rivers and have an economy based on small-scale agriculture and extraction of forest products. Only rarely do they have titles to the land or official documents such as birth certificates. Many cannot write or read.
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How does commercial logging affect the rural poor?
Indiscriminate and illegal logging, which is how more than 90 per cent of timber is currently obtained in Brazil, has a devastating effect. Roads made to extract timber provide access for grileiros – land speculators who specialise in fake land claims. The land is then sold to commercial interests, or to small farmers from outside the region. Both the original inhabitants of the area and the forest lose out.
Do these land grabs provoke social conflict?
Yes, for example in a region called Prainha on the Uruará river in Pará, which I recently investigated. Eighteen small communities live in this municipality, made up of about 2000 families. They make boats from the local wood. That is their economy. They have done so in the region for a long time – at least five generations. In each community a person called the mestre de obras decides which trees should be cut down and when. After all this time, the forests around their communities still have large trees, so their system is obviously sustainable.
Did outside forces arrive in the area?
In 2004, information started emerging that a consortium of logging companies had been given title to the Prainha region and were now exploiting it in a very abusive way. I mean this both socially and environmentally. They were called “the consortium” because we never worked out their legal status. The most economical way for the companies to obtain the wood was to get local people to extract it, with the promise of a school, perhaps a medical post in return. If that did not work then the people were threatened. As the people had no legal title to the land, they could be forced from it, even if their families had lived there for generations. The consortium argued that they had rights to the land and the wood that was on it. This was technically legal. The consortium had the backing of Pará’s military police, who are responsible for public order.
How did you get involved?
My previous work was on the sociology of environmental conflicts, so the Ministério Público Federal (the Brazilian government) asked me to visit the area as an official government observer.
What happened between the communities and the logging companies?
It was like the Wild West – one of those films where the bad guys control the town. Some communities had already submitted and had lost everything. The promised schools and health posts never arrived, and their forests were devastated. They had lost their livelihoods. Though their situation was terrible, it was difficult for them to criticise the actions of the logging companies because they had become economically dependent on them. Seeing what had happened to these places, other communities refused to be bought. They were protesting vigorously and the consortium was replying with violence. The military police were aggressive to me too. I was videotaping everything, documenting the situation for the government. I gave my tapes and notes to villagers, who hid them for me. I was even arrested.
“It was like a Wild West film – where the bad guys control the town”
Why is the wood so important?
The loss of African and Asian hardwood stocks is putting great pressure on the wood stocks of the Amazon. In response, the Brazilian national government has ceded control of these valuable resources to foreign-based companies, who export most of the wood. There are cases in the region where wood taken under similar circumstances to those at Prainha has got a green seal, awarded by the government for ecological validation, in part because – this is so wry – it was extracted by local people.
This industry is filled with similar ironies. In 2007, for instance, a city in Pará called Santarém hosted the International Tropical Timber Forum, which included a visit to a “model” sawmill. The owner had been arrested in 2004 for being part of a group selling false land ownership titles, and his timber company was one of those fined in 2007 for environmental infringements. I asked, “If this is a model sawmill, what are the others like?” but no one answered.
Is the situation at Prainha unusual?
The abuse of local people and attempts to rob them of their land is so common that the phrase “banalisation of evil” comes to mind.
Isn’t your work dangerous?
I am reasonably well known and I don’t think anyone would risk harming me. Put cynically, it might be bad for business.
What motivates you to leave your university office to visit these remote places, where violent confrontations are common?
I don’t see my work as a personal sacrifice or as some kind of humanitarian action. I believe that if you are studying human geography in such places, then being there when these things happen is an academic obligation. You cannot just sit back and theorise.
I do not believe that you can have effective conservation of the forests unless the local people who work the land are in agreement. The survival of these people depends on the perpetuation of a healthy forest. They don’t see the forest like the government or companies do. In their reference of cultural values, the forest is a place to live in and to leave for the next generation. The companies and government have a more primitive view – the forest is a place to exploit and then leave for the next productive place. Those already living there are regarded as an impediment. The recognition of the land rights of the forest people offers the only viable option for deterring deforestation.
This runs counter to the view of forest-living people as the driver of rainforest destruction.
The idea that the caboclo way of life is environmentally destructive is not supported by my research. Communities have often been there for generations, living sustainably. To deny their achievements is a convenient lie – one that allows large companies and their government vassals to justify land grabs.
Do you have hope for the future?
My hope rests with the great force for resistance that is represented by the existing forest peoples. I believe that valuing and respecting these peoples’ way of exploiting the forests will be key, both conceptually and economically. Because a person has no shoes does not mean they have no brains. Their sustainable techniques contrast hugely with those of rapacious outsiders who cannot see the forest as anything more than a deposit of primary goods, a stock of wood. In these people I believe and for this cause I will work.
Profile
Mauricio Torres is a researcher at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where he studied for his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences. He has published widely on land conflict and the impact of development programmes on indigenous and rural populations in the Brazilian Amazon