Smurfit Kappa’s business operations in Colombia were criticised at a public event in Dublin last week when a community representative said the Irish packaging company had damaged the ecosystem of the South American nation.
Organised by the Latin American Solidarity Centre (LASC) and SumOfUs, two campaign groups, the event at Dublin City University was billed as “The Misak Community v Smurfit Kappa”.
The company has operated in Colombia since 1944 but its operations in the Cauca Valley have recently led to conflict with indigenous groups, including the Misak and Páez or Nasa people, who claim an ancestral heritage to some of the 67,000 hectares of land the company now owns.
Smurfit Kappa has planted pine and eucalyptus forests in the Cauca valley to produce paper
