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Q&A: “Amazonas State Is in the Environmental Vanguard”

Interview with Nadia D'Ávila Ferreira, Amazonas Environment Secretary* - Tierramérica

MANAOS, Brazil, Aug 23 2008 (IPS) - The Brazilian state of Amazonas is “a quarry of ideas and creativity” and is in the vanguard for having preserved 98 percent of its native forests, paying for environmental services, and enacting the pioneering Climate Change Act, says Nadia D’Ávila Ferreira, the state’s secretary for the environment and sustainable development.

A biologist who holds a master’s degree in freshwater and fish biology and another in quality management, she took the helm of the Amazonas Secretariat of the Environment and Sustainable Development (SDS) in March 2008. Amazonas covers a vast territory in northwestern Brazil and is one of the country’s nine Amazon Basin states.

Ferreira had already served in high-level posts in the SDS and in the Secretariat of Education for Amazonas state. Following are excerpts from an interview with Tierramérica’s Mario Osava in the Amazonian city of Manaos.

TIERRAMÉRICA: The Climate Change Act was passed in 2007. What has been done as a result of that legislation?

NÁDIA D’ÁVILA FERREIRA: The (state) government created a foundation to develop environmental services in the State Centre 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.

TA: And for the climate change issues?

NDF: The law calls for six programmes that the State Centre for Climate Change must carry out. One is the Forestry Grant, entrusted to the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. Another is a programme for energy alternatives.

Training is another activity. We just completed a teachers workshop 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 how students in primary and secondary school can help tackle the climate issue.

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

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

NDF: In May, Amazonas created the Strategy Group for Fighting Environmental Crimes, with 31 members who will take action 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 would cost too much.

TA: 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?

NDF: Today Brazilian consumers pay about two billion reais annually (1.25 billion dollars) to subsidise the petroleum used in Amazonas. With Urucum gas, we will have continuous energy, which will encourage businesses to set up shop in the country’s hinterland.

The state government wants to induce companies to develop local potential, like the açaí and cupuaçú fruit and cashews. But to process these products requires energy. The pipeline will ensure natural gas supplies in Manaos, for nine thermoelectric plants and more vehicles capable of running on natural gas, which today is limited to 224 taxis.

TA: Environmentalists criticise the pipeline and the use of fossil fuel. Couldn’t biodiesel be used instead?

NDF: The federal government is encouraging the use of 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, which will run through 135 communities, 75 percent of which still rely on lanterns or candles. Through public hearings, we brought about changes in the original project, allowing gas distribution along 126 kilometres of branches that will supply seven local municipalities. And the fibre optic cables for monitoring the gas pipeline will also bring broadband Internet to the villages.

TA: What do you think of the proposal set forth by scientists who advocate heavy investments to establish researchers in the Amazon region with the aim of saving it?

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

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

NDF: 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, recognising these groups 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 programmes will continue because they were built with social movements and local peoples, with whom we discuss every policy.

TA: Does the Forestry Grant aim to become a nationwide programme?

NDF: The idea is for it to expand. 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 expand to 12 by the end of the year. We will send the indigenous peoples’ request to the Ministry of Justice. If it is authorised, there is no reason not to involve the original guardians of the forests.

TA: Lastly, what role does communication play in your plans?

NDF: 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 a champion in reducing it.

The widespread idea is that here there are only trees, and not great cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as one of the largest duty-free zones 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.

(*Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)