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Razor-straight lines of genetically identical trees surround the Baixa Verde settlement in Brazil’s northeast. The uniform trees present a sharp difference to the remnants of wild Atlantic forest, one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems globally.

Bordered by nearly 100,000 hectares of commercial eucalyptus groves, Baixa Verde represents a uncommon local victory over a multinational in Brazil. The rural settlement owes its existence due to almost twenty years of legal battles over land rights – but the fight is not over yet.

Following struggles to retain their land, the households now face an unparalleled safety emergency marked by armed clashes, fire attacks and threats on their lives, part of a wave of violence stemming from a land dispute that has intensified since 2024.

Disputes over property ownership have historically been an issue in the area. Obtaining property titles is often considered to legitimise land grabs from traditional communities, 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 another community member examined public records to inspect official papers. 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 community leader.

Armed with this evidence, they assembled ninety-one area households and joined the Movement of Landless Workers, a political and social organisation advocating 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.

Following two years after the initial takeover, the organization secured official acknowledgment that the company did not legally own the parcel of land planted by the firm. “This ruling was a victory not just for the community property campaign but for all the social movements of the country,” says a community member who was raised in the settlement and is now a key organizer of the movement.

Following many years of roadblocks and legal battles, the state of Bahia signed an agreement with the corporation and the movement in 2016, restoring 1,300 hectares of company land to the public domain and providing each household a parcel large enough to grow their own food. Of the 61 families remaining, 53 have moved into their assigned lands.

“Securing entitlement to the land means that we now have a space to look after our children,” says the community leader.

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Although forfeiting the property, a company representative asserts that the company has always operated with “openness, community and ecological accountability” and respect for the area residents. “The company has never been convicted of illegal land acquisition and reaffirms that its operational zones are lawfully governed and function with the required environmental permits.”

Yet, in the years since the agreement, the households say they have experienced death threats, shooting incidents, destroyed residences, stolen produce and destroyed fields.

Per information from the organization, the conflict now centres on property parcels that remain occupied by agricultural workers 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 contribution confirmed by the union’s leadership.

“There is a lot of persecution happening around here. Our shelters have been burned down, as well as our sugarcane fields.”

Over the past four years, six leaders of the movement have been assigned protective monitoring by the national defense system for rights activists, journalists and ecology advocates. The government has suggested that certain organizers relocate, but out of loyalty to the cause and connection with their fought-for property, they have refused.

Due to the life-threatening messages he has received, a community pioneer says he has difficulty resting at night. “I am really scared that something is going to happen to my household,” he says.

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

The corporation says that during the previous fifteen years, it has designated “more than 20,000 hectares to land redistribution programs, whether through judicial agreements, donations to the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform, gifts, or direct sales, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the territory.”

The firm also says “the creation of the settlements – from planning to parceling and lot definition – was conducted entirely by the state government, without involvement from the company”, and “does not comment on conflicts between social movements”.

One resident is one of the two people who still reside in the old encampment. She says she has been intimidated by armed men who surrounded her house and shot at the ground. Since no one lives nearby, the woman – who lives alone – believes the gunfire were meant to intimidate her out of reclaiming her assigned plot.

During August, the Bahia state government authorised the removal of labor group-associated agricultural workers who remain on settlement properties – but the ruling has yet to be enforced.

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Ecological Obstacles and the ‘Green Desert’

Besides defending against threats and violence, converting lands once used for single-crop eucalyptus farming into agricultural cultivation is now the primary difficulty for the Baixa Verde communities. Eucalyptus production is dominated by major international corporations that, from the 1960s onward, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into single-crop farms, driven by global demand.

Brazil is the global leading grower of the tree species, 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 shipped to European nations, where it is utilized for creating paper products often promoted as a renewable alternative to synthetic materials – notwithstanding ecological harm resulting from monoculture.

In Bahia, the expansion of these farms has earned the local moniker “green desert”, due to the disappearance of native species and the critical lack of resources and territory faced by households residing close to commercial tree farms.

A settlement founder grew up in the region and remembers the river before the region was changed by eucalyptus monoculture. “We used to cross it in a canoe. It was abundant,” he says. “Following corporate establishment, it disappeared.” He attributes the water scarcity to the corporation’s appearance in 1991.

The corporation says it “implements a varied management approach, in which trees are grown in elevated regions, while valleys, springs and native vegetation are preserved. This model ensures soil protection, animal habitat preservation and the sustenance of aquatic supplies.” The firm also says it “conducts continuous monitoring of small watersheds in its operational zone” and “develops reforestation and forest restoration projects in locations adjacent to settlements”.

Within the adjacent region of Minas Gerais state, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina has seen its aquifer depth drop by 15 feet over the previous four decades, according to researchers at Minas Gerais Federal University.

Vegetation under eucalyptus monoculture takes in just over a quarter of precipitation to replenish aquifer reserves – versus a half of rainfall intake linked to indigenous woodland. Three-quarters of agricultural households surveyed in the state reported their harvests suffering by the scarcity.

The growing of the tree species also presents a heightened danger of forest fire. Farms are highly combustible that Chile ruled out eucalyptus as a practical environmental answer after a succession of major blazes in its domestic plantations.

Despite the environmental risks, eucalyptus plantations continue to have an important function in the carbon market, with plants being marketed as carbon credits to fossil fuel polluters to offset their emissions. Despite opposition from campaigners, in {