Contemporary Efforts To Address The Amazon Paradox

Contemporary Brazilian Government Efforts to Address the Amazon Paradox

Criticism of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva's handling of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by many foreign observers does not consider the severity of Brazil's need to develop the region's economy. There is, however, considerable substance to critics' arguments that his administration repeatedly favors an infrastructural and economic development strategy over a conservationist policy. Nonetheless, the Brazilian president is confronted with a difficult set of circumstances made evident by the bitter debates within Lula's administration, which came to a head with the May 13 resignation of the dejected Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva.

Although it is difficult to anticipate how Brasília's current measures will affect deforestation in the Amazon, the most important ecological initiative of Lula's six-year tenure thus far has been the Plan for a Sustainable Amazon (PAS). The document was originally signed in 2004 and later enhanced in 2007, but its implementation only began this year. It is characteristically more pro-economic development than pro-environmental preservation. However, the PAS and related initiatives such as the 2004 Plan of Action for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAM) could potentially slow deforestation by designating new areas as nature reserves, combating illegal logging and farming, and eradicating falsified land deeds throughout the region. Overall, Brasília deserves some applause for developing a policy that responds to the international outcry against deforestation. Unfortunately, the needs of a growing economy and agricultural sector, in concert with high commodity prices, conflicts markedly with environmental groups' unwavering commitment to preserving the region crucial to the survival of mankind.

Marina Silva's Departure and Carlos Minc's Inauguration

For some critics, Minister Silva's resignation, coupled with new reports of increasing rates of deforestation, signify a lack of progress in the Brazilian government's modest crusade to conserve the Amazon. Silva had been considered the essential spokesperson within Lula's administration for the environmental movement. Her six-year tenure as Minister of the Environment was littered with tough battles against powerful agribusiness and development interests that ultimately would destroy the Amazon, the area where she was raised as the daughter of rubber-tappers.

To understand Silva's ouster, one must take into account the way Brazilian politics function. The country's political system is a complex, relational game of corporatism at every level and Lula's cabinet is no exception. The enormous executive branch currently contains more than 35 ministries--and is known for its non-stop inter-ministry feuding. These ministries, when not given the leeway to work autonomously, fight for the ear of the president on nearly every issue. When dealing with a controversial issue like Amazon conservation, it is easy to see how Silva was overwhelmed by other ministers' promotion of development and business in the region.

Sergio Leitão of Greenpeace-Brazil said, "The Minister is leaving because the pressure on her for taking the measures she took against deforestation has become unbearable." However, Silva's replacement, Carlos Minc, says he will continue Silva's battles by pursuing strict policies for the conservation of the Amazon. These will include new efforts to seize crops and livestock from illegally cleared Amazonian forests, and banning the sale of soybeans grown on such illegal lands.

While these measures are stringent, Minc will have to contend with the same powerful agribusiness interests and other infrastructural development plans that frustrated Silva. Reportedly, she was outraged by various schemes to construct hydroelectric dams throughout the Amazon watershed, including a planned dam on the Rio Madeira, a massive Amazon tributary. Minc is likely to enter into conflict with Roberto Mangabeira Unger, head of Brazil's newest cabinet post, the Strategy and Coordination Ministry. Unger, a former Harvard professor, is the minister in charge of coordinating the PAS--a position which has given him the Herculean, and perhaps contradictory, task of developing the economy and infrastructure of the Amazon region while conserving the rainforest.

In 2004 the Brazilian federal government inaugurated the PAS, hoping to collaborate with state and local governments as well as the private sector. Some key objectives for the plan were (as translated from Portuguese): "to implement a new model of development in the Brazilian Amazon, focusing on the appreciation of (or valuing of) the potential of its enormous natural and socio-cultural patrimony, increasing the viability of dynamic and innovative economic activities with insertion [of these activities] in regional, national and international markets, and the sustainable use of natural resources with the maintenance of ecological equilibrium."

Minister Unger will have the most influence in Lula's cabinet when it comes to Amazon policy. Unger trusts that economic development of the Amazon is possible while simultaneously conserving the resources of the forest. His characteristically equivocal statements are tantamount to the ambiguities of the former mission statement of the PAS, although it predated his tenure as minister. In an interview published by the BBC on May 15, Unger stressed the Brazilian government's focus on creating economic opportunities for the 25 million Brazilians living in the Amazon region. Unger believes the people living in the Amazon need to be given an organized economic option, otherwise they will create economic opportunity in a disorganized manner, leading to further deforestation. There are two poles of thought toward Amazon conservation: one advocates that the entire forest go untouched and become a "park," while the other views the entire region as open to "disorganized low-intensity ranching." Between these two extremes lies a "coherent and effective economic strategy," presumably the government's prevailing strategy as incorporated into the PAS. He says the government will maintain its "fundamental commitment" to three objectives: "sustainable preservation, defense and development."

His promotion of the PAS is based on the envisaged large-scale development of roads, waterways, and dams, which would provide better trade options for Brazilians in the region. However, the question remains: how can integration and development of the economy of the Amazon occur without significant deforestation? The government is taking measures to fight deforestation through the PPCDAM and projects such as Carlos Minc's "pirate beef" operation [described below in "Recent Progress in the Conservation Struggle"]. Additionally, one of the themes of the PAS (as translated from Portuguese) is "organization to combat deforestation in the Amazon region [and to combat the use of] falsified land title documents." But will the implemented measures be sufficient? Though its proponents say there is a desperate need to integrate the Amazon into the national and international economy, the development of transportation infrastructure in the region (for example, the plan to pave the Amazon-crossing highway from Cuiabá to Santarém) will inevitably lead to deforestation and environmental degradation in spite of the government's artful strategy not to acknowledge this. The building of roads and waterways through the Amazon will provide greater access to the interior of the forest for people who wish to illegally clear lands. The Amazon is so enormous, occupying nearly half of Brazil, that to sufficiently police its thoroughfares, the government would need a substantial force and huge amount of funding.

Overall, a stalwart environmentalist might say that the gains in recent Brazilian federal government policy (PAS and PPCDAM) regarding Amazon conservation do not in any way counter the negative aspects of PAS-related development projects that will inevitably cause deforestation and environmental decline. However, Minister Unger says these projects are necessary to provide economic opportunity in the region, and the rhetoric of the PAS claims innovative technology will be used to conduct such projects with minimal environmental impact. Still, environmentalists correctly argue that any such development is detrimental. Also, it remains to be seen whether the highest degree of technology used for projects will, in fact, have a low environmental impact. Will such technology be available to the projects? And will, as is often the case, technology be sacrificed for cost-efficiency?

Recalling the history of Brazilian government culture in the 1970s and 1980s, one encounters a Brazilian model of "development" that was environmentally devastating. Governor Blairo Maggi (a controversial figure at the forefront of debate on the Amazon paradox) noted in a speech in Washington on June 10, 2008 that government programs at the time promoted exploitation with no regard to environmental cost. Maggi added, however, that attitudes have changed including his. The lack of past awareness of the environmental impact of development in the 1970s and 1980s was reminiscent of similar ignorance in U.S. history in various eras of frontier life when people falsely sensed that they lived in a land of endless bounty.

PAS Conservation Efforts and Other Recent Progress in the Conservation Struggle

PAS cannot be criticized without noting its important steps towards conservation. Recently, social programs have been developed within the PAS to assist those who formerly made a living by clearing the forest. As part of the PAS, the government is creating incentives for those engaged in illegal logging to change their economic livelihood. Forty thousand families that previously generated income from logging will be given social security and unemployment benefits. The government also announced its intentions to allocate a total of ₤300m in loans to farmers so as to encourage forest-clearers to cease their illegal activity and engage in sustainable farming.

The Brazilian government is also making conservation efforts outside of PAS that deserve praise. On June 4, Minc announced that he is implementing new measures in a program called the "Pirate Beef" operation. This is a plan to seize cattle, grain, and produce ranched or farmed on illegally cleared Amazon lands and donate it to the government's Zero Hunger program. The plan will be carried out by officers from the Brazilian government's institute for the environment with help from the Federal Police. In recent years the two organizations have increasingly cooperated to fight illegal logging and charcoal production.

Current Status of Amazon Deforestation

Several studies have shown a recent increase in the per annum rate of deforestation of the Amazon after several years of lowering rates. A Deter (translated as detection of deforestation in real time) report states that after three years of decline, rates of deforestation are set to rise this year. It cites a loss of 1,123 square kilometers in April of 2008. Several reports found 7,000 square kilometers of new agricultural lands which had been converted in the second half of 2007. This is a significant increase from the deforestation rate for the year August 2006-August 2007, which reflected a total loss of 11,224 square km. The activist environmental group Greenpeace also said that deforestation was set to worsen this year. Another Deter study found that between May 2007 and April 2008, the Amazon lost 9,495 square kilometers of forest cover, an area six times the size of the city of São Paulo. Specialists noted that when these statistics were being collected, the worst was yet to come as forest clearing is at its greatest tempo during the dry "burning-season" months from June to September.

The Paradox Remains

Saving the Amazon Rainforest while simultaneously developing the region's economy remains a paradox. International policymakers as well as environmentalists dealing with Brazil must, of course, respect the nation's sovereignty when promoting rational policy initiatives. Many Brazilians have found rhetoric by such persons offensive. Statements such as Al Gore's famous 1989 claim that "(c)ontrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it belongs to all of us," or recent criticisms in both U.S. and British news sources that fault Brasília could be counter-effective, no matter how accurate such hortative statements may be. The Lula administration already seeks to strengthen Brazil's international profile for positive images and to continue its regional influence, while at the same time decreasing its reliance on the United States. Such criticism could make Lula and future administrations develop a penchant to distance themselves from these critics, even if it means making misguided policy decisions that favor short-run economic solutions at the price of lasting environmental preservation.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0807/S00290.htm

Biofuels and the Global Food Crisis - Who Is to Blame?

U.S.-Brazil tension, a relatively recent development, resurfaced during the UN World Food Summit in Rome on June 3-5, encouraging the booming Brazilian sugar-based ethanol market to increase its new development projects. This rift represents a de facto counter move against the far less-efficient U.S. model predicated on corn-based ethanol production. Following the summit, Brazilian officials began a weeklong tour, stopping in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, during which they discussed a set of commercial agreements that will boost multilateral cooperation with several African countries. The trade agreements, projected to begin in 2009, include an expansion in ethanol investment, urbanism, air and sea transport, and cooperation in professional training between the two regions.

In a statement that appeared in Brazzil magazine, Brazilian Secretary of Development Ivan Ramalho remarked that he hoped the meetings would enhance trade with other countries in order to diminish Brazil’s over-reliance on the U.S. market. Brazil’s recent trade initiatives with other developing countries have emerged largely due to the reluctance of some developed nations to lower trade subsidies. This impedes Brazil’s ability to trade, adding significantly to the current debate over rising food prices. In an official statement released after the first set of meetings, Michel Alaby, Secretary General of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, called for solidarity among countries suffering from rising food prices and demanded that developed countries, especially the U.S. and Europe, eliminate international trade barriers in the agricultural sector (Brazzil Magazine). With the emerging agreements, Brazilian officials hope to call attention to the U.S.’ highly inefficient corn-based ethanol production at the height of a snowballing food crisis. The government aspires to be a strong actor in the midst of the food crisis and plans to show the rest of the world the benefits of Brazil’s efficient sugar ethanol market, while it professes to be executing projects stalling the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

The Ramifications of American Subsidies and the Growing World Food Crisis

On June 16, following petitions from the Brazilian government, the World Trade Organization (WTO) condemned the U.S. for its agricultural subsidies that unfairly favor domestic producers. The WTO largely blamed Washington’s practices for the world food crisis that may leave an additional 100 million people hungry by the end of 2008. The WTO criticized U.S. actions as “an attempt to disrespect international commercial regulation with subsidies that drastically reduced domestic prices and could have been seriously damaging for developing nations like Brazil” (New York Times).

During the Food Summit, which was hosted by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), U.S. representatives argued in favor of their protectionist policies, claiming that biofuels are environmentally safer than petroleum, and also benefit farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers. Under pressure from formidable agricultural lobby groups, the U.S. Congress recently placed a 54-cent per gallon tariff on sugar-based ethanol, hoping to encourage domestic ethanol production. As a result of the tariff, U.S. ethanol production increases and Brazilian ethanol exports fell significantly in 2007. Efforts to remove the tariffs have faced strong resistance from both corn and sugar lobbyists, impeding any kind of remedial actions on surging grain prices. As economist C. Ford Runge, a commodity and trade specialist at the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy, confirms, “If you want to take some of the pressure off the U.S. market, the obvious thing to do is lower that tariff and let some Brazilian ethanol come in.” Supporters of this policy believe that increasing Brazilian ethanol production would push down overall energy costs.

Since the Summit, the UN has called on the international community to increase its assistance to developing countries severely affected by the current food crisis. UN officials have planned visits to several African countries to discuss possible food security solutions. In addition, the FAO published several reports criticizing the U.S. and Europe for unnecessarily subsidizing crops and inadvertently driving up food prices while shifting food production in less-developed countries where small farmers cannot effectively compete. The Guardian noted from the reports that the U.S. government is currently spending $7 billion annually on subsidies, while the European Union spends around ∈43 billion ($67.5 billion) (BBC News). A striking example can be seen in France, where the average French cow receives more financial support than half the world’s population earns daily. With rich countries dominating global trade that greatly affects ethanol, FAO General Director Jacques Diouf says that funding for agricultural programs in developing countries increasingly suffers with agricultural aid to poor countries having dropped 56 percent from 1980 to 2005. “Now more than ever private decisions being made about food production into ethanol are affecting all parts of the globe, with little response from the leaders that could do the most,” Diouf observed.

One main concern over how biofuel policy disrupts the market is the current excessive power that interest groups have in the debate on subsidies in developed nations (Runge). Instead of catering to special interests, U.S. politicians would be well advised to cooperate with other countries. While the UN works diligently to halt the growing food shortage, world leaders refuse to amend restrictions on food exports. This negligence is inexcusable on both economic and humanitarian grounds.

Not All Ethanol is The Same

In defense of sugar-based ethanol, President Lula stated that the U.S. misguidedly produces corn for ethanol instead of other agricultural products, while keeping subsidies high to benefit U.S. multinational companies. Lula argues that this is another case where the U.S. keeps developing countries from playing an influential role in the world economy. He claimed, “I am sorry to see that many of those who blame ethanol, including from sugarcane, for the high price of food are the same ones who for decades have maintained protectionist policies to the detriment of farmers in poor countries and of consumers in the entire world.”

In comparison with corn-based ethanol, sugar-based ethanol is more efficient, cheaper to produce, and uses less valuable land. According to the World Bank’s, Biofuels: the Promises and the Risks, the U.S. ethanol industry currently uses 10 million hectares, while Brazil only uses 3.6 million of such terrain and produces eight to ten times more energy than that produced from corn. Brazil does not subsidize sugar, which helps sustain global sugar prices. Whereas corn prices have surged 65 percent in the last five years, which many argue is the result of U.S. subsidies. Brazilian ethanol also yields 8.3 times more energy than the fossil fuels used to produce it, while corn ethanol yields only 1.5 times the energy it consumes.

Environmental Concerns and Lula’s Response

Further ethanol controversy surrounds environmentalist concerns that Brazil’s sugar industry is permanently destroying large areas of the Amazon rainforest. The industry has forced small farmers to sell their land at low prices and work for large multi-national companies, under poor conditions and scant pay. In addition, Brazil’s ethanol production has pushed soybean cultivation and cattle ranching into the Amazon area, making room for sugarcane production in the southeastern part of the country. This region, once home to coffee and fruit plantations, was originally part of the Southeastern portion of the Amazon rainforest, of which only 7 percent remains today. Another environmental concern regarding sugar cane cultivation involves the burning of the old cane to get rid of dry leaves and dispensable biomass. This hazardous practice creates health problems for local populations, and spreads the fires into some of the remaining Amazon rainforests.

President Lula has increasingly displayed support to protect the Amazon from ongoing destruction. On June 19, the government extended its two-year ban on the sale of soy from the deforested land in Amazonia until July 2009. Additionally, officials from the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources have already begun bans on beef and timber from illegal Amazon lands (Mercopress). This recent commitment could signify the government’s sincerity regarding prevention of deforestation and “its commitment to a policy of environmental registration and licensing for land in Amazonia (Brazzil Magazine). New policies also present Brazil as environmentally conscious to international groups such as Greenpeace, who have in the past heavily criticized the country’s lack of effort in sustaining the Amazon’s integrity. Greenpeace director Paulo Adario applauded Lula, stating, “Today’s decision is important because it proves that it’s possible to guarantee food production without cutting down one more hectare of Amazon forest.” Also, in an attempt to speed the recovery of Amazonian pastures and degraded soils, the government will offer soft loans, ample credit for small farmers, and an insurance system designed to reduce the risks of climate change. With the appointment of strong conservationists such as the Minister of Environment, Carlos Minc, a UN awarded defender of the environment, the Lula administration is taking urgent steps to enhance agricultural production and increase Amazonian protection. If action indeed follows such rhetoric, Brazilian planners could be on the verge of helping the country become a world player in trade while it attempts to keep domestic prices low.

The Future of Brazilian Ethanol

Currently, Brazil produces 5.8 billion gallons of ethanol annually, but exports only 960 million gallons. Yet the energy giant is capable of providing the world with 52 billion gallons a year if, through new foreign investment, the government can put in an additional $9.5 billion for financing pipelines, terminals and new plants, offsetting the international dependence on OPEC (U.S. Energy Information Administration). As ethanol increasingly becomes a fixture in the global energy debate, these new steps could mark significant progress in fighting the global food crisis, while drawing increasing international scrutiny to the irresponsible, self-interested subsidy initiatives stealthily exhibited by the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

http://www.coha.org/2008/07/biofuels-and-the-global-food-crisis-who-is-to-blame/

Book Review: Primal wonderland fated to exploitation

Publication of John Hemming's history of the Amazon has coincided with the release of photographs by Brazil's indigenous affairs department of a rainforest tribe uncontacted by outsiders and with the resignation of the country's environment minister amid strains over development policies.

Tree of Rivers highlights themes that have long shaped the fate of the Amazon rainforest and river system - the irresistible desire to explore a wilderness, and the strains generated by the compulsion to exploit its natural riches.

As a breathtaking reminder of its size, Hemming points out that there may still be 40 to 50 uncontacted tribes. That is plausible because, even after decades of destruction, the Amazon forests with those of the adjacent Orinoco and Guianas extend to nearly 2m square miles.

The river system discharges a fifth of the water that flows into the oceans from all the rivers on the planet.

A consummate explorer and former head of the UK Royal Geographical Society, Hemming has done much to nurture an interest in Brazil's indigenous peoples.

But his book is much more than a thrilling account of the derring-do - and foolhardiness - of determined explorers.

It is an economic history of a region coveted - despite the relative poverty of much of its soil - by outsiders for its capacity to yield in abundance all the factors of production: land, labour and capital.

Tree of Rivers traces journeys by explorers, adventurers, slavers, biologists, soldiers, rebels and opportunists up and down the Amazon river and its tributaries since the first incursion in 1500 by a Spaniard, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.

It stops along the way at moorings that permit forays into the dark stories of unspeakable cruelty that have been played out beneath the forest canopy.

Thinking he had sailed up the Ganges, for example, Yáñez provided an ominous portent - seizing 36 indigenous men as slaves.

The author describes with moving authority the decimation of indigenous peoples by the outsiders through murderous enslavement, overwork and imported diseases and avarice.

Just as it was the territory's fate to be squabbled over by Spain and Portugal, it was also its lot to be plundered.

In subsequent centuries, a long list of real, or imagined, tradeable goods would lure outsiders: gold, slaves, turtle meat, spices, quinine, cacao, rubber, hardwoods and, most recently, land for colonists, cattle ranchers and soya producers. Even scientific missions often had a commercial imperative.

The 19th-century rubber boom is, perhaps, the most well-known period in this story but, today, land for ranches and farming is the new commodity driving development - and deforestation.

The Amazon has also been a fertile source of dreams - it germinated tales of El Dorado and of what Hemming calls the "legendary tribe of sexually liberated women" after whom the river itself is named; it fuelled the radical ideas of the Enlightenment and of the noble savage; it nourished bizarre racist theories, then buried their inventors; it legitimised the colonising zeal of General Emílio Médici as a "land without people for a people without land"; and, today, it ventilates green politics everywhere as the "lungs of the world", a vast carbon sink essential for the survival of the planet.

It provided a ready supply of souls for theocratically inclined Jesuits, and was a haven for runaway slaves, esoteric cults and all the most significant South American guerrilla movements.

While there will always be optimism that a middle way between extraction and conservation can be found, it is a measure of how so much, yet so little, has changed since the 15th century that the story Hemming tells is one pregnant with the inevitable conflict between wonder at the discovery of new worlds, and our capacity to ruin them.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6b0b8bd6-4c88-11dd-96bb-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Foreigners buy land equivalent to six times the size of Monaco every day in Brazil

Foreign companies and citizens buy 1,200 hectares of land every day in Brazil, an area six times the size of the Principality of Monaco, local daily Folha de Sao Paulo said on Monday.

Statistics show foreign investors bought at least 1,523 rural properties or 2,269,200 hectares of land in the country from November 2007 to May 2008.

The above figures do not include land bought by Brazilian companies with foreign capital or individuals who use Brazilian citizens as front men.

Most buyers are said to buy land for the production of soybeans, ethanol, cattle-raising and crops to produce biofuel.

A study by Brazil's National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) said foreign entities owned 5.5 million hectares of Brazilian land. Of that amount, 754,700 hectares are in Mato Grosso state and 504,700 hectares are in Sao Paulo state.

The acquisition of land by foreigners, especially in the Amazon Rainforest area, is a growing source of worry for the Brazilian authorities.

In 2006, Swedish businessman Johan Eliasch purchased 160,000 hectares of land in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, which is even bigger than the country's largest city Sao Paulo.

Even though Eliasch declared he bought the land because he liked the forest and wanted to preserve it, last month his logging company was fined 450 million reais (281.25 million U.S. dollars) for illegal exploitation. INCRA is considering annulling the registry of Eliasch's ownership of the land.

Brazilian government plans to take legal measures to limit the purchase of land by foreigners. Land acquisition is now only allowed for residents and companies operating in the country.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/08/content_8510503.htm

Petrobras JV formed to export Brazilian bioethanol

A 20-60-20 joint venture comprised of Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), Itaruma Participacoes SA, and Mitsui & Co. has been established with the aim of exporting bioethanol from Brazil to markets in Japan, Europe, and North America.

At a cost estimated at ¥30 billion, the partners will construct a 200,000 kl./year bioethanol plant in Itaruma, Goias state, and cultivate some 30,000 hectares of sugar cane as feedstock in Cerrado—all exclusively for the production of bioethanol starting in second half 2009.

The project partners say the new venture—in "a wild inland grassland area"—will not compete with the country's sugar market or contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

The project also will use bagasse (pomace of sugar cane) by combusting it and collecting the resulting heat for ethanol production and generating electricity by a steam boiler. "Consequently," the partners said, "the bagasse power generation will help reduce the consumption of fossil fuels."

Last month, it was reported that Petrobras's gasoline-ethanol blend will be sold in Japan in 2008. Petrobras will supply E3—gasoline blended with 3% ethanol—to independent gas stations, with the wholesale price expected to be ¥1-2 less per liter than ordinary gasoline.

Earlier this week, Brazilian ethanol producer Copersucar, eyeing increased export potential and growing competition, signed an agreement to supply 200 million l./year of ethanol exports to Japan Biofuels Supply LLP (OGJ Online, July 3, 2008).

http://www.ogj.com/display_article/333536/7/ONART/none/Prong/1/Petrobras-JV-formed-to-export-Brazilian-bioethanol/

Poll shows ignorance over Rainforest role

Most people are ignorant of the crucial role the rainforests play in keeping the global climate stable, a survey has revealed.

More than 60 per cent of people questioned thought air travel and domestic heating produced more greenhouse gases than the destruction of the forests.

In fact deforestation releases more CO2 into the atmosphere each year than all of the world's planes, trains and automobiles put together.

The survey commissioned by the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) revealed that 62% thought more CO2 is produced by the UK's housing stock each year than by deforestation. The truth is that cutting down the rainforests for agriculture and grazing produces more carbon emissions than all the UK domestic energy use.

ICM questioned more than 1000 British adults for the poll which found that 53% wrongly blamed aviation for more carbon emissions than deforestation. In fact rainforest destruction produces more CO2 emissions than all international air travel combined.

The survey was carried out to mark the launch of RFUK's Hot & Bothered campaign which aims to make people more aware of the role that the protection of rainforests can play in tackling climate change while at the same time helping indigenous communities who rely on the rainforests for their survival.

Each hectare of rainforest - roughly the size of two football pitches - holds an average of 160 tonnes of carbon and an area almost the size of England and Wales is cut down every year releasing billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The destruction results in millions of people worldwide being made homeless while driving animals and plants to extinction.

RFUK Director Simon Counsell said: "At the current rate of destruction, deforestation contributes about as much to global greenhouse gas emissions annually as the entire United States, mostly from the loss of tropical forests.

We need to put an end to it, but at the same time we need to make sure that the rainforest is protected in a responsible and sustainable way. Our experience shows that the best way to protect rainforests is to secure the rights of the communities that have always lived in and depended on them.

By launching the Hot & Bothered campaign, we're calling on the public to recognise the role that these areas can play in reducing carbon emissions, while demanding that even bigger steps be taken here at home. By helping us to protect the rainforest, people can make a real contribution to tackling climate change."

RFUK has unveiled a 'Virtual Rainforest' which allows people to protect and personalise their own online acre for a £25 donation. Each online acre will help RFUK to place real acres of forest into the hands of the people that live there.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/04/earainforest104.xml

Truth Behind The Dead Forests

Carbon is the chemical element at the root of life on earth. Indeed, all living things are essentially made of the stuff.

Humans and animals eat carbon-based foods and exhale some of the carbon they contain as CO2, a gaseous mix of carbon and oxygen.

Trees and plants breathe in the CO2 and use energy from the sun to separate the carbon from the oxygen.

The carbon is used to build their trunks, stalks and foliage, and the oxygen is released to be breathed in by humans and animals. And so on...

When a tree or plant eventually dies, it will rot or be burned or eaten, and most of its stored carbon is returned to the atmosphere as CO2.

The rest decomposes into the ground to become part of the soil.

This neat solar-powered process is known as the carbon cycle. It's a cycle that makes life possible and also affects the temperature of the planet, because the more CO2 there is in the air, the more of the sun's energy gets trapped in the atmosphere.

Humans are disrupting this cycle in two ways. First, we're burning oil, coal and gas, which are made of carbon soaked up by plants from previous eras.

Second, we're destroying forests to clear farmland or collect firewood and timber. When we do this, much of the carbon stored in the trees and soils over the centuries is released back into the atmosphere. In addition, the forest stops absorbing CO2 from the air. (If the cleared land is used to ranch cattle, there will be a further impact, as cows belch up large volumes of globe-warming methane.)

Deforestation is sometimes ignored in the global warming debate but it accounts for almost a fifth of the human impact on the climate. That's more than all the world's cars and planes, more than the entire USA, or the whole of China.

Tropical deforestation - the destruction of rainforests - accounts for the majority of these emissions. That's partly because regions like Europe cleared many of their forests centuries ago. But it's also because the sun-soaked forests of the tropics are more effective carbon stores than those in temperate areas.

For rainforest nations such as Brazil and Indonesia, carbon emissions from deforestation can outstrip those from fossil fuels. And that's not to mention the massive impact on biodiversity - the rainforests are home to more than half the world's species, from irradescent butterflies to awe-inspiring beasts such as gorillas and jaguars.

The challenge is finding a way to stop this destruction. If we don't, then the world might not be able to avoid runaway global warming - even if we succeed in slashing our fossil fuel use.

Ironically, one of the 'feedback loops' that scientists fear could cause such runaway warming is the potential collapse of rainforest ecosystems. The concern is that, as the planet warms, precipitation patterns could change, taking the rain out of the rainforests. If this happened for long enough, the forest could die off - killing countless species and releasing even larger volumes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The solution to deforestation will probably be based on western nations paying tropical countries to protect their forests - a rent for their 'carbon services', as it were, and an alternative to income from logging and farming. There are many details to work out but hopefully new and exciting projects in Peru will help the world to see that it can be done.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Climate-Change-Expert-Duncan-Clarke-On-Tackling-Deforestation-And-Carbon-Emissions/Article/200807115023843?lpos=World%2BNews_0&lid=ARTICLE_15023843_Climate%2BChange%2BExpert%2BDuncan%2BClarke%2BOn%2BTackling%2BDeforestation%2BAnd%2BCarbon%2BEmissions%2B

Brazil fines 24 ethanol producers for illegal forest clearing

Brazil fined two dozen ethanol producers accused of illegal clearing the country's endangered Mata Atlântica or Atlantic rainforest, reports The Associated Press.

The companies face 120 million reals (US$75 million) in fines for operating without licenses and planting sugarcane in illegally deforested areas, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said in a press conference. The firms will be required to restore 143,300 acres (58,000 hectares) of forest.

"We will not let companies that destroy the Atlantic rain forest have any peace," Minc told reporters. "If these environmental crimes continue, they will provide ammunition for those who want to slap trade barriers on the export of Brazilian ethanol."

The fines come shortly after a group of Brazilian ethanol firms signed the first deal to export sustainably-produced ethanol. The deal, announced last week, will send to Sweden 115 million liters of to meet to certain social and environmental standards. The Brazilian soy and beef industries have recently announced similar certification initiatives.

In recent months Brazilian authorities have cracked down on loggers, ranchers, farmers, and charcoal producers believed to be operating in violation of environmental laws. Last week agents seized 3,100 head of cattle found grazing on illegally deforested lands in the Amazon. Minc said the cattle would be auctioned to fund Fome Zero, the government's food program for the poor. Earlier this year the government conducted operation "Arc of Fire" to stop illegal logging on the Amazon frontier.

The moves are part of an effort by Brazil to counter criticism over a recent jump in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and neighboring ecosystems that analysts say is linked to rising commodity prices. Brazilian authorities note that while forest clearing has climbed over the past year, it is still considerably lower than the peak year of 2004 when more than 27,000 square kilometers of forest were lost. Further Brazilian ethanol is widely recognized as the most efficiently mass-produced biofuel on the market, yielding 5.5 times as much energy per unit of input compared with U.S. corn ethanol.

Brazil's Mata Atlantica once blanked the coast of the country but hundreds of years of logging and agricultural expansion have reduced the ecosystem to about eight percent of its original extent. The forest is home to dozens of well-known endangered species, including the charismatic Golden Lion Tamarin.

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0701-brazil.html

Tough on environment crime…

Regarding the article "Brazil confiscates cattle to protect its rain forest" (June 26): We must highly commend Brazil's new environment minister, Carlos Minc, for resolutely cracking down on ranchers occupying illegally deforested land.

Preservation of the Amazon rainforest is this generation's mandatory task and is contingent on this forceful style of prosecution against those who do not respect environmental legislation.

With this move, Brazil begins to demonstrate to a skeptical international community that its government is serious about protecting the rainforest from increasing illegal deforestation.

It is entirely appropriate for Minc to seize commercial livestock from protected land so that ranchers realize his hard-line stance on rainforest protection is for real. However, this is only the first step in protecting the irreplaceable rainforest, and Brasília would be wise to continue strict regulation of environmental protection provisions.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/opinion/edlet.php

Protecting Peru and Brazil’s Uncontacted Amazon Tribes

What is it about the recent photographs of the “uncontacted” indigenous tribe of the Peruvian-Brazilian Amazon region that has caused such a stir? The provocative photos of painted natives in loincloths, including several holding bows ready to loose their arrows at the aircraft filming them from overhead, are eliciting worldwide concern over how the government will treat these people. The image of brandished arrows seems pretty clear: these natives want to be left alone. The government recently released the photographs taken by FUNAI, Brazil’s National Foundation for Indians, in order to provide substance to the debate over isolated and uncontacted groups who exist in the Amazon.

Survival International, an organization that monitors the status of indigenous tribes worldwide, estimates that there are at least 100 isolated tribes remaining in the world, with half of them in Peru and Brazil. These native peoples and their ways of life are in constant peril due to new roads, dams, logging, mineral mining and especially disease brought from outside, and there are growing concerns that these threats endanger the many indigenous tribes’ ways of life. Contact with outsiders brings only violence, exploitation and death. The recent photos have intensified a long-standing disagreement about whether Peru and Brazil are doing enough to protect isolated indigenous tribes and the prospective ethnological fate of the entire Amazon region. Despite recent re-affirmations of their commitment to protection policies by both the Peruvian and Brazilian governments, experts insist that not enough is being done. More proactive policies must be put into place in order to preserve the Amazonian cultures.

The Main Threats

One of the longest existing threats to the livelihood of the Amazonian indigenous peoples is legal and illegal logging. Carlos Minc, Brazil’s new environment minister, announced on the second of June that the pace of deforestation is rapidly increasing. Satellite imagery from the space agency INPE shows that from August 2006 to July 2007, 4,964 square kilometers of the Amazon were cleared, while 5,850 square kilometers were cut down between August 2007 and April 2008. This represents a considerable increase in logging, and demonstrates that current policies are clearly not working. On the Peruvian side of the border, the government has been exceptionally unsuccessful in halting the logging that forces native peoples to migrate across the border to Brazil or into the territory of other tribes, which often leads to violent conflict and death. Both governments have been criticized for their failure to adequately protect these tribes.

Indigenous tribes living in the Amazon basin are also faced with the threat of a $6 billion hydroelectric dam on Brazil’s Xingu River. Known as the Belo Monte project, the dam would be built in the state of Mato Grosso to provide Brazil with the energy needed for its continued economic development. However, the 10,000 square mile Xingu Indigenous Reserve, the first federally-recognized indigenous territory in Brazil, is located along the river and will almost certainly be devastated by the dam. “Hydroelectric dams have severe social impacts,” explains Philip Fearnside, one of the world’s leading rainforest scientists, “including flooding the lands of indigenous peoples.” The Xingu reserve is home to 14 indigenous nations, while another 10,000 native peoples live just beyond its boundaries. Construction of the Belo Monte dam proceeds despite its potential for severe repercussions on local indigenous populations.

The Trans-Oceanic Highway, which will connect the Amazon to the Pacific Ocean, is also a cause for concern. This 711-mile road will link Assis, a Brazilian river port, with Peru’s Pacific ports of Matarani, San Juan and Ilo. The highway is designed to transport agricultural products, mainly cattle and soybeans, to international markets. Soy production in Brazil has recently increased due to global demand for food and increased prices. As a result of the high demand for soy products, a great deal of rainforest is being stripped in order to create additional farmland, while additional land is then cleared for cattle grazing. The emphasis on these two products has enormously increased deforestation, accounting for about 70 to 80 percent of the total area cleared.

All of these dangers are interrelated and enhance the principal threat facing indigenous tribes: the spread of disease. Deforestation - whether to construct roads and dams or to increase access to farmland - not only cuts into the land occupied by indigenous people, but also brings modern civilization into closer physical contact with isolated tribes. Natives are being exposed to diseases to which they have no immunities. Further encroachment could trigger a pandemic reminiscent of the those that swept through the Americas during the time of European exploration, when disease was the single most important factor in wiping out the majority of the American indigenous populations. “After contact was made with the Surui people, for instance, half of their 400 members died from ‘Western’ illnesses within a few years,” explains John Hemming, an author of Brazilian ethnology. Over the past two hundred years, an estimated three to four million indigenous people have been killed by foreign disease, such as the flu, chicken pox or the common cold. In fact, the groups that isolate themselves and hide from modernity, such as the ones recently photographed, are likely survivors of formerly large tribes whose members were decimated by exposure to a range of fatal diseases.

Policy on Isolated Peoples

In spite of the high visibility of the issue, both Peru and Brazil’s policies regarding isolated indigenous people are vague, inconsistent and almost always irresponsible. Policies aimed at halting deforestation and protecting isolated indigenous territory are repeatedly altered to the detriment or the indigenous peoples. Many governing officials do not believe that uncontacted tribes still exist in the Amazon, and therefore question the importance of protecting the land. Even those who recognize their existence debate the value of avoiding contact. Some believe that since modernity will inevitably intrude, contact should be made now under controlled conditions. It would be worse, they claim, to wait until the natives confront illegal loggers and petroleum company officials.

Following the release of the photographs of the uncontacted tribe on the Peruvian-Brazilian border, both countries have re-affirmed their no-contact policies. Brazil’s current strategy is to delineate indigenous land and make it off-limits to outsiders. Contact is only to be made if the natives are in danger or if they initiate contact of their own volition. A team of Peruvian experts is currently investigating whether logging is intruding on the tribe’s territory and forcing them across the Brazilian border. If this is the case, Peru has promised to take measures to stop this activity. However, just as it is difficult to curb illegal logging, it will be a challenge for both governments to ensure that isolated tribes have no unsolicited exposure to the outside world. Moreover, mounting economic pressures threaten to affect policy toward Amazonian territory in the future. Thus, the future of these no contact policies remains uncertain.

Reasons to Protect

There are a number of reasons why we must work to preserve the indigenous way of life of the people on Earth who live beyond the realm of modernity. First, Amazonia’s isolated indigenous tribes represent the astounding diversity of humankind, and observation would provide us with an incredible learning opportunity. The indigenous Amazonians’ culture has not yet been altered by contact with outside ideas, a unique situation in today’s increasingly globalized world. They are inherently valuable in that they provide a link to our past and show us an alternate way of life from which we can learn. Humanity has a great deal to gain from preserving diverse ways of life, especially when are so different from our own. Knowledge of distinctive cultures has intrinsic value.

Additionally, these indigenous people, as Survival International states, “deserve to be able to defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.” As human beings, they have autonomous rights just like everyone else. In fact, not protecting the tribes from contact might be considered a form of genocide, or the deliberate and systematic destruction of this distinct group of people. Mario Lucio Avelar, a Brazilian public prosecutor, believes that loggers who contribute to the eradication of traditional ways of life are guilty of genocide. “We are not necessarily talking about assassination, but they are making the survival of the tribe’s way of living impossible,” Avelar explains. “The loggers invade, prevent them from growing crops, hunting or practicing their culture. Without those things, the tribe cannot survive.” These tribes must be safeguarded in order to demonstrate our commitment to defending universal human dignity.

Furthermore, the isolated tribes offer a “reflection of the economic and political drama surrounding the international effort to preserve the rainforests as part of the struggle to combat climate change,” writes Dan Rabinowitz, professor of anthropology at Tel Aviv University and deputy vice chair of Greenpeace U.K. Because their lives depend precisely on the existence of the Amazon rainforest, the dilemma surrounding the need to protect the isolated tribes draws valuable attention to the climate change issue. The Amazon rainforest is vital to global ecology. It acts as a climate regulator, affecting rainfall patterns worldwide. It is in the interest of surrounding regions to protect the rainforest, as it provides the rainfall that supports agriculture. According to Meg Symington, Amazon director for the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S., destruction of trees in Brazil is responsible for half of the world’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions. In this way, destruction of the territory of the isolated natives also means elimination of the indispensable rainforest. This essential resource for all the world’s people hangs in the balance.

What Should Be Done

Brazilian president Lula da Silva has attempted to staunchly maintain his image as Brazil’s first “green” president. However, the recent increase in the rate of deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest is marring this reputation. The prospective construction of the Trans-Oceanic highway, combined with increasing agricultural demand during a time of soaring food prices, will inevitably contribute to a further consumption of land. Destruction of the rainforest will be disastrous for all indigenous peoples living in the Amazon basin area; particularly those who have managed to remain isolated. Policy needs to be focused not only on protecting the environment, but also on safeguarding those whose precarious way of life is in danger of extinction.

Critics of government policy will argue that a proactive policy is needed, and that Peru and Brazil must immediately draw clear and unyielding boundaries for Amazon territory. Rather than ignore the uncontacted tribes, both Peru and Brazil’s governments should enforce a strict policy of protection. A stringent zero-tolerance policy must be enforced. The governments should monitor and punish anyone intruding on or misusing indigenous land. Only severe prosecution of those who defy national and international law by invading and deforesting will deter these criminals. The federal governments should also require that individual states take on greater responsibility to protect land that is off-limits to poachers and severely punish transgressors. Moreover, they must ensure that from this point forward there would be no more deforestation and construction of roads or dams that disrupt tribal lands and lives. Governments must ensure that landowners re-use and increase the productivity of land that has already been cleared. Since contact with native peoples have had disastrous effects in the past, strict no-contact laws must be implemented. All nations with Amazon territory need to recognize, respect and protect tribal land and rights.

A Lesson From History

The destruction of a civilization is not a new phenomenon, especially as a result of environmental change and deforestation. Easter Island, now consisting mainly of scrub, once had a sizeable forest that natives used in the construction process of their stone statues. The disappearance of the island’s forest has been shown to coincide with the decline of the civilization that built the famous monoliths. What went through the mind of the person who cut down the last tree? Eventually, if we’re not careful, we’ll fell our last tree as well, and the rainforest’s citizens will be wiped out. In the case of the Amazonian natives, outsiders deforest their home, but the lesson is the same: indigenous tribes need to be protected, lest we risk the consequences of their permanent destruction.

http://www.coha.org/2008/07/protecting-peru-and-brazil%E2%80%99s-uncontacted-amazon-tribes/