Guest article by Karen Lang, researcher
We were on our way to the Jequitinhonha Valley in northeastern Minas Gerais to do research on the impacts of Aperam BioEnergia on the region when we soon realised that you don’t have to be close to Aperam BioEnergia’s charcoal and biochar production sites to get a sense of what it’s like to live near its “sustainable forests”.
After spending hours on a highway lined by non-stop eucalyptus plantations on both sides, we couldn’t help but feel oppressed by the tall trees surrounding us and the rare sightings of other life forms along the way. This is what the communities who are completely fenced in by Aperam BioEnergia’s plantations see every day. No sunrises, sunsets or views on the horizon. Few, if any, birds chirping. Just endless walls of eucalyptus trees. And silence.
This is just one of the many impacts that Aperam BioEnergia has had on the traditional communities and the region, as revealed by a recent case study—Dry Streams in an Ocean of Eucalyptus: Aperam BioEnergia’s green steel and carbon removal illusion—by the Global Forest Coalition, Biomass Action Network, Biofuelwatch and HOME Alliance. The findings of field visits and numerous interviews with community members, city residents and public officials presented in the report raise serious doubts about how sustainable it is to have Aperam as a neighbour.
Headquartered in Luxembourg, Aperam produces “green steel” in Brazil’s “Vale do Aço” (steel valley), in the state of Minas Gerais, by burning charcoal for energy in its blast furnaces. The corporation claims that the charcoal is “sustainably” sourced from the 100,000+ hectares of eucalyptus plantations in the Jequitinhonha Valley managed by its subsidiary, Aperam BioEnergia, one of the largest charcoal producers in the world.
Aperam is also now a leading company in the delivery of biochar-based carbon removal credits, which it sells on the voluntary carbon markets to tech and finance companies so that they can offset their emissions. Biochar production is a form of land-based geoengineering—also referred to as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)—and currently accounts for around 80% of carbon removal credits sold as offsets worldwide.
“Vale do Jequitinhonha”: long-standing cultural traditions threatened and natural abundance lost in a few decades
On our first day in the region, we were introduced to the rich cultural heritage of the traditional and Quilombola (Afro-descendant) communities who have lived in the Jequitinhonha Valley for centuries, famous for their exquisite hand-made pottery and embroidery, among other crafts and traditional foods. We also learned the history of local organisations who have been working hard to promote agroecological practices, keep the cultural traditions alive and defend the rights of these communities.
We visited and interviewed communities of the Chapada das Veredas that have been affected by Aperam’s operations. Their stories revealed two completely different realities: the one before the arrival of the eucalyptus plantations and the one now, 50 years later.
When recalling what life was like before, faces would light up. Community members acknowledged that although they were poor (financially) and faced difficulties, they lived a peaceful life and were able to meet most of their basic needs. Back then, water was abundant year round, as were the fruits, fish, medicinal plants, wood and vegetation on the chapadas or plateaus, their common lands, where they would let their animals graze. They often laughed as they told stories of children sinking in the mud trying to cross the veredas or wetlands, or families going out at 4 am and staying out all day to gather pequi (a fruit typical of the Cerrado biome) to make conserves or oil.
The laughter and smiles quickly faded, though, when the subject shifted to the arrival in the region of Acesita, Aperam’s predecessor. Their lives and the ecosystem around them were turned upside down when Acesita began taking over the supposedly “vacant land” on the plateaus, with the support of the military dictatorship in the 1970s. Sadness came over their faces as they explained how the company used tractors and correntões (large chains) to plough down the native vegetation to make way for their plantations, forcing the wildlife to flee. It then fenced off the land, cutting off the communities’ access to their common lands.
And this was just the start of a series of changes that would make it nearly impossible for the communities to maintain their traditional way of life. Water problems began to surface in the 1980s, as springs started drying up. Women from several communities reported having to choose between washing clothes and watering vegetable gardens. Many families had to give up farming because of the lack of water or could only grow crops in the rainy season. Once the company mechanised planting and harvesting, job opportunities became few and far between. Many community members have moved or are moving away due to the lack of water and alternatives.
As if that were not enough, many also reported that the incidence of cancer is on the rise in the area, even among children and adolescents. They believe it is related to the company’s use of pesticides on its plantations, although no studies have been done to prove this. They also shared multiple reports of conflicts with Aperam’s security team, which they said is cracking down on people taking wood left over in the plantations to make charcoal, and following community members on the company’s roads, which they are forced to take to get anywhere, as their community is completely surrounded by Aperam’s plantations.
The struggle for a future
We left the visits with a heavy heart, as did the community members. The prospects for the future are not great. But my impression was that these people are of remarkable resilience and determination—much more resilient than me and many of you reading this. Despite the many hardships, they continue to fight for official recognition as traditional and Quilombola communities, invest in agroecological farming practices, mobilise funding for projects aimed at providing youths income opportunities so they can stay in the communities and organise festivals to celebrate and strengthen their cultural heritage.
And they know that the only real solution to many of the problems they face is to reclaim their land, remove the eucalyptus plantations from the plateaus, which are fundamental water recharge areas, and help the land regenerate. And lo and behold, this just so happens to be a real solution to the climate crisis—not biochar or so-called “carbon removal” techniques or other false climate solutions that corporate cronies like to promote.
With no end to the water scarcity problems in sight, members of the traditional communities and public officials in Turmalina alike expressed concerns about desertification in a not-so-far-off future. One resident stated, “the company is here today. If the region becomes a desert tomorrow, they’ll move to another region. But what about the people here? Our children, our grandchildren—what will they do? (…) If this happens here, we’ll die of hunger and thirst, as we won’t be able to migrate. And this is because of the greed of a few.”
What can we do to help?
For one, we can get the word out about Aperam’s impacts on the communities and support their struggles. This is something that the communities and the civil society organisations that support them asked us to do.
Second, call out the corporations promoting false climate solutions and those that back them on their lies. How can anyone honestly claim that massive eucalyptus monocultures established through deforestation, destruction of natural habitats, biodiversity loss and the depletion of water resources—all of which have made it virtually impossible for traditional communities to maintain their ways of life—sustainable?
Apparently, according to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards, they are “sustainable”. Despite efforts by over 40 organisations to bring these issues to the attention of the certifiers, FSC has upheld Aperam’s certification, allowing it to continue to defend the “sustainability” of its eucalyptus plantations. This raises serious questions about the certification system that perpetuates the lie that the industrial tree plantation model is sustainable.
Another backer of these so-called “sustainable forests” is the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, which has recently mobilised a €250 million-financing package for Aperam BioEnergia’s expansion programme. There are numerous reasons to question this funding, but one question that few seem to be asking is: why is the IFC funding the expansion of Aperam’s operations—which mainly produce energy for steel production—at a time when, according to the OECD, there is an excess capacity crisis on the world steel market?
The answer is obvious, of course: even as extreme weather is now becoming the norm, the entire global system is set to keep running full steam ahead, business as usual, cost what it may, as insane as that may be. No pause to rethink the system. No real attempt to stop war and destruction. No serious discussion about how to drastically reduce our thoughtless consumption and redirect human activity towards cleaning up what we polluted, restoring what we have destroyed and giving back to the planet. Mostly just a series of empty corporate commitments to become net-zero by a deadline that will already be too late, in an attempt to convince people that they’re doing what they can.
And to make people believe that they are actually doing something, corporations and governments alike (and even the UN) are promoting carbon credit schemes as a key solution for climate change. However, the logic underlying them is perverse: polluters buy carbon credits from other companies supposedly engaging in practices that offset their emissions so that they can go on polluting, without having to change anything. Furthermore, many carbon offset technologies—like biochar carbon removal in Aperam's case—have at best not been duly tested and rely on inconclusive and questionable science, and at worst reinforce the devastating impacts of the industries that they are a product of.
To expose the lies and build a future with hope, we should urgently follow two pieces of sound advice from the communities: “we need to unite forces and fight for the lives we want” and “we all need to go after our right to a life with dignity and keep on fighting. If we don’t fight, we won’t get anywhere. We have to keep fighting.”
