ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Alarm Sounds on Upsurge in Amazon Destruction

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 16 2001 (IPS) - Brazilian environmentalists and scientists are calling on the government to enact an urgent integrated policy to preserve the forests and assist the population of the Amazon region, spurred by new reports of accelerated deforestation.

The Environment Ministry announced that 19,831 square km of Amazon forests were destroyed in the Aug 1999-Aug 2000 period, 14.9 percent more than in the previous 12 months.

The measurements gathered by the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), based on satellite images, indicate that the rate of logging and burning the region’s jungles had accelerated, after a slowdown following the 1994-1995 period, when destruction reached 29,059 square km.

The Brazilian Amazon has already lost 14.3 percent of its original forested area, an area larger than France.

This is deeply troubling because it confirms the increasing trend of deforestation, said Luiz Carlos Pinagé, Amazon project coordinator for the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The data verify the ineffectiveness of the control mechanisms the environmental authorities have adopted and highlight the need for a “national integrated policy for the region’s development,” Pinagé told IPS.

The “forestry vocation” that should serve as the focus of such development is acknowledged by many officials, but the government policy continues to stimulate the expansion of ranching and farming, to the detriment of the forests, laments Paulo Moutinho, an expert from the Institute of Amazonian Environmental Research (IPAM).

IPAM is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that has risen to environmental fame for its reports on the paths of the ‘queimadas’, the technique used by ranchers and farmers to clear forests to prepare land for pastures or cropland.

“The big infrastructure projects” intended to drive economic development in the Amazon have fuelled extensive devastation of natural resources over the last four decades, and without improving the income or welfare of the local population, Moutinho pointed out.

He suggested that, given this situation, the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso must join forces with Brazilian society to intensify the “incipient debate on development alternatives,” taking local potential into consideration and seeking to benefit the people who live in the region.

The programme ‘Avança Brasil’ (Advance Brazil), drafted by the Cardoso administration, continues in the same direction of attacking the forests, granting priority to road and waterway projects that benefit the export of soy and other monoculture crops, charge the environmentalists.

A study completed six months ago by Brazilian and United States researchers estimates that the execution of ‘Avança Brasil’ would result in a 42-percent increase in the area of Amazon forests destroyed between this year and 2020.

Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology rejected the study’s conclusions with sharp criticisms of the assumptions made and of the data that served as the basis for the report.

But the figures released this week by the Environment Ministry “confirm our worst fears,” Pinagé said.

The WWF expert commented that the accelerated deforestation could reach a point of “chaos” if the new Forestry Code is approved, referring to a bill that will be presented before Brazil’s National Congress later this month.

The proposed legislation, solidly backed by ranchers, is an attempt to reduce the area of forest reserves found on the enormous rural Amazon landholdings. It would loosen up the current laws that allowed a certain amount of containment of the destruction from 1995 to 1999, laws environmental activists defend.

The Environment Ministry has adopted good policies lately, acknowledge some NGOs, as they voice respect for the work done by the Secretariat of Amazonian Coordination, a division of the ministry headed by Mary Alegretti.

But those efforts are meaningless if other sectors of the government, with bigger budgets and greater powers, are operating in the opposite direction, charged Pinagé.

Alegretti herself admitted she is very limited in her authority because the Secretariat does not have control over finances. The solution lies in coordinating Brazil’s environmental, agrarian and economic policies, she added.

Biologist Moutinho, who is in charge of IPAM research, asserted that the ranchers with large landholdings continue to be the ones most responsible for burning the Amazon forests. However, satellite images seem to indicate that small farmers and residents of agrarian reform settlements have an increasing role in this destructive practice.

The ‘queimadas’ are doubly harmful to the environment, explained Moutinho. Not only do they destroy the Amazon’s biodiversity, they are also responsible for 80 percent of Brazil’s total emissions of so- called greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

Furthermore, widespread burning results in less rainfall as the jungles hold half the Amazon’s water, making the remaining forests even more vulnerable and propagating a vicious circle of devastation, pointed out the IPAM scientist.

Even so, Moutinho remains optimistic because he sees a rise in public awareness about the risks facing the Amazon and the benefits that can be had through sustainable development alternatives for the region.

Mato Grosso, one of the states suffering the highest levels of deforestation, has successfully set up a satellite-based monitoring system to contain the destruction – and has proved that doing so does not hurt economic growth, the biologist cited as an example.