ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: A New Law to Save the Forests

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 2006 (IPS) - A draft law on the management of public forests has drawn mixed reactions in Brazil, but it is the great hope of the Environment Ministry and most environmentalists who are lobbying hard for its approval by the Senate in the next few weeks.

The bill is a key instrument to consolidate the trend, which began this year, towards reducing deforestation in the Amazon region, said Environment Minister Marina Silva. She proposed the new legislation in February 2005, after a long process of debate and consultation with all sectors concerned, including researchers and environmentalists.

The Chamber of Deputies has already approved the draft law, which allows the concession of public areas to private enterprises, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and local communities, for sustainable production for up to 40 years.

But opponents claim that it is unlikely to succeed. Similar experiences in nations in Africa and Asia did not prevent the destruction of forests, nor did they improve the life of local people, according to Niro Higuchi, an expert on forest management at the state National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA).

The law’s provisions will not be economically viable, due to competition from illegally logged timber which is invariably cheaper, and the broad diversity of plant life in the Amazon, which means the usable trees are rare and are spread widely over vast areas, argue others, like journalist Washington Novaes, former secretary of environment in Brasilia.

People also question how the new law is to be applied in the vast Amazon region, as current legislation has not been able to prevent illegal activities such as destructive logging, total deforestation of huge areas, and fires.

“Forest-based industries that want to respect the laws need this draft law so that they can compete on an equal footing with illegal or informal operators,” states a manifesto which industry associations signed on Dec. 14 together with environmentalists, indigenous people and social movements.

In an unprecedented alliance, wood, pulp and paper industry associations and wood exporters joined NGOs and social movements in publicising the joint manifesto and urging the Senate to pass the law.

A forest-based economy needs “stable conditions” and extremely long-term guarantees for its investments, which take decades to mature, agronomist Adalberto Veríssimo explained to IPS. For 20 years, Veríssimo has worked as a researcher with the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (IMAZON).

The main result of the new law will be to regularise land tenure in a large part of the Amazon region. This is “the right start, and will form the legal basis for developing a sustainable forest economy,” he said.

The economic and technical viability of sustainable timber extraction in the Amazon jungle has been proven by many studies and practical examples of forest management, according to Guilherme de Carvalho, a forestry engineer and technical director of the Association of Timber Exporting Industries of the state of Pará (AIMEX).

Careful inventories have indicated the availability of 15 – 40 cubic metres of timber per hectare, enough to make extraction viable, he asserted.

The industry only needs “legal stability so that it can work on a long-term basis,” in contrast to the present uncertainty, and increase the supply of certified wood so as to help curb illegal logging, he added.

With respect to failures abroad, he said that the world has changed. Consumers are more aware of environmental factors, and Brazil is different because it has “the most rigorous environmental legislation in the world.”

In Brazil’s Amazon jungle, 76 percent of the land is publicly owned, but only 29 percent is protected in conservation areas or indigenous territories, the environment minister commented, while arguing the need for the draft law.

Forty-seven percent of the land is at the mercy of constant invasions by “grileiros,” people who usurp land usually by forging documents, then clearing it quickly to claim possession. Sometimes they expel traditional owners – often indigenous people – by means of violence, including murder.

The draft proposal seeks to prevent privatisation of these public lands, rather than the other way around, as critics claim. The aim, according to environmentalists, is for the State to reassert control over the public heritage – land and forests – put an end to the current chaos, and curb violence.

The lower house modified the original Environment Ministry proposal, reducing the maximum period for land concessions from 60 to 40 years, and excluding foreign businesses and NGOs as beneficiaries, but not their local subsidiaries.

To make inspections more effective and improve enforcement of the new law, a Brazilian Forestry System and National Forest Development Fund would be created, to be funded by a portion of the revenues generated by the concession of public forests for sustainable management and exploitation.

“No legal activity can compete with illegal operations, that is a mistaken comparison,” said Veríssimo in response to critics who point to the economic difficulties that the new law will face. In Brazil, nearly all sectors of the economy coexist with illegal or informal competition, and are nonetheless viable.

Around half of all timber extracted from Brazil’s Amazon jungle is illegally logged, but that proportion will gradually be reduced if the new law is passed, to the point that it will become “insignificant within 10 years,” the agronomist predicted.

Furthermore, the concessions will not be limited to the exploitation of timber, but will also involve other forestry products, like fruits and nuts, substances used in medicines and cosmetics, resins, food products and oils, which all depend on the sustainable management of forests.