By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 17 1998 (IPS)

Brazil is now moving to transform the wealth of information that various institutions operating in its Amazon region have between them into a tool for promoting sustainable development there.

This is the aim of the just created Amazonian Monitoring System (SIVAM), which will generate information and be a catalyst for the integration of various governmental institutions, according to Colonel Alvaro Pinheiro da Costa, director of operations of the SIVAM project’s Coordinating Commission.

The System, which has been mired in controversy because it originated in the Air Force and will work with equipment imported from the United States, will have security objectives such as territorial defence, fighting drug trafficking and air-traffic control, Pinheiro stated.

He added that it had many other objectives, such as the protection of flights over the Amazon region. Numerous avoidable airplane mishaps were cited as one of the local problems that justified the implementation of the system.

A great deal of the project’s expected benefits, however, are environmental. The System will allow precise monitoring of forest fires, deforestation, illegal mining and the pollution of rivers, Pinheiro pointed out.

SIVAM’s monitoring capabilities will make it more difficult for loggers and miners to illegally invade indigenous lands, protected biological areas and forest reserves by providing quick information to local and national authorities.

SIVAM is mainly a network for the collection and distribution of information. It is expected to help achieve a more detailed and precise understanding of the Amazon region, which makes up 60 percent of Brazil’s national territory and is the world’s largest forest reserve.

The project includes the installation of 25 air-control radars supported by five airplanes, 10 other radars, 86 weather stations, 14 lightening detectors, 32 telecommunications units, 300 special radio installations, and 936 computer, telephone and relay stations to facilitate access to data bases.

Three surveillance planes will complement the data provided by satellites, which will make information more accurate by circumventing the problem of the clouds that frequently cover the area, affecting satellite images.

With this, SIVAM will quadruple the current capacity of the National Institute of Space Research for producing the images through which environmental problems in the Amazon region are monitored.

This will improve the precision and details of cartographic maps and contribute to the development of ecological zones to orient economic activity and contribute to a better understanding of the local climate.

It will be important “to show the diversity of Amazonia,” which many consider a homogenous region, said Fabio Vaz, the executive secretary of the Amazon Work Group, a network of 355 non- governmental organizations and social movements.

Environmentalists still doubt the effectiveness of SIVAM as well as its commitment to the promotion of sustainable development. The government has already presented plans for the region, with “goals which deserve applause,” but which are not met, Vaz stated. If SIVAM’s information is circulated, Vaz commented, “we will use it”.

The project, which will be completed in five years starting in 1997, will cost 1.395 billion dollars, to be provided mostly from the Eximbank in the United States. Eximbank will cover the operation of the system during the first two years. After that, it will have to become self-financing, charging for its services and information.

SIVAM is a civil service, Pinheiro commented. After being set up by the Aeronautics Department, it will fall under the jurisdiction of the Secretariat for Strategic Issues of the Presidency, a group of governmental bodies that deal with the region.

The most important aspect will be to connect these institutions and make them share their information, the Colonel stated. The Air Force, for example, has not always cooperated with the meteorological service or the agricultural authorities, despite the fact that it collects data important to both of these. This, he promised, will change.

SIVAM will mobilize technological efforts on various fronts. The Brazilian Aeronautics Company, which already enjoys a strong presence on the world market, will manufacture surveillance aircraft with radar, creating a new high-technology product.

Engineers from a center for graduate studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro are gathering data about the particularities of the region for building the aircraft.

“The regional environment, surprisingly, is not very well known,” according to Luis Miranda, an expert on corrosion who is studying the composition of rainwater in 32 localities to develop the best kind of anti-corrosive tint for the protection of SIVAM installations. This information, moreover, will serve communities for all future building projects.

The Amazon region has the highest rate of lightening strikes in the world and lightening can seriously damage equipment, Miranda pointed out. This requires protective systems based on ground wires, which are being supervised by another expert.

Miranda said he decided to collaborate with SIVAM, despite the opposition from the academic and scientific community, because he was convinced about the project’s importance for development and because the project was “under Brazilian control”.

The use of equipment manufactured outside the country does not affect the implementation of the project on Brazilian territory. What matter’s is the software, the expert maintained. (FIN/IPS/mo/ag/cr-dv/mg/kb/98)

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