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FRAY BENTOS, URUGUAY — They line up in uniformly measured rows along the sides of roads, their bone-white bark and silvery-sage leaves standing tall against the crystalline blue sky. These groves of Australian eucalyptus are now a common sight in western Uruguay, just across the border from Argentina.

Some see these trees as a tangible symbol of Uruguay's growing GDP — a commercial product bringing jobs and prosperity where low-yielding pastures once existed. Others see these plantations as exotic monocultures that suck up Uruguay's water and acidify the soil.

Eucalyptus plantations are part of an environmental controversy that has driven the neighboring countries of Uruguay and Argentina apart. The plantations grow the raw material for Botnia, the giant Finnish paper pulp mill near Fray Bentos, Uruguay.

On the Argentine side of the Río Uruguay, tall groves of eucalyptus also appear sporadically along a two-lane road that leads through soy and sorghum fields to the General San Martín International Bridge that once connected the two countries. The bridge has been closed for nearly three years, blocked by residents of Gualeguaychú, Argentina, who are protesting pollution from the paper pulp mill, a cause that has attracted international attention.

"There was (also) a movement against eucalyptus," says Susana Padín, secretary of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly, the group leading the movement against Botnia. In particular, the group worries about the amount of water the trees use, Padín says.

The Botnia mill, which breaks wood down into pulp to be pressed into paper, requires about 3.5 million cubic meters of pulpwood each year, according to Botnia documents. Eucalyptus trees are especially suitable becausetheir wood fiber converts more easily into paper pulp than other species. Eucalyptus plantations cover about 4.3 percent of Uruguay's land, according to a 2006 World Bank impact study.

This area of South America was selected because a tree in Uruguay takes less than 10 years to reach maturity, much faster than in a northern European country such as Finland, according to Botnia documents.

To encourage development, in 1987 Uruguay created tax breaks and financial subsidies for companies to create forest plantations. The World Bank funded some of these through a $65 million loan in 1989.

At Botnia, tree trunks are first hacked into chips piled a hundred feet high on the shore of the Uruguay River, waiting to be transported downstream to the main factory. There, the chips are boiled in chemicals and bleached to become white paper pulp. This pulp is shipped to northern Europe and China, where it is processed into paper.

An average eucalyptus tree uses about 10 gallons of water per day, says Ricardo Carrere, international coordinator for the World Rainforest Movement.

"There are areas that never in the history of the country have been dry, that now are," says Carrere, who is based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

"If you're going from a grassland to plantation it's almost certain that you're using a bigger portion of your water through evaporation," says David F. Scott, a professor at the University of British Columbia who studies forest hydrology.

"The bottom line is that if you're going to grow trees fast and have a viable timber crop, you're going to have to have a good supply of water," Scott says.

Situated over the Guaraní aquifer, one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world, these plantations could reduce the water that filters into the underground water system, Scott adds.

Though the area has long been plowed and planted, the tree plantations have changed migratory routes of birds, decreased habitats for species such as partridge and small mammals and led to an increase of snakes and foxes, Carrere says. The phrase "silent forests" has come to refer to these exotic groves, where there is no bird song or buzzing of insects.

The eucalyptus groves raise their branches skyward, their leaves waving lazily in the summer breeze, wafting a sweet scent into the afternoon sunshine. Yet these trees have caused a rift between two nations that will take more than a peaceful walk in the woods to heal.