A colossal project: transform vast areas of Africa into plantations for paper production. t looks like an old colonial dream in the hearth Mozambique, but it's today's story. Behind it there is the Portuguese 'The Navigator Company’ and its local subsidiary Portucel Mozambique. Local NGOs monitoring the impacts of this land acquisition are deeply concerned about the impacts on local livelihoods and on biodiversity.The project already created vast impacts, with local farmers forced to give up their land, now struggling to find means of life.
Also the remaining spots of dry Miombo forest are in danger, as part of them will be converted into plantation, while the rest will be likely encroached by peasants left without land, or without the forests where they used to collect wood or other products.
A report, "A Land Grab for Pulp” A Land Grab for Pulp, released by the Environmental Paper Network, together with NGOs from Mozambique and Portugal, explains exactly where the land grab is taking place and includes testimony from farmers who have lost the land they depend upon for subsistence in exchange for short-term work or inferior land in remote places. The report casts doubt on whether Free, Prior and Informed Consent was granted the company in its rush to establish pulp plantations. The report also analyses the environmental risks and impacts of the project, which will convert biodiverse Miombo woodland habitat to monoculture plantation.