"Brazil’s Suzano boasts its pulpwood plantations are green; critics disagree", 15 December 2021

...Suzano, the world’s largest exporter of eucalyptus pulp...[,]...was active at the November COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Its chief executive, Walter Schalka, said: “Our most important goal is to work to have more ambitious environmental goals in the short term and to find financing for this [effort].”

Suzano...emphatically declares that, far from exacerbating the climate crisis, its eucalyptus plantations are helping combat it...

Suzano claims it only plants eucalyptus “on anthropized and degraded areas, so it is not true that our business destroys native forests.” It also tracks the origin of its forest products to ensure they do not come from areas deforested...

Some environmentalists argue fiercely against Suzano’s rosy world view, saying that the firm’s plantations — composed solely of eucalyptus trees non-native to Brazil — shouldn’t be counted as legitimate forest restoration, that they fail to sequester carbon long-term, and that eucalyptus monocultures are mostly biologically barren; while neighboring traditional communities complain of social inequities and land grabbing by the company...

Some environmentalists believe it’s a mistake to cooperate with Suzano in promoting its image as a forest conservation ally because, they say, that green designation obscures the damaging impacts of eucalyptus plantations...

More recently, Suzano consolidated its leading position in the pulp market...

Suzano’s aggressive expansion has led to conflicts with Brazil’s traditional communities, some of which have lost their land. This has left a legacy of ill-will and resentment in some localities near the plantations and pulp mills...

Some conflicts are still occurring. Flávia dos Santos, leader of the Traditional Quilombola Territory of Sapê do Norte, between São Mateus and Conceição da Barra, in northern Espírito Santo state, was scathing in her denunciation of the impact of Suzano’s plantations: “We live off vines, fish,… and manioc… we depend on the land, the river and the forest for survival,” but, she said, Suzano grows eucalyptus in the headwaters of those waterways. “The rivers dry up or the springs become polluted. We end up without the minimum conditions for survival.”

Suzano says that, provided its ownership rights are respected, it is keen to collaborate...