Carlos M Teixeira: Jari II Project (After Archigram).

(In 1967, Ludwig had probably not heard of the ideas of the Archigram group when he decided to build a floating cellulose factory that could be taken to any country. A vast enterprise, his Jari Project was begun that year, a little before the publication of the Archigram 8 bulletin, which included the Instant City by Ron Heron.)

The billionaire, according to a superficial analysis by the same journalist, believed that the “literacy of the Third World poor would lead to a stunning increase in the demand for paper.” The prices of wood pulp in the 1960s were not attractive anywhere, but in a period of twenty years, Ludwig estimated, the tropical forest reserves would be nearly depleted. Believing in the future market of cellulose, the entrepreneur would purchase a huge factory and would mount it on a platform built in Japanese shipyards. The platform would sail half-way round the world to be moored within an area bought by Portuguese owners on the banks of a tributary of river Amazon, totaling 1.6 million hectares and comparable in size to Belgium or the State of New Jersey.

Prior to installation, the cellulose factory obviously needed wood. Ludwig therefore set himself to thinking about which tree would be planted. He gathered an international team of biologists and agronomists and botanists who were experts in tropical agriculture and sent them to Asia, Africa, and South America. Soon, a Dutchman came up with the idea of gmelina arborea. Although the plant was of Asiatic origin, he had found it in Nigeria, where it was being used in the work of securing hillsides in mining areas.

(The project initially planned on Nigeria itself as the ideal locale. It had cheap land, an abundance of sunlight, easy access and drainage, and a political regime able to offer fiscal incentives and contain any social upheavals—a dictatorship. Brazil was in second place because of the center-left regime of João Goulart, but an unexpected civil war of Biafra separatists in Nigeria, and the military coup of 1964, in Brazil, inverted this situation and led Daniel to choose to set up his project in the Amazon.)

With the gmelina, Ludwig thought he had discovered “green gold”: in addition to its strength and durability, its most notable feature was its speed of growth. In ideal conditions, the tree grew at a rate of 30 centimeters per month, making it possible to cut down very young, six-year-old trees. After doing experiments in other countries, climes, and soils under the guidance of his team, Ludwig was convinced that this was the right tree. The Jari project planned the radical substitution of the Amazon rain forest by plantations of this tree, despite the warning of some environmentalists regarding its adaptability to the ecosystem of the Amazonian forest.

Even without governmental support, an enormous infrastructure was installed for the beginning of the job, 18 tractors being sent to “clear” the area. Some of the native trees were used for the building of the houses, schools, hospitals, nurseries, bridges and community buildings of the new city of Monte Dourado, but nearly the whole forest was summarily piled up and burned to give room for gmelinas. The land that Ludwig’s men devastated was the reserve of one of the largest gene archives in the world, with more than a million different species forming a fragile ecosystem that had taken close to a half a billion years of evolution to arrive where it had. Despite this fact, the passion for the 90? angle and the compulsion for the chessboard design dictated the future of the area.

Yet Daniel, the great visionary who took more risks than most, this time would see the forest destroy the beginning of his plans: on scraping off the topsoil, the Caterpillars had left nothing good behind, since a large part of the Amazonian soil is, in itself, poor for planting. After this irreparable damage, studies made by Ludwig’s team concluded that the best way to cut down the native trees would be by hand, with a chain-saw, which would mean an extraordinary increase in costs but at least would leave the precious layer of humus less altered and would not compact the subsoil.

The impoverishment of the land became more evident with the new vegetation, the single crop of a plant totally foreign to the region. The gmelina grew astonishingly fast in granitic or limestone soils, but not in sandy soils, as the case of the southern part of Jari. With the prospect of a yield far beneath expectations, a new research was done to expand the Project’s activities at the floodable area of river Jari. At the time, Filipino researchers sponsored by the Ford Foundation were developing studies to optimize rice production. They were consulted, but that did not prevent Ludwig from committing other mistakes that would sink his project even deeper.

Almost every phase of the new rice planting was done by airplane. First, dikes were built along the banks so that the water would be maintained at a level of 10 centimeters. The work of these dikes and canals was begun with the employment of machines built in the US, the “Jeets”. Tested on North American soil, the equipment was surprisingly productive. In the floodable plain of Jari, however, it did not have the same performance and so had to be abandoned. The building of the dikes and canals then had to be done with good old D-8 tractors, producing 300 meters of dikes in 24 hours of work.

Dikes ready, single-engine planes took off from air-strips built in the neighboring areas to spread the seeds—followed by flights for the fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides at an adequate pace and time. All this would done with the Brazilian “Ipanema BEM 201A” agricultural plane, since the seeds were spread pre-germinated (previously placed in water in 60 kilogram sacks and then covered with plastic). Only the harvest would take place on the ground, done mechanically after the maturing of the kernel, which occurs on an average of 120 days after planting. Later, harvester combines and conveyors would be used for transport from the harvesting place to the roads built by Ludwig.

Like the tree, the rice did not work out well. The advice of the Filipino IRRI and the American farmers depended too much on chemicals. During the period of the strongest attack by insects, 200 flights a week were needed to spread toxic pesticides. Although this caused enormous harm to the bird and fish populations, the mosquitoes quickly became immune, and, as a result, the flights to kill the pests became more and more frequent. As if that was not enough, the rice productivity was showing itself to be unsatisfactory in spite of all the efforts. They called on the IRRI technicians once again, and then came the verdict and the medicine: the Amazonian soil was deficient in sulfur. Once this problem was corrected with the application of ammonium sulfate, the crop would increase 250%. Enthusiastic, Ludwig increased even more the area for planting, began raising cattle and discovered that his land included one of the largest reserves of kaolin in the world, a fine clay used in the making of porcelain, medicines, and a kind of varnish for color printing on certain papers.

When everything seemed to be a little better, the first problems with the Brazilian government appeared. Ludwig was accused of being the “Emperor of Amazonia”. They made him buy the Brazilian agricultural aircraft. They said that the nearness to the border made Jari a threat to Brazilian sovereignty (despite Jari limits being no closer to a border than Rome). They questioned the exemption from taxes for a company that did not even have a branch in Brazil. And they said Jari would never be more than a gigantic waste of money, an anti-model of responsible development.

(Other cities appeared along with Jari. One was the city of Monte Dourado, planned by the engineer Rodolfo Dourado; the others were the “free cities” of Beiradão and Beiradinho: slums on stakes for workers not counted on in the “social housing plan” of the project. Monte Dourado had crescents, wide streets, avenues and no trees. Beiradão and Beiradinho had no streets or sewers or schools, but had a lot of trees, pigs, Indians, unemployed and under-employed people, gamblers and prostitutes right in front of the factory—but far from Jari’s work-day of 10 ½ hours. Ironically, these free cities became the reason for critical articles in the Brazilian press, a country where all big cities are, in a sense, divided into “free” and “guarded” parts.)

There was, however, great precautions taken relating to problems with the government and public opinion. Industrial development in countries with unpredictable economies and political regimes like Brazil could be accompanied by flexible forms of managing things, such as, for example, building factories as floating structures to then install them wherever convenient. All there is to do is find another source of energy, contract cheap labor… and set out for another Third World country.

As the plantations of the gmelina trees neared the age to be cut down, Ludwig administered the building of the factory and the mill. The two structures were put together in Kure, Japan. Twenty Japanese and several other American and European companies were involved in the building of the two platforms, each with the area of 2 ½ soccer fields and the height of a twenty-storey building.

On the first day of February, 1978, under the blue sky of the Sea of Japan, everything was ready to sail. The journey would stretch for 15,500 miles, more than half of the circumference of the globe. If the route chosen was not the shortest, it was the cheapest. The Panama Canal could not take vessels of those dimensions (240 by 50 meters), and the prices of the Suez Canal had been raised to anti-economic levels in Ludwig’s analysis. For the chosen alternative, both the gigantic structures would have to overcome the Cape of Good Hope, a region that since the XVI century has been a nightmare for any navigator. Meteorologists predicted a two-week-long calm in the month of March of that year, from which the choice was made to wait and launch only in February so that the factory would circle the Cape at a tranquil season. After passing east of Taiwan, the Philippines, and between the islands of Sumatra and Java without incident, unforeseen problems at the Cape slowed down the schedule of the journey, since the predictions turned out not to be so precise. Time was lost, the heavy sea reduced the performance of the platform, high waves broke on the boilers, but a few weeks later the vessel was sailing through the mouth of the Amazon. Going round the island of Marajó, they turned right, zigzagging through the meandering river Jari to meet, miles ahead, the city of Munguba on April 28th.

The sister-vessel sailed nine days later. As it encountered better climactic conditions at the Cape, the factory arrived only four days after the mill, a fact that required uninterrupted work to attach the mill in four days, followed by three more to attach the factory. After a week of exhaustive efforts, everything was ready. The workers were exhausted. One man died in the operation, but the two ships were now side by side, perfectly attached in the middle of the jungle, and waiting to be operationally connected to begin their activities.

The greatest industrial plant ever moved over the surface of earth would function like the Tower of Babel. The workers were divided like this: in white, the Japanese engineers from IHI, the company that had designed and built the factory in Kure. In blue: the Finnish engineers, experts in the production of cellulose. In green: Brazilian engineers recruited in the south of the country. And in orange: the rest of the world (less the also numerous Chileans, but it is not known what color they wore). Thus, the international community of Jari (United Colors of Benetton!) were finally prepared to produce and mitigate the astronomical investments spend during eleven years. Or was it?

When the time came to cut the gmelina, it was proved that the tree was really showing a yield well below what Ludwig wished. The tree yielded only about 17 m3/hectare/year, as opposed to the humiliating 50 m3/hectare/year of the eucalyptus planted in the state of Bahia, in the south of the country. As the Jari soil was not adequate, the alternative, in order to attain the necessary production, was to cut down more native trees—this time not to create space for gmelinas but to increase the quantity of raw material to feed the factory. Paradoxically, after a decade of ignoring and burning native wood, Amazonian trees were now mixed with gmelinas at a proportion of 1:4 so that the factory production would be close to its total processing capacity.

At this point, the Brazilian government and society were already aware of the problems concerning the project. Ludwig, who had fired thirty directors of Jari in thirteen years, now accused the Brazilian government of being responsible for the fiasco. In 1980, troops were sent to prevent Ludwig’s workers cut down trees in an area that went beyond the Jari’s limits, so making explicit the discord between the entrepreneur and the government.

In May 1981, Ludwig officially quit. He dictated a sixteen-page letter to President João Baptista Figueiredo, the last of the military regime, requesting six million dollars per year to render social and infra-structural services. If this were not granted, he would interrupt the project and fire all his employees. President Figueiredo did not reply. Irritated, Ludwig put Jari up for sale, and in 1982 a consortium of Brazilian entrepreneurs, administered by Minister of Planning Delfin Netto, purchased the project for less than a third of the amount invested by Ludwig, which had then surpassed the billion-dollar mark. This “bargain,” however, did not mean the business was a good one, since the future of Jari to these days is more and more uncertain, despite the improvements that came soon after the sale.

As usual, the bomb ended up by exploding in the hands of the State. The buyers demanded what Ludwig had always demanded: public investment in infrastructure in the name of the “social development” of the region. The BNDES (National Bank for Development) took on the debt of the factory and mill, while Banco do Brasil took on another debt of 180 million dollars. According to the contract, 5% of Jari’s dividends would go to Ludwig from 1987 to 1996, 4% from 1997 to 2006, and 3% in the other twenty years (which today functions as maintenance funds for the Ludwig Institute for Research on Cancer, founded by Ludwig in Switzerland in 1971). The Caemi group, the main private company that had 40% of Jari’s stock, transferred its part to the Orsa group in 1997. In 2000, Saga Holding bought the business for only one million dollars—plus a debt of 450 million. In the next ten years, 80% of eventual profits will go to creditors, 18 banks among them. Today, the Jarcel Celulose company is responsible for only 3,000 direct and indirect jobs in the region. If we compare this number with the 25,000 direct jobs in the golden era of the Jari Florestal e Agropecuária, it is not surprisingly to know that the majority of the population of Beiradão is unemployed now. Sérgio Amoroso, controller of Saga Holding, said recently in a local newspaper that the future of Jari lies in sustainable management and in ecotourism…

A spectacular operation, Jari was the not the first adventure of this type. In 1927, Henry Ford bough almost a million hectares in the jungle and began a gigantic rubber plantation. Ford had problems with the Far East rubber suppliers, which limited production to maintain prices always high. He decided then to create his own source, buying a fleet of 199 ships to transport supplies and materials to Amazonia and take rubber back. For his five thousand workers he built houses, hospitals, roads, water and sewage network, schools, day-care centers, churches, and the like. The rubber city received the name of “Fordlândia,” Fordland.

Fordlândia lasted eighteen years. The jungle defeated Henry Ford, the essence of modern capitalism: mistakes and bad luck gradually destroyed his project. The ships he had bought could only sail on the Tapajós River during the flood season. Diseases attacked the workers em masse. Caterpillars plagued the single crop, and other problems connected to the vulnerability of large-scale cultures in the region kept the productivity of the tree constantly beneath expectations. After the Second World War, the prices of rubber in the eastern market fell, and not soon afterwards the market was invaded by synthetic rubber.

Ludwig repeated some of the mistakes made by Ford: lack of studies on the peculiarities of Amazonia, overconfidence in the power of the machine, and disdain for natural forces. In fact, Ludwig did not intend to relocate his factory in another locale. Perhaps he imagined that the required costs of infrastructure would be lower, and that he would receive some help from the Brazilian government. Or perhaps the project was being considered just as a “personal work” of state proportions, an irrational gesture of empirical research, a delirious adventure in the ultimate forest of the planet, or just a technical demonstration that the jungle could be economically profitable. In the end of the day, the poetic image of a gigantic factory crossing the oceans in search of wood is the opposite of everything that the project turned out to be: a fixed enterprise, extremely dependent on the political and natural conditions of the locale where it was implanted. Everything that Jari might have been: a mobile factory that could activate and de-activate the exploitation of a place in an opportunistic, short-term, and eventually temporary way: a search for the “best” country, the best soil, the least troublesome politicians, and the cheapest workers. Decades after this Chronicle of a Death Foretold, perhaps it is precisely this mobility of the floating factory that can save the project from its moribund state.

The immediate image of a today’s sustainable development might be one of a “sophisticated sailboat.” Nothing is further from this image than the 240 by 50-meter platform transported by Ludwig or the huge tankers of his Universe Tankships Co. A sailboat sails according to natural resources, at the grace of the wind speed and the maritime currents, adapting itself at every moment to the energies that propel it. But can it be that these very energies, so cultivated in the present world, could reverse the program of that same floating factory—polluting, obsolete, and neglected—that characterized the Jari? Can it be that this platform, this cancer of Amazonia, be regenerated and then transformed into a visionary example of the exploitation of the forests, where low emissions of CO2 would be associated with the most advanced in the technology of renewable energies?

The main sources for this text are:

1. Fernando Morais, Ricardo Gontijo, Roberto de Oliveira Campos, Transamazônica, Brasiliense, 1970
2. O Homem que Comprou o Jari, in Veja, 13/01/1982
3. Jacques-Yves Cousteau e Mose Richards, A Expedição de Jacques Cousteau na Amazônia, Record, 1984
4. Jerry Shields, Growing Trees on Money, in South American Explorer no. 32 e 33, 1993
5. A Guide to Archigram 1961-74, Academy Editions, 1994
6. Elio Gaspari, O ‘problema social’ dos banqueiros do Jari, in O Globo, 15/03/1998
7. Eduardo Nunomura, Jari, um sonho de US$ 1 bilhão perto do fim, in O Estado de São Paulo, 03/06/2001

http://www.vazio.com.br/kyoto/