Globalization as the ‘Pulping’ of Landscapes: Forestry Capitalism's North–South Territorial Accumulation

Abstract

The article presents the findings of a long-term incorporated comparison of forestry capitalism's globalization process. Primary data was collected by participant observation in pulp investment areas in Brazil between 2004 and 2011 and semi-structured interviews with key industry personnel, particularly in Finland. It is argued that the key cyclic change in industrial forestry from innovation–capitalization to material–territorial accumulation explains why and how the industry has globalized to the south via industrial tree plantations. The interlinked northern (Finnish) and southern (Brazilian) cases reveal that industry trajectories are influenced by who controls the supply chains of commodities. The findings are relevant for theorizing about the globalization of natural resource exploitation sectors. Changes in agrarian political economies and agency of state, business, and social movement actors—that is, socio-ecological relations and landscapes—help to explain how and why national and global capitalism and its developmental–environmental impacts are transformed.

Este artículo presenta las conclusiones de una comparación incorporada a largo plazo sobre el proceso de la globalización de la silvicultura capitalista. Los datos primarios fueron recopilados mediante la observación participante en áreas de inversión de celulosa en el Brasil entre el 2004 y 2011 y entrevistas semiestructuradas con el personal clave de la industria, particularmente en Finlandia. Se sostiene que el cambio cíclico clave en la silvicultura industrial desde la innovación–capitalización a lo material–acumulación territorial, explica el porqué y cómo la industria se ha globalizado hacia el sur vía plantaciones de árboles industriales. La interconexión entre los casos del norte (finlandeses) y del sur (brasileño), revelan que las trayectorias de la industria están influenciadas por quien controla las cadenas de suministro de productos básicos. Las conclusiones son pertinentes para teorizar sobre la globalización de los sectores de explotación de los recursos naturales. Cambios en las economías políticas agrarias y los actores de las agencias de estado, negocios y movimientos sociales—es decir, relaciones y paisajes socioecológicos—ayudan a explicar cómo y por qué el capitalismo nacional y global y sus desarrollos—impactos medioambientales, están transformados.

本文演示对森林资本主义的全球化过程的公司化比较研究的一些发现。在2004至2011期间在巴西的纸浆投资领域的原始数据通过研究人员的观察收集，并且，对相关工业界人士，尤其是在芬兰，进行半结构性的采访。在森林工业的从创新-资本化到物质的-领土的积累关键的周期变化解释了这一产业通过产业化的种植园为什么和如何在南方实现了全球化。南（巴西）北（芬兰）相互联系机制的案例说明，工业的发展趋势受制于谁控制商品的供应链。此项发现与关于自然资源开采部门的全球化的理论是相关的。在土地开发的政治经济的变化，以及国家机构、商业和社会运动的行动者——也就是社会-生态关系和风景——帮助解释了国家和全球资本主义以及其发展-环境影响如何与为什么受到转型的。

تعرض هذه المقالة للنتائج التي تمخضت عن مقارنات على المدى الطويل لعملية عولمة النشاط الرأسمالي في مجال الغابات. وقد جُمعت البيانات الأولية من خلال الملاحظة المباشرة لمناطق الاستثمار في صناعة الورق من لب الشجر في البرازيل خلال الفترة من عام 2004 إلى عام 2011، وكذلك من خلال مقابلات مفتوحة شبه منظمة مع شخصيات أساسية في هذه الصناعة، وخاصة في فنلندا. وترى المقالة أن التغيِّر الدوري الأساسي للصناعة المرتبطة بالغابات من الابتكار والاستثمار الرأسمالي إلى تراكم المواد والأراضي يوضح كيف ولماذا انتقلت هذه الصناعة بشكل معولم إلى الجنوب من خلال عمليات زراعة الأشجار لأغراض صناعية. وتبين حالات الترابط المتبادل بين الشمال (فنلندا) والجنوب (البرازيل) أن مسارات تلك الصناعة تتأثر بالقوى التي تسيطر على سلاسل الإمداد بالسلع الأساسية. وتكتسب هذه النتائج أهميةً في استخلاص مفاهيم نظرية بشأن عولمة قطاعات استغلال الموارد الطبيعية. ومن شأن التغيرات في الاقتصاديات السياسية الزراعية ودور الدولة والشركات والحركات الاجتماعية-أي على مستوى العلاقات والملامح الاجتماعية البيئة- أن توضح طابع وسبب التحولات في الرأسمالية على المستوى القومي والعالمي وآثارها على البيئة وعلى عملية التطور.

이 논문은 삼림 자본주의의 지구화 과정에 대한 장기적인 비교를 통한 발견을 보여준다. 1차적인 자료는 2004년부터 2011년 사이 브라질 펄프투자 지역에서 이루어진 참여관찰과 특히 핀란드의 핵심 산업계 인물들과의 반구조화된 인터뷰에 의해서 수집되었다. 혁신-자본화부터 물질적 영토적 축적까지 산업적 산림업에서 일어나는 핵심적인 주기적 변화가 왜 그리고 어떻게 산림업이 산업적 나무 플란테이션을 통해서 남반부를 세계화시켰는지를 설명한다. 북반구(핀란드)와 남반구(브라질)의 연계 사례는 산업 궤적이 상품의 공급 연쇄를 통제하는 자에 의해서 영향을 받는다는 것을 보여준다. 이러한 발견은 자연 자원의 착취가 이루어지는 산업 부문의 세계화를 이론화하는데 적합하다. 농업적 정치경제, 국가 기관, 기업과 사회운동 행위자들에서의 변화 즉 사회생태적 관계와 풍광의 변화는 국가적 그리고 지구적 자본주의와 그것의 발전적-환경적 영향이 어떻게 그리고 왜 변하는지를 설명하는데 도움을 준다.

В статье представлены результаты долгосрочного объединенного сравнения процесса глобализации капитализма лесоводства. Первичные данные были собраны путем включенного наблюдения за целлюлозно - инвестиционным направлением в Бразилии с 2004 по 2011 год и частично структурированных интервью с ключевыми сотрудниками промышленности, в частности в Финляндии. Утверждается, что ключевое циклическое изменение в индустриальном лесоводстве от капитализации инноваций до материально-территориального накопления объясняет, почему и как промышленность глобализировалась на юг через индустриальные плантации деревьев. Взаимосвязанные северный (финский) и южный (бразильский) случаи показывают, что промышленные траектории находятся под влиянием того, кто управляет каналами поставок товаров потребления. Выводы важны для теоретического осмысления глобализации сектора эксплуатации природных ресурсов. Изменения в аграрной экономике и государственных органах, бизнесе и субъектах общественных движений, то есть в социально-экологических отношениях и ландшафтах, помогают объяснить, как и почему национальный и глобальный капитализм и связанные с их развитием последствия будут преобразованы.

Keywords:

• industrial tree plantations
• pulp and paper industry
• forest industry
• Brazil
• Finland
• Pöyry
• agrarian political economy
• capitalist world-system

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for excellent commentaries that allowed to greatly improve the article, as well as the editors. I am also grateful for the insightful conversations with Teivo Teivainen, Jussi Pakkasvirta, Ricardo Carrere, Peter Evans, Jacob Donner-Amnell, Jan-Erik Nylund and all those interviewed.

Notes

1 According to the company, ‘More than 75% of the world's pulp flows through Metso valves’ (metso.com, Pulp and Paper).

2 ‘Forest cluster’ is a concept referring not only to forestry and forest industries but also to the linked industries: when talking about the forest industry here, I refer to this greater cluster.

3 ‘Smallholder’ is typically defined in the same way in Finland as it is in Brazil, with the majority of families in both countries controlling estates of about 20 hectares. However, ‘corporate’ does not translate equally between both contexts. Corporate land control is much larger in size and tighter in grip in Brazil.

4 Although Brazil is sometimes seen as among the most important emerging powers and economies, there are great differences between industries depending upon the division of labor and broad socio-economic-environmental gains. Analysis should be broken up from the country level to the industry-specific level. Brazil is a core country, for example, in the airplane production industry (Embraer being a primary example). But in the natural resource sectors, the developmental outcomes of Brazil's industries—understood as widely as possible and signifying also socio-environmental outcomes and livelihoods—exhibit peripheral characteristics, and not characteristics of wealth-accumulating cores. This is because the focus is on raw material exports, which are not taxed highly enough, do not provide many jobs, and work by accumulation by dispossession through large-scale enclosed private production enclaves (see Kröger, 2012a).

5 Landscapes were also transformed in Finland. Particularly since the 1950s, biodiversity-rich primary forests were turned into secondary forests for timber production, which now dominate. Also, the conflict between the Finnish state and forestry capitalism with traditional alternative economies such as the Sami indigenous peoples relying on reindeer husbandry in Lapland (see Raitio, 2008) resembled in many places a colonial setting of pulping the landscape for the sake of territorial expansion. However, the criticism of biodiversity loss and excessive focus on timber yields, although existing, has not transformed into a major counter-movement such as caused by plant pollution, perhaps because timber sales are an important source of income for most Finnish rural estates.

6 Also capitalization is taking place (in some places) in the south, and not all expansion is based on corporate plantations, as smallholder plantations also expand (see Sikor, 2012). Such differences are explainable by varying political-environmental contexts. Yet it is clear that the main industrial forestry globalization process is now taking place via corporate material expansion.

7 In Brazil, family farmers (smallholders) typically control 20 hectares of land.

Additional information

Markus Kröger is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki. He holds a PhD in World Politics from the University of Helsinki and has recently been a visiting scholar in the Department of Sociology, UC Berkeley. His current research project focuses on the politics of corporate resource exploitation, particularly in the forest, mining, and steel industries in Brazil and India. He has also done research more generally on global natural resource politics, the impact of rural social movements' strategies on economic outcomes, and land grabbing. Most of his studies have focused on covering new pulp investment projects in the Global South through ethnographic field research since 2004.