“The pulp mill is not real”

The Forest as a Geopolitical Stage - Part 2

PULP MILL

It is October 2022. I am sitting on a bus and looking out of the windows. Everywhere I look I can see grassy arable land and cows chewing on luscious hay. As we approach the town of Paso de los Toros a strange lump appears in this open landscape. It is a construction site where one of the world’s largest pulp mills is being built for UPM-Kymmene: the multinational Finnish-run forestry conglomerate.

The bus drives to a bridge that crosses the Rio Negro river. People are sunbathing on its sand flats. The town of Paso de los Toros sits on the banks of the Rio Negro. The town was founded at the beginning of the 20th century at a fording site where it was safe for cows to cross the river before bridges were built. Cattle is also what the town is named after: Paso de los Toros means “the passage of bulls”. Cows still play a major part in Uruguayan livelihoods and identities. People say there are more cows than people in Uruguay. 

We are in central Uruguay with Finnish curator choreographer Satu Herrala and Uruguayan theatre director Marianella Morena. We are doing field research for the Forest as a Geopolitical Stage –project. 

Find more about the research in Satu Herrala’s blog.

During our stay we meet all kinds of people and talk with them. We are interested in the impact of the Paso de los Toros pulp mill. The factory is known in Uruguay as UPM 2, as UPM already has another pulp mill in the country. The other mill is situated on the banks of the border river between Uruguay and Argentina; the building of this earlier factory precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the two countries that lasted for years.

Read more about the diplomatic crisis on the yle.fi website. The article is in Finnish only.

The bus drops us off at the side of a dirt road. Here, we are greeted by our local guide, Esteban Calone. We step into his car, and he takes us to look at the construction project. As we approach the pulp mill’s construction site, massive metal structures gleam in the intense sunlight. It’s almost blinding. The fence has a banner attached to it that says, “A plea for life: no more deaths at the site”. 

Our guide tells us that the construction work has been punctuated by multiple fatal accidents and at least one suicide. Thousands of people have worked at the construction site over the past three years: most of the workers are migrants from outside Uruguay. We have been unable to verify this particular piece of information as well as other data gathered from local people. The aim of this piece of writing is not to serve up objective facts, but rather to describe the mental atmosphere surrounding the factory venture in Uruguay. 

We take out our smartphones and start filming the pulp mill site. The actual construction seems to be happening quite far on the other side of the fence: it fits into our smartphone screens quite nicely. However, seeing the factory here in the middle of such an open landscape makes it hard to judge its true scale.

Soon a woman wearing a hard hat runs out of the control room.

”You can’t film here. This is private property.”

Esteban gets frustrated.

”We are in Uruguay”, he says. “This is a free and open country. Yes, we can film here.”

However, we compliantly return our smartphones to our pockets, get in our car, and drive away. We are nearing downtown Paso de los Toros. We cross over the Rio Negro once again. In English the river translates as “Black River”, but right now the water in the river is not black, more like milky coffee.

A FORUM FOR DISCUSSION

We park in front of the town hall. Tonight, an important event will take place in its conference room. Local activists have organised a presentation and forum entitled “Time after UPM”. The smallish space is filled with lots of people who greet each other warmly. We sit in rows of benches in the middle of the room. On screen, an image of the factory construction site is projected. We hear from our guide that construction work will soon reach its conclusion and that the factory should begin operations in Spring 2023.

Then various speakers take the floor. I am deeply surprised once I slowly start to understand what they are saying. They feel that the construction site has increased prostitution, human trafficking, and child sexual exploitation in the area. They talk of underage sex workers who work for money and drugs. They speak of worsening drug and mental health problems amongst the youth. They feel that the health of the construction workers has not been prioritised. That the Uruguayan government has struck a deal with UPM that is not good for its citizens, a deal that will only provide new jobs and an economic boost for a fleeting moment, and thereafter the country will be left with escalating social problems. That the trainline built by the government for the sole use of UPM is destroying people’s homes and could be a risk factor for dangerous chemical spills. That the road that leads to the town is dangerous for vehicles and that its capacity is too small, especially when it fills with hundreds of trucks a day carrying eucalyptus trunks and pulp to the existing mills; and how the situation is only going to get worse with the addition of a new mill. How the soil will become infertile once it has been subjected to the cultivation of an alien species like eucalyptus for the Finnish pulp mills. The discussion is incredibly animated and there is sense of a palpable anxiety for the community, especially its young people.

The term “the Finns” is brought up numerous times, almost as a synonym for the UPM project. I can feel my ears burning. Everyone present can see, hear, and understand that there are Finnish people in the room today, and that what is being said is being interpreted into Finnish for our benefit. The situation is confusing. Not so much because of what is being said, as all these issues are familiar to me from my work over the past three years, having spent a lot of time in the area. Uruguay is a poor country compared to Finland, and there are lots of social problems linked to poverty here. The various governments – whether right or left-wing – have been unable to find solutions to them. What surprises me is how direct a link is being made between complex social problems and the UPM-Kymmene construction site and the Finns. The factory project has garnered support across political party lines, and there had been a lot of hope about a brighter future attached to the pulp mill project: more jobs, an elevated GDP, and a higher standard of living. It seems that these expectations have not been met.

After the event, Marianella also seems perplexed. She has been involved in discussions surrounding the mill project before, notably while she was making a documentary theatre production on this topic for the Uruguayan National Theatre in 2019.

Read an article about it in the Voima! Magazine. The article is in Finnish only.

I ask her what she thinks of today’s event.

“Many of the people voicing their concerns at this gathering are officials and supporters of the previous, left-wing, government, i.e.the government that actually signed the deal with UPM-Kymmene. This betrays a conflict of interest that lends a slightly hypocritical slant to the tragic tone of the event. UPM is a sort of hope mill for Uruguayans, a place on which people can project their wildest dreams and their worst fears. People seem to see in either as their saviour, or as the heart of darkness. To me it felt like the meeting was about people looking for some kind of catharsis. They have a strong urge to share their feelings and experiences of what has happened. However, I don’t necessarily think that these impassioned dialogues will result in anything tangible. People will go home, turn on the television, go to sleep, and continue on with their lives as before”.

GREEN COWS

A few ornamental older houses whose style is evocative of the colonial period still stand in the centre of Paso de los Toros. A functionalist restaurant building can also be found in the town centre. Its interior is like something straight out of an Aki Kaurismäki film. We sit in the restaurant with local politician Edgardo Gutierrez Lavie, who represents the right-wing coalition, to discuss the environmental impact of the new pulp mill.

Unlike his own political party currently sitting in government, Lavie is very critical of the pulp mill project. He owns a farm that is adjacent to the Rio Negro. He tells us how his cows sometimes submerge themselves into the river to cool off during the hot summer months, and how they emerge completely covered in bright green algae. The river is badly eutrophic, and Gutierrez is convinced that the new mill will destroy the quality of the water even further. He is deeply disappointed with the deal struck between UPM-Kymmene and the Uruguayan government, something that he feels has made the government lamentably dependant on a multinational company.

“The government has just handed over the use of the Rio Negro water to the pulp mill without any compensation and has even guaranteed a specific water flow. This is crazy. How does the government propose to maintain the flow of a river that naturally fluctuates with the weather and the environment?”

Gutierrez also brings up that fact that in the contract the Uruguayan government has promised to buy electricity from the UPM biomass power station built to accompany the new mill for a fixed price: a price that Gutierrez feels is inordinately high. He explains that Uruguay produces more electricity than it consumes, and how Uruguay is currently selling electricity to its neighbouring countries for a fraction of that purchase price.

Gutierrez is visibly upset.

“The deal between UPM and Uruguay shows how easy it is to colonise and subjugate us, with the help of our own government, no less! This is a gross abuse of people’s natural need to make a living”. 

The restaurant begins to fill with people speaking Eastern European languages and we can no longer hear each other with all the noise. We say goodbye to Gutierrez and continue on our journey.

CITY NIGHTS

That evening we go to visit the local brothel. The brothel sits on the town’s outskirts, near the encampment where the construction workers live. The club is called “City Nights”. The neon lights shine in the dark. The area around the club does not seem very urban; in fact, it looks like there might be a cow pasture next door.

Our guide has organised our visit with the brothel’s owner, who warmly welcomes us. Prostitution in Uruguay is legal: both buying and selling sex is decriminalised. Buying sex from an underage person is of course illegal. 

We learn that there are about 30 people working at City Nights, mostly women. Everyone we speak to comes from Uruguay, from different parts of the country. Most of them are very young, some as young as 19. Some of them seem satisfied with their current employment, others say they will leave the club as soon as they find better work. We are told that the workers get 2000 Uruguayan pesos (about 50 euros) per client. The brothel’s owner takes a 300-peso cut. Many women tell us they need money to bring up their children.

Women come and go; some of them are sitting on the sofas, others stand by the bar, dance, or play pool. It is early evening. So far it seems like there are less clients than women here. I can hear some of the clients speaking in Russian. Or Ukrainian. The clients are not only Eastern European, but also Brazilian and Argentinian. The women tell us that some Finns also visit the brothel, but they are older than the others. We have a few bottles of beer with Marianella and Satu and we dance a little. The young women come and dance with us. I consider whether there is something odd about all this. Is it a good thing to be dancing here? Is it right to come and ask all these questions? Is it wrong to think that there is something odd about all this? Is it wrong not to think that?

“YOU ARE NOT REAL”

The following day, we are eating breakfast with Esteban and having a debrief of our experiences. We ask Esteban what kind of reputation Finnish people have here in Paso de los Toros.

“They live here in kind of their own bubble and keep themselves to themselves. The Finnish children go to a private school where they are taught by Finnish teachers. I do not know them personally, but some locals have made friends with them”.

After breakfast we visit the Finland-village, where the Finnish staff from the construction site live in their Scandinavian design houses.

Read more about our visit to the Finland-village in Morena’s blog post.

On our way back Esteban by chance spots a local theatre director on the street and stops the car. He wants to introduce us to his acquaintance. 

The man tells us he used to run a local amateur theatre group that has since shut down. Nowadays the Paso de los Toros theatre mainly puts on shows by visiting touring companies. The director says he has left theatre behind and is now more focused on spiritual matters, such as yoga and Eastern philosophy.

We ask him what he thinks about the factory site.

”Isn’t it a good thing?” he answers. “It brings jobs”.

Esteban shares his views with the man: that the factory will only have a fleeting impact on employment, and it will be focused on the building phase. When the factory is finished, the number of jobs will significantly fall, and many people will be left unemployed. 

The director’s countenance changes. It’s as if he had been caught telling a white lie. Then he tells us what he really thinks.

“Actually, I don’t care about the whole thing. To me UPM is not real. The Ukraine is also not real. Even you are not real to me”. 

We stare at the man, stupefied. He explains his philosophy.

“I have changed in such a way that, for me, only the things inside my head are real”.

EUCALYPTUS FOREST

The mill construction site seems to conjure up very different meanings for different people. It is as if the pulp mill is simultaneously interconnected with absolutely everything, yet at the same time it resists definitions.

My own concept of the factory project and its scope is impacted by my experiences in Northern Uruguay. I worked there with Satu Herrala before arriving in Paso de los Toros. We produced a prison art project at Carancho prison, a prison that is located in the middle of the eucalyptus plantations that have been planted for the pulp mill. We produced a small-scale performance there, and participated in the production of a short film together with inmates and Uruguayan artists. The conditions in the prison were appalling. 800 inmates were housed in a prison originally designed for 400 people. In a four-person cell, there were up to 15 people. There was not enough food, and violence was constant. In the Uruguayan justice system, even minor drug related offences carry long prison sentences. Prisons are a famously inadequate solution for social problems created by poverty: the same social problems we encountered in Paso de los Toros.

The workdays at the prison were tough and afterwards I would often go out running in the eucalyptus plantation. It was easy running terrain as there was no undergrowth. The plantation is a field of timber that produces trees whose trunks grow to their full height in ten years. From one single seed, three generations of eucalyptus can be farmed. The trees suck a lot of nutrients out of the fertile soil. Local people fear that after three generations of eucalyptus, the soil will no longer be suitable for farming or cattle. As well as nutrients, the trees extract a lot of water from the soil and will change the area’s groundwater equilibrium. I am not a biologist, but if we consider biodiversity, my running route certainly displayed an extreme lack thereof. There is only one species growing as far as the eye can see: eucalyptus.

At night I browsed through the digital edition of Helsingin Sanomat (the main Finnish national newspaper). I noticed that UPM is advertising itself as an ethical company that cares about the environment. A famous Green party politician was interviewed for the company’s ad – they were showing off their ecological lifestyle. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

Though it is a known fact that not all is as it seems.

Translated by Kayleigh Töyrä.