Nas sombras do deserto verde – impactos socioambientais no setor de papel e celulose: o caso da Bahia Sul

Sumario: This thesis focuses on the case of Bahia Sul Celulose e Papel, a high profile industrial project for paper and pulp exportation implemented in 1989 in Bahia s southern city of Mucuri. Their use of eucalyptus as renewable raw material has led our research to a delicate and complex subject, that is, the expansion of forests of this exotic plant along enormous stretches of land throughout some states (Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia). Such high speed allocation meant to provide for the increase of cellulose and paper production has generated the expression «green desert», which is establishing itself in environmental literature and whose meaning is being disputed among several conflicting interests: businesses in the sector, government offices, and local communities (which include residents, workers, union members, social movements, quilombola communities, Indian groups, and others). Having established that scenario as the center of our research, our work argues that the socio-environmental impact is clear and forcefully defines the relations between the capital (which is exogenous, and has a non-democratic dynamics of expansion), the social actors (with their dreams of social ascension and consumption), the community (considered in its social, cultural and political dynamics), and government (which, on the one hand, legislates in favor of sustainability and, on the other, yields to the implantation of great industrial projects that harm the environment and do not guarantee jobs nor increase in tax revenues). Therefore, «green desert» is, for this thesis, more than an important motto that nowadays congregates nets of social movements, civil entities and non-governmental organizations. It is an opportunity to lean over the «shadows» of environmental problems in a reflection that points to a new order of segregation and disseverance, which is defined by the imperatives of technical and economic aspects, and which may, ultimately, bring about the desertification of life