THE POSSIBLE AMAZON

By Marina Silva and - - Reprint | | Print |

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BRASILIA, Dec 10 2008 (IPS) - The Amazon constitutes a strategic reserve of potential for a new kind of development for Brazil. The opportunities depend on a structural change in focus which has already been made by some sectors of society, government, and businesses, but at a scale that is still insufficient, writes Marina Silva, senator and former environment minister of Brazil. In this article, the author writes that the Amazon can only be treated and understood correctly if Brazil is too. The government should ensure that the levels of socio-environmental governance achieved in the Amazon are maintained. Land-use zoning should continue to advance. It is essential to continue reducing that frontier of vacant lands and, at the same time, continue increasing protected areas, structuring them so that they serve environmental, social and economic functions. Preserving the Amazon and promoting improvements in the lives of its population is a civilisational challenge for Brazil and the world. Our success will depend on the perseverance of local officials in continuing to expand environmental governance and on the political support of society to ensure that the process is not interrupted.

Meanwhile, however, another process is advancing, impelled by awareness, understanding, and experience, to change society’s direction and demonstrate that the Amazon can only be treated and understood correctly if Brazil is too.

The Amazon constitutes a strategic reserve of potential for a new kind of development for Brazil. The opportunities depend on a structural change in focus which has already been made by some sectors of society, government, and businesses, but at a scale that is still insufficient to transform it into a primary foundation of such development.

It is intolerable that illegal deforestation continues in the Amazon. The substantial environmental wealth it takes from us should be transformed into an opportunity to develop Brazil while respecting parameters of economic, social, cultural, and environmental sustainability.

In the case of the Amazon jungle, the repercussions of its ongoing destruction range from the global -Brazil is the fourth leading emitter of carbon, due mostly to deforestation- to the national and continental.

As shown in the studies by the National Institute of Amazon Research, the evaporation taking place across the five million square kilometres of the Amazon jungle is vital to supplying humidity not only to most of Brazil but also South America as a whole.

Therefore, preventing deforestation would also prevent serious climate imbalances in areas of high population density and agricultural production, like Sao Paulo, Mato Grosso, and Parana.

The argument that more forest needs to be cut down in order to expand farming is false. Some 165,000 square kilometres of deforested areas lie underutilised or abandoned.

It is also false to assert that it is not economically viable to exploit these areas. The technology to do so exists and was developed largely by EMBRAPA, the Brazilian agricultural research agency. As for the cost, it must be compared to the cost of destroying new portions of jungle and the resulting loss of environmental services and benefits.

The large-scale adoption of an unsustainable agricultural production model, which had as its basis the destruction of the Mata Atlantica forest in the Paraiba River valley in Brazil’s southeast, produced indescribable wealth for a few coffee barons and infused the zone with a false sense of development, but this did not last more than 50 years. The damage done is still there for all to see: heirs of the upper classes now living in poverty, the lower classes in misery, the land dried up and degraded.

These tragedies should serve as lessons and provide the meaning, purpose, and reason to alter the logic of the still dominant unsustainable development model.

The government should ensure that the levels of socio-environmental governance that have been achieved in the Amazon are maintained. Land-use zoning should continue to advance. Between 2003 and 2007, the government reduced the quantity of vacant lands it held in the Amazon from 40 to 28 percent by creating conservation units and indigenous territories.

With that designation of lands, we increased protected areas from 29 to 41 percent of the Amazon. It is essential to continue reducing that frontier of vacant lands while continuing to increase protected areas and structuring them so that they serve environmental, social, and economic functions.

The ministries that deal with economics should make incentive policies a priority, and the government should provide a budget proportional to the magnitude of the challenge. The first Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation of the Amazon received about 200 million dollars in funding from 2004 to 2007 to enact structural measures, especially the satellite monitoring, auditing, and creation of conservation areas, which contributed significantly to cutting the pace of deforestation by 57 percent between 2005 and 2007.

The demand for resources for the next period of the Plan to Fight Deforestation is not yet clear. In 2007, a group of non-governmental organisations active in the region estimated that an annual investment of 460 million dollars would be needed to reduce deforestation to zero in seven years.

With the creation of the Amazonia Fund, Brazil has an intelligent and highly credible mechanism for gathering international contributions that help in this effort. But those resources must be accompanied by robust national investments.

Preserving the Amazon and promoting improvements in the lives of its population is a civilisational challenge for Brazil and the world. Our success will depend on the perseverance of local officials in continuing to expand environmental governance and on the political support that society provides to ensure that the process is not interrupted. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)