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Razor-straight lines of genetically identical trees flank the Baixa Verde community in Brazil’s northeast. The uniform trees present a sharp difference to the remnants of native Atlantic woodland, among the planet’s richest biological habitats on Earth.

Bordered by nearly 100,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations, Baixa Verde exemplifies a uncommon community triumph over a international corporation in Brazil. This agricultural community owes its existence due to nearly two decades of court disputes over land rights – yet the conflict continues.

After fighting to retain their land, the families now face an unparalleled safety emergency characterized by armed clashes, arson and threats on their lives, within a surge of aggression stemming from a land dispute that has intensified since 2024.

Conflicts over land rights have long been an issue in the region. Securing land deeds is commonly deemed to legitimise land grabs from indigenous populations, and local people had believed that a wood-pulp manufacturer was planting eucalyptus trees on public land.

In 2008, one of the founders of the Baixa Verde settlement and a local activist visited government archives to inspect official papers. They discovered the document that demonstrated the 3,200 acres in contention were publicly owned. “We always knew that it was public land,” states the community leader.

With the document in hand, they assembled 91 local families and aligned with the Landless Workers Movement, a political and social organisation advocating for agrarian reform. Its first action was to take over a section of a tree farm used by the corporation, accusing the company of using public land.

Two years after the initial takeover, the organization won state recognition that the corporation did not have legal title to the property section planted by the firm. “This document was a triumph not just for the community property campaign but for all the civil society groups of the country,” says a settlement resident who grew up in the encampment and is now one of the leaders of the movement.

Following many years of roadblocks and legal battles, the Bahia state government signed an agreement with the corporation and the organization in 2016, returning 1,300 hectares of company land to the government and giving each family a plot large enough to cultivate their crops. Of the 61 families remaining, 53 have moved into their new plots.

“Winning a right to the property means that we now have a place to care for our youngest ones,” says the community leader.

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Although forfeiting the property, a company representative asserts that the firm has always operated with “openness, social and environmental responsibility” and consideration for the area residents. “The company has never been found guilty of illegal land acquisition and reaffirms that its operational zones are lawfully governed and function with the required environmental permits.”

However, in the time following the agreement, the households say they have experienced life-threatening warnings, shooting incidents, burned homes, taken crops and destroyed fields.

According to the movement, the dispute now centres on property parcels that remain occupied by agricultural workers associated with the regional labor organization. When it was facing loss of possession of the disputed property, the company donated 740 adjacent acres to the labor group – a donation confirmed by the union’s leadership.

“We face significant harassment happening around here. Our shelters have been burned down, as well as our sugarcane fields.”

Over the past four years, six organizers of the movement have been placed under protective watch by Brazil’s protection programme for rights activists, journalists and environmentalists. The government has recommended that some of these leaders move away, but due to dedication to the cause and connection with their hard-won land, they have refused.

Because of the death threats he has received, a community pioneer says he has trouble sleeping at night. “I am really scared that an incident may occur to my family,” he says.

The organization states that eight households do not feel sufficiently secure to farm their lands, which remain occupied by farmers reportedly connected to the company.

The company says that during the previous fifteen years, it has allocated “more than 20,000 hectares to agrarian reform initiatives, whether through judicial agreements, contributions to the federal land reform agency, donations, or direct sales, to resolve ongoing conflicts in the territory.”

The company also says “the establishment of the communities – from planning to parceling and lot definition – was conducted entirely by the state government, without involvement from the corporation”, and “declines to discuss disputes among activist groups”.

A community member is one of the two people who still reside in the original settlement. She says she has been harassed by weapon-carrying individuals who encircled her home and shot at the ground. Since no one lives nearby, the resident – who lives alone – believes the gunshots were intended to threaten her out of taking possession of her allocated land.

In August, the Bahia state government authorised the removal of union farmers who remain on settlement properties – but the decision has yet to be enforced.

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Environmental Challenges and the ‘Green Desert’

Besides defending against danger and aggression, converting lands previously utilized for eucalyptus monoculture into agricultural cultivation is now the primary difficulty for the settlement residents. Eucalyptus production is controlled by major international corporations that, from the 1960s onward, have been transforming agricultural and woodland areas into monoculture plantations, driven by international market needs.

The country is the global leading grower of the tree species, a rapidly developing, thirsty crop, whose pulp is exported to make cardboard and paper products. The majority of the nation’s tree fiber is shipped to European nations, where it is used to make stationery items often marketed as a renewable alternative to plastics – notwithstanding ecological harm caused by monoculture.

In Bahia, the expansion of these farms has earned the local moniker “emerald wasteland”, due to the loss of wildlife and the severe shortage of resources and territory experienced by households residing close to commercial tree farms.

One community leader was raised in the area and recalls the waterway before the region was changed by eucalyptus monoculture. “We used to cross it in a boat. It was full,” he says. “After the company arrived, it dried up.” He attributes the water scarcity to the company’s arrival in 1991.

The company says it “adopts a mosaic management system, in which eucalyptus is cultivated in plateau areas, while lowlands, water sources and indigenous plants are preserved. This model ensures soil protection, wildlife conservation and the sustenance of aquatic supplies.” The firm also says it “performs ongoing observation of small watersheds in its area of operation” and “develops reforestation and forest restoration projects in locations adjacent to settlements”.

In the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais state, the eucalyptus region of Turmalina has seen its aquifer depth decrease by 15 feet 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 replenish aquifer reserves – versus a 50% level of absorption associated with native forest. Seventy-five percent of farming families surveyed in Minas Gerais reported their harvests suffering by the shortage.

The growing of the tree species also presents a heightened danger of wildfire. Plantations are so flammable that Chile rejected the species as a practical environmental answer after a series of large wildfires in its domestic plantations.

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