No public policy can be made without listening to the traditional peoples. It is they who preserve the environment, Nadia D'Ávila Ferreira, the top environmental official for Amazonas state, Brazil, says in this Tierramérica interview.

D'Ávila Ferreira, environment secretary for the Brazilian state of Amazonas. - Courtesy of SDS

A biologist who holds a masters in freshwater and fish biology and another in quality management, in March she took the helm of the Amazonas Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development (SDS). The state covers a vast territory of northwestern Brazil and is one of the country's nine Amazonian states.

Ferreira had already served in important posts in the SDS and in the Secretariat of Education for Amazonas state. Following are excerpts from an interview she granted Tierramérica in the Amazonian city of Manaos.

TIERRAMÉRICA: — The Climate Change Act was passed in 2007. What has been done based on that legislation?

NÁDIA D'ÁVILA FERREIRA: — The (state) government created a foundation to develop environmental services in the State Center for Conservation Divisions (CEUC) and of Climate Change, both inaugurated in April 2008. The CEUC will manage 34 conservation areas that cover a total of 17 million hectares, in association with non-governmental entities.

— And for the climate change issues?

— The law calls for six programs that the State Center fro Climate Change must carry out. One is the Forestry Grant, entrusted to the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. Another is a program for energy alternatives.

Training is another activity. We just completed a workshop with teachers from the educational network on forest management and climate change. We have published two books which in 2009 will be distributed to all teachers, nearly 30,000 people, after reviewing them and expanding them based on participatory input. We want to show what students in primary and secondary school can handle the climate issue.

Also, there will be environmental monitoring, with specific indicators of the state, which reduced deforestation 63 percent over the last five years.

— But what is being done to fight deforestation, which increased this year?

— In May, Amazonas created the Strategy Group for Fighting Environmental Crimes, with 31 members who will act based on environmental intelligence in association with the police and the army. It is necessary to attack clearly identified targets, because inspecting the vast extension of the Amazon forest costs too much.

— Will a change in the energy matrix only be possible with the pipeline that would carry natural gas from Urucum, in the interior of Amazonas, to Manaos, the capital, or are alternative sources being considered?

— Today Brazilian consumers pay about 2 billion reais annually (1.25 billion dollars) to subsidize the petroleum used in Amazonas. With Urucum gas, we will have continuous energy, which will stimulate businesses to set up in the country's interior.

The state government wants to induce companies to develop local potential, like the açaí and cupuaçú fruit and the cashew. But to process them requires energy. The pipeline will ensure natural gas in Manaos, nine thermoelectric plants and more vehicles run on natural gas, which today is limited to 224 taxis.

— Environmentalists criticize the pipeline and the use of fossil fuel. Couldn't biodiesel be used?

— The federal government stimulates biodiesel, but it will be necessary to prove that it can be produced on a large scale in the Amazon. Some alternatives based on Amazon fruits will only be able to meet the demands of small isolated communities.

Furthermore, there will be social benefits from the pipeline, whose path has 135 communities, 75 percent of which still rely on lamps or candles. Through public hearings, we achieved changes in the original project, allowing gas distribution along 126 kilometers of branches that will supply the seven local municipalities. And the fiber optic cables for monitoring the gas pipeline will also bring broadband Internet to the communities.

— How do you see the proposal of scientists who defend heavy investments to establish researchers in the Amazon region to save it?

— They are all welcome. But the research should be linked to our strategic goals. We need, for example, to strengthen our productive chains, such as those for natural latex, cashews and other products of local biodiversity. Also for using secondary timber, because the best known species are rapidly being exhausted.

— And when it comes to traditional knowledge, what is your Secretariat doing?

— No public policy can be made without listening to the traditional populations. It is they who preserve the environment. We maintain 98 percent of vegetation coverage in Amazonas state thanks to the economic concentration in Manaos, where, with its industrial district, nearly all of the state's tax revenue comes from. But there was no stimulus for development of the interior, whose population survived on their work and knowledge, preserving nature, without our paying for it.

The state government took the first step, recognizing those populations as “guardians of the forests” and paying them for their environmental services with the Forestry Grant. It is an innovative initiative. We are sure that our programs will continue because they were built with social movements and local peoples, with whom we discuss every policy.

— Does the Forestry Grant aim to become a nationwide program?

— The logic is for it to expand. The indigenous groups have also demanded an indigenous forestry grant, but their lands are federal. For now we have instated the grant in six state conservation units, which will be 12 by the end of the year. We will send the indigenous request to the Ministry of Justice. If it is authorized, there is no reason not to involve the first guardians of the forests.

— Last of all, what role does communication play in your plans?

— We are in the environmental vanguard, with experiences that can be shared elsewhere. But the press usually only publishes negative events, like deforestation, and not, for example, that Amazonas state is five-time champion in reducing it.

The widespread idea is that here there are only trees, and not the great cultural and ethnic diversity, and the largest industrial center in Latin America. We have a great deal of water and biodiversity, but the most important, the greatest treasure of the Amazon, is its people.