Jari project

Ludwig controlled the project mainly from the United States. He built a settlement, Monte Dourado, with houses, schools, the only hospital in the area, bakery, supermarket, nurseries, bridges and community buildings. He also built roads and railways. The clearing of the land using heavy bulldozers damaged the topsoil the trees were to be planted in. It became necessary to employ local workers instead for land clearing. Removing the forest cover allowed sunshine to harden the lateritic soil. Gmelina turned out to grow crooked stems, which were very hard to load onto trucks. Also, the new trees were damaged by the numerous insects living in the area of the Amazon. Pinus radiata was planted on the sandier river-bottom soils.

Other settlements, the "free cities" of

Ludwig had also commissioned two large ship-shaped platforms that were built in Japan and floated to the Jari Project. One barge module contained the pulping sector of the pulp mill. This module housed the

It was found that the growth rate of the Gmelina wood was much lower than that predicted and anticipated. To satisfy the demand of the pulp mill production it became necessary to purchase other species of wood from other Brazilian sources. Beginning in 1981 the foresters planted Eucalyptus as they harvested the Gmelina. Eucalyptus tested well for pulping, grew quite well and reduced the demand on purchased wood from other sources.

Diversification

Another of Ludwig's ideas was to grow all the food needed, including

Problems also began to increase because of the so-called Amazon Factor - the combined effects of soil, insects, humidity and tropical disease. It was very hard to keep engineers for the pulp mill, as there was little entertainment for their wives. Newly planted trees required manual weeding for a few years, which meant importing many field laborers from the poverty-stricken Northwest of Brazil. Workers contracted malaria. Insects devoured the harvest and supplies.

Then Brazilian government officials began to criticize Ludwig's methods and the extent of his land ownership. They also questioned the project's exemption from taxes, not to mention his methods - he had fired twenty-nine directors during the thirteen years of the project and preferred to decide everything essential by himself.

Ludwig gave up in May 1981. The next year he turned the Jari project over to a consortium of Brazilian businessmen. He did not receive any money but the several hundreds of millions of dollars of debt were transferred to new owners. Ludwig was to receive a gradually diminishing cut of the possible profits until the year 2026. The new owners demanded - as Ludwig had - investment in the local infrastructure.

The remains of the project remain in Brazilian hands in the form of the Jarcel Cellulose company. Ownership is in the hands of Brazilian banks and holding companies.

• 
  Factory (front)
• 
  Floating factory
• 
  Factory (rear)
• 
  Installations

See also

• Tanganyika groundnut scheme
• Bãi Bằng

Bibliography

• McIntyre, Loren (May 1980). "Jari: A Billion Dollar Gamble".
  OCLC 643483454
  .
• (in French)
  ISBN 2-07-077049-4
  ).