<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->
START 10.10.46.24
00:04
Hunting, for these Guarani Indians is a time consuming business. Their weapons and practices are still those used by their forefathers hundreds of years ago, only the forest has changed; slowly but relentlessly it has shrunk.
00:18
Nowadays, there is only one plant which spreads: the Eucalyptus tree. Areas in which the Brasilian rainforest used to thrive have been replaced by plantations stretching over thousands of hectars. But these plantations are silent, devoid of animal life.
00:32
A few miles away from here, the sound of engines can be heard. Turning over in three shifts, men and machines are on duty 24 hours a day – their chainsaws never rest.
A growing hunger for paper and toiletry products means that the wood industry is doing well. These plantation trees provide the cellulose which in turn is made into tissues and toilet paper.
00:58
At the plant, the wood is chopped, ground and boiled. Day after day, 10 tons of wood go through the shredder. Eucalyptus trees grow faster in Brasil than anywhere else in the world. They can be harvested every seven years.
01:12
OT: Carlos Roxo / Kommunikationsdirektor Aracruz
The Indians didn't live as a community in this land. They were not simply expelled. There might have been some descendents of Indians living here but they were integrated in the population as owner of the land. They sold us the titles according to the legal process.
English
01:36
Aracruz Celulose owns four cellulose plants in Brasil. One of the largest factories in the world can be found near the Atlantic coast, in the state of Espirito Santo. The cellulose is extracted from wood chips, emerging after a chemical bleach bath as a white bale which is then shipped abroad to be made into toilet paper. 90 percent of the entire Aracruz output is exported overseas.
02:08
Not from the plant, the destruction of the forest is being loudly contested. About 6000 Indians from the Guarani and Tupinikim tribes have declared war on what they call the ‘green desert’.
02:21
War cry
02:27
The Indians claim that Aracruz stole the land from them and destroyed it. No compensation was ever paid out to them.
02:37
OT: Waldeir / Tribal chief of Pau Brasil
This is a fight for the recovery of our territory. It is important that everyone here gets out their warpaint. It’s a sign of war. It gives us courage to fight for our land.
02:49
Shouts
02:50
The Brasilian Constitution stipulates that: ‘Land traditionally inhabited by natives is to be seen as their property by right, and the use of rivers and lakes should be theirs entirely and exclusively.’
03:04
OT: Toninho / Tribal Chief from Boa Esperanca
According to traditions handed down from our ancestors, we know that this has always been our land. Whatever surveys claim about ownership rights is irrelevant. Those who understand our people also understand that we have to fight for this land because it is the birthplace of our culture.
03:31
The Indians have hewn a 15-kilometer long cut through the plantation of the cellulose manufacturer. It marks the border of a territory of 11,000 hectars which was granted to them by the officials of the Indian Office. For Aracruz, this situation is wholly unacceptable.
03:47
OT: Roxo-- English
04:11
What the Aracruz Director neglects to tell us is that his plant was built on a former Indian settlement called Village of the Apes, an awkward fact that he would clearly like to forget.
04:27
The cellulose producer wishes to be left alone and so we are eventually escorted outside by security.
04:36
According to figures gathered by the Indian officials of the FUNAI, an estimated 34,000 Guarani Indians are spread over the entire territory today.
04:45
Songs
04:52
Authorities responsible for indigenous affairs have sent anthropologists to the area to find out what the Indians are really entitled to. These experts confirmed that the Guarani and the Tupinikim lived in the area long before the cellulose industry arrived here in the Seventies.
It was confirmed that they had lived in small communities and shared the products of their farming and hunting. The government led by Lula da Silva has made a few moves to compensate the Indian population for the past centuries of land theft. Yet, until today, the recommendations made by the indigenous authorities have remained unheeded.
05:37
The Indians would like to show us where they lived before their mud huts were mown down. After so many years, there isn’t much left to see. At last Toninho manages to find a shard of pottery.
05:49
OT: Toninho
Here: I have found a piece of ceramic. Our ancestors made it out of sand and small pebbles and mixed it with ash. This shard comes from pots which were probably used to fetch water or store food.
06:09
You can still see the mulberry trees that were planted before the eviction.
06:15
OT: Woman
We’ve lost our healthy lifestyle. Since the eucalyptus trees have invaded our village, everything else has been smothered. We’re running out of water, the fish have disappeared, and hunting grows more and more difficult. We used to have crabs, mussels and oysters. That’s all gone now, but with the help of God we will win our land back.
06:36
Applause
06:41
The Indians are rebuilding their old settlement‚ Agua de Olho. In May of last year, they put up eight traditional mud huts and lived in them peacefully for nine months, maintaining their Indian traditions of communal ownership and equality in which only God stands above as the highest authority.
07:07
But then the federal police came to evict them with heavy machinery. Many of the settlers were injured by rubber bullets - Aracruz had won the legal right to evict them.
07:16
Today, Agua de Olho is dead. The eviction commando team razed everything to the ground.
07:22
OT: Woman
There were lots of machines over there waiting to destroy our houses. We were all sitting here, with children and pregnant women among us, but the cops didn’t respect anyone. As soon as they’d arrived, they started to shoot and throw teargas grenades. We all fled.
OT: Man
They slaughtered us 500 years ago in the time of colonisation and now they hunt us again like wild animals. We’ll always carry these scars with us.
07:57
The Indians feel deprived of their rights and powerless in their own country. They want to turn against the source of their problems, which they believe lies in Europe.
08:07
The ecological action ‘Robin Wood’ took place on the 4th of May last year and blocked a factory owned by Procter and Gamble, one of the worlds largest companies. Chiefs Toninho and Paulo travelled from Brasil to demand an immediate stop to business connections with Aracruz.
08:25
A small victory was won by the chiefs in this German industrial area. It wasn’t much, but the lorries were outside this Tempo tissue factory in Neuss were immobilised for an entire afternoon.
08:38
The protesters have no illusions: things won’t change that quickly.
08:45
OT: Jörg Uhl / Spokesman for Procter & Gamble
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]-->
ORF: Could Procter and Gamble ever consider giving up importing cellulose from South America?
Jörg Uhl: It could be possible to do without it but it would require a lot of research effort to find an equivalent which would provide us with the quality standards that we set for our products.
ORF: Have you already thought, like other companies on the market, about using recycled material for the production of toiletry products and other products based on cellulose?
Jörg Uhl: We have given it careful consideration. We have looked at ways to use recycled paper and cellulose but came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t be able to meet our quality standards if we did.
09:21
So Procter and Gamble will continue to process cellulose imported from Brasil because the quality of recycled paper isn’t good enough for them. In Tres Palmeiras though, people have no idea what tissues are used for. They are even puzzled that money can be made out of it.
09:38
OT: Toninho
We don’t want to get rich but we want our real wealth back, our life, our soul, so we can remain strong. If we have to live on a shrinking territory, our soul and the souls of our children will mourn. This land means our future and the future of our children.
09:59
Until the Indians get back their land, their hunting ground is limited to a small patch along the river where deforestation is forbidden by law. Only the Brasilian minister of justice can solve this conflict now. Will he give the 11,000 hectars of land back to the Indians, thus following the demands of the Indian officials and respecting the Brasilian Constitution, or will he give in to the pressures of the cellulose industry? In any case, one thing is clear: if the Indians ever get their land back, the eucalyptus will go.
10:38
ENDE
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
<!--[endif]-->