Eucalyptus: how a small town made the difference

Photo by Daniel Rocha.

The romance between Portugal and Eucalyptus is not as long as some might think. The Iberian summer consists of wildfires and people crying on TV, it is almost tradition. This has happened as long as I remember, some years are worse than others but none of the years should have been as bad as they were.

‘If we travel from the north to the south of the country, the areas of monoculture are massive. The landscape is completely destroyed. Hence, they are called green deserts.’

 Jose Mateus, Biologist expert in agroforestry

This story begins in 1920/30 when the Portuguese government created two institutions that would change everything: Estação de Experimentação do Pinheiro Bravo (Station of Experimentation of Maritime Pine) and Estação de Experimentação do Sobreiro e Eucalipto (Station of Experimentation of Cork Oak and Eucalyptus). Here, new research and development of forest products took place. This lead to the creation of a laboratory dedicated to cellulose. At this lab different species were systematically studied for industrialization. In 1925, the company Caima based near Albergaria-a-Nova started to sell pulp from eucalyptus and then to plant eucalyptus of their own.

Portugal already had paper factories but all of them used Maritime Pine as their feedstock. But Eucalyptus grows quicker. More companies started planting eucalyptus of their own and buying land from the state and private owners. Not only national companies did this, but also Scandinavian timber companies began buying vast parcels of Portuguese land to grow eucalyptus; this debilitated village economies since they still relied on communal farming. At the time, Portugal was fighting wars in three African countries, so the country needed the money. Special laws were created at the time to allow the expansion of these businesses. All this led to a country whose forests are dominated by eucalyptus and maritime pine monocultures. ‘If we travel from the north to the south of the country, the areas of monoculture are massive. The landscape is completely destroyed. Hence, they are called green deserts.’ says Jose Mateus, a expert biologist in agroforestry in an interview for Noticias Magazine.

However, not everyone was happy with what was happening. Throughout the decades, some groups have protested the eucalyptus plantations. Paulo Andrade, who is now one of the co-founders of Quercus, an environmental Portuguese NGO, was one of the first opponents of the plantations. His group would pull out the baby trees and chain themselves to the machinery used to excavate the land.

The case of Valpacos

In 1989, Antonio Morais, who was an olive farmer at the time noticed that a company called Soporcel was destroying 200 hectares of olive trees to plant eucalyptus to make pulp on Ermeiro farm. In Valpacos, where Antonio was based, water was not abundant and wildfires were already a problem at the time. He started reading that eucalyptus trees would bring trouble in the long term to native plantations and how these species take more water than olive trees. In this part of the country, the temperature is very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Antonio started talking with the important families of the region and politicians who believed him and joined the cause. The consensus was that they had to destroy the new eucalyptus plantations quickly. The word spread . Every Sunday after attending the Mass the people would gather to spread the word. No one wanted to lose their olive field to fire.

‘So do you really think we would have the best olive oil in the world and we would destroy it to enrich rich countries abroad?’

Joao Sousa, 86 years old.

People continued gathering and one day they went to the plantations and started to remove the baby trees that were planted within the limits of the property. Two weeks later things got more complicated. 200 people gathered and the company owners called the police. When the police arrived at the property, 50 hectares were already destroyed by the people. There was no fight that day, everyone ran away when the police arrived. Days later, the destruction of the field was in one of the most important newspapers of the country and was being talked about in the parliament. Antonio decided to ask Quercus for help and activists from Porto and Branganca joined the cause. ‘So do you really think we would have the best olive oil in the world and we would destroy it to enrich rich countries abroad?’ asks Joao Sousa, 86 years old telling the story to the reporters of Noticias Magazine. 

On March 31st of 1989, Easter afternoon, people gathered again and walked to the plantation to destroy what was left. There were journalists, TV stations and even a helicopter. Coaches from Porto and Branganca were full of activists with banners to help in the protest. 800 people walked through the property the moment the bell at the village church rang at 2 PM.

‘Olive trees yes, eucalyptus no!’

In an hour, 180 hectares of eucalyptus were destroyed and the 200 policemen in the field were not enough for the number of protesters. At some point, the policemen left the area and came back on horses to intimidate the protesters, but Soporcel destroyed the walk paths to plant more eucalyptus, so horses could not pass. People threw rocks at the police officers which led to confrontations. Jose Oliveira was trying to run away when he was caught by the police. He was taken to the police station but when his fellow protesters noticed one of them was missing they refused to leave the property until he was released. One of the Quercus members negotiated his release. They agreed to liberate him if the protesters did not come back to the eucalyptus plantation. Some of the protesters were identified and later called to court but they all left with light charges. Soporcel said they would withdraw the claim if the village did not destroy the new plantation, the villagers refused and said if they saw any more eucalyptus in their valley, they would destroy it again. Soporcel ended up selling the property to a family. The people celebrated for days and later the local policemen joined. The newcomers told someone from the village that they were thinking of planting eucalyptus. They were warned. You plant them, we destroy them.

Nowadays, Ermeiro farm has olive trees, almond trees, walnut trees, and pine. There has not been a single wildfire in Vale de Lila since the protests.

In the past, the Portuguese forests had a varied flora with oaks and sweet chestnuts that were used to build the ships that went to India. After the trees were cut down and nothing was replanted the forests were left naked. This allowed paper companies to buy this land and plant more feedstock for themselves. In 2017, Portugal had 760 000 hectares of land with eucalyptus. The abandonment of the land does not help the wildfires either. Most of the population moved to the big cities leaving the forests to the elderly who do not have the resources to take care of the land properly.

The point is, even a disorganised forest is a lucrative forest. Portuguese forests are dirty and abandoned but they are still worth 2122 million euros. The fires of Pedrogão Grande in 2017 generated a loss of 500 million euros not counting the resources used to extinguish the fires. Brazil produces twice as much pulp per hectare as Portugal but the cost of transporting pulp from Brazil to Europe is very high. This is one of the few reasons why Portugal still remains competitive, and people are relying less and less on paper, so this industry will not need these vast eucalyptus plantations. Maybe this industry is not as lucrative as it seems to be for the country.