New research shows rights-based approaches necessary and cost-effective; call for independent advisory and auditing to support UN action on climate change
Unless based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities, efforts by rich countries to combat climate change by funding reductions in deforestation in developing countries will fail, and could even unleash a devastating wave of forest loss, cultural destruction and civil conflict, warned a leading group of forestry and development experts meeting in Oslo this week.
The experts are gathering in Oslo with policymakers and community leaders for a conference on rights, forests and climate change. The conference was organized by two non-profits, Rainforest Foundation Norway and the US-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).
Speaking at the meeting, Norway's Minister of Environment and International Development, Erik Solheim, says efforts towards reduced emissions from deforestation in developing countries should be based on the rights of indigenous peoples to the forests they depend on for their livelihoods, and provide tangible benefits consistent with their essential role in sustainable forest management.
"In addition to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, early action, pilot projects and demonstrations should safeguard biodiversity, contribute to poverty reduction and secure the rights of forest dependent communities in order to achieve any degree of permanence, legitimacy and effectiveness," said Solheim.
Deforestation is responsible for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing it is seen as one of the quickest and cheapest ways of cutting emissions.
"Moves to finance reductions in tropical deforestation and forest degradation are necessary and welcome," said Andy White, Coordinator of RRI. "But on their own they won't solve the problem. Poorly devised, they could even make it worse. If such initiatives are well designed they can not only secure carbon but present a global opportunity to address the underlying causes of poverty and conflict in many developing countries."
Globally, climate change negotiators are considering the introduction of a new financial mechanism, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), that could generate billions of dollars for reducing forest loss in the tropics. Meanwhile, the Government of Norway has already pledged up to 3 billion Norwegian kroner annually (US$ 500 million) to cut emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in tropical countries.
"To achieve long-term reductions in deforestation and forest degradation, it is absolutely necessary to respect and strengthen the rights of indigenous and other forest dependent communities," says Lars Løvold, director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. "Many of these schemes are still being developed, and major decisions on how to spend the money will be made in the next few years. For us, the question is whether this money will result in a great deal of good or a great deal of harm to the environment and forest communities."
Previous attempts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation have largely failed, often due to a lack of attention to human rights, property rights and transparency.
"There are growing conflicts between indigenous peoples and both forestry companies and conservation organizations. Imposed forest management initiatives are only viable if they respect the customary rights of forest peoples and ensure they have control about what happens on their lands. Indigenous peoples must be accepted as full and fair participants in all climate negotiations," said Joji Carino, Director of TEBTEBBA, the Indigenous Peoples' International Center for Policy Research and Education.
Conference organizers worry that REDD could fuel corruption and provoke tensions and land grab situations unless good governance, policies and the rule of law are first put in place.
"Indigenous peoples are rightly concerned about how these new investments could affect their access to the forests that they depend on for their livelihoods," Solheim noted. "This is precisely why we are fully supportive of a role for indigenous peoples and other forest dependent communities in the development and monitoring of climate plans and investments at the national and global level. These rights need to be respected, not just for moral reasons, although that is vital. It is also a matter of pragmatism and effectiveness."
Experience from Brazil, the country in the world with the most advanced monitoring of its forests, gives valuable insight to the discussion on how forests can be protected. According to research from the Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental, 19 percent of unprotected forest areas in Brazil have been deforested, while deforestation inside federal national parks is 2 percent. In indigenous territories, however, only 1.1 percent have been deforested.
The Oslo conference will discuss the Four Foundations for Effective Investments in Climate Change:
1. Recognize rights - establish an equitable legal and regulatory framework for land and resources.
2. Prioritize payment to communities – ensure that benefits and payments prioritize indigenous and local communities, according to their potential role as forest stewards.
3. Establish independent advisory and auditing processes to guide, monitor and audit investments and actions at national and global levels.
4. Monitor more than carbon to keep track of the status of forests, forest carbon, biodiversity and impacts on rights and livelihoods. Secure a role for indigenous peoples in monitoring of emissions, making full use of their knowledge of the state of forest ecosystems, something which could be particularly relevant to keep track of forest degradation.
New research to be presented at the conference demonstrates that the costs of recognizing local rights and tenure systems are low relative to the projected costs of REDD, and that indigenous and other forest communities own or manage a major portion of the global forest carbon stock. The research also shows that communities have proven to be good stewards of the forest.
A new study by RRI and Intercooperation, a Swiss development organization, finds that the average direct cost to legally recognize traditional community tenure rights is around $3 per hectare – an insignificant investment to make when the minimum estimates needed to pay for elements of a global REDD scheme are somewhere between $800 and $3500 per hectare each year for the next 22 years.
Another study that will be released at the conference, by Professor Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan, uses data from 325 sites in 12 countries to show that community ownership of forests provides the best possibility for increasing carbon stocks and improving livelihood outcomes. This is the most robust research to date at a global scale on the relationship between forest tenure and carbon sequestration, livelihood benefits and biodiversity.
Agrawal's study also finds that the larger the property owned by communities, the better the chances for maintaining and sequestering carbon. This research shows the tremendous scope for cost-effective investments that strengthen local land rights, reduce poverty and conflict, and protect remaining natural forest areas.
To help ensure effective investments to combat in climate change, Rainforest Foundation Norway and RRI have called for the formation of independent bodies to advise and monitor the UN Convention on Climate Change.
"We believe that such advisory functions should be given serious consideration," said Solheim. The conference will take up this recommendation and consider how to best move forward in its deliberations.
Major decisions on REDD, as well as other measures to combat climate change, are likely to be made at the 15th Conference of the UN Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.
"In the next fifteen months, the world will have to make a choice," said Løvold. "We can continue to ignore the legitimate rights of forest dwellers, which will exacerbate conflict in forests and make REDD ineffective. Or we can learn from the lessons of the past, recognize the property and human rights of forest dwellers, and almost immediately start reaping the benefits."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-10/bc-fpr101508.php
rainforestpower Headline Animator
Friday, October 17, 2008
In the steps of the slave traders
A wooden sailing ship is taking adventurers along the Brazilian coast, writes Mike Heard.
Intrepid travellers get the opportunity next year to explore the coast of Brazil in a wooden sailing ship.
A 40-metre vessel, built in the Amazon jungle, sails between Rio de Janeiro and the Unesco World Heritage town of Paraty, about 200 kilometres to the south.
En route, passengers can go ashore to swim and snorkel, explore villages and towns and hike through rainforests filled with monkeys and armadillos.
Paraty is noted for its well-preserved 17th-century colonial homes.
A former port for the shipment of gold and diamonds to Europe, it was also the centre of an area producing sugar-cane liquor and at one time had 250 distilleries for a population of only 16,000. The end of the slave trade in 1888 saw the population drop to about 600.
Tourism revived Paraty's fortunes in the mid-1970s when a highway linking it with Rio de Janeiro was completed.
The two-masted sailing ship, Tocorime Pamatojari (Adventurous Spirit), sleeps up to 16 passengers and has five crew.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/activities--interests/cruising/in-the-steps-of-the-slave-traders/2008/10/15/1223750091984.html
Intrepid travellers get the opportunity next year to explore the coast of Brazil in a wooden sailing ship.
A 40-metre vessel, built in the Amazon jungle, sails between Rio de Janeiro and the Unesco World Heritage town of Paraty, about 200 kilometres to the south.
En route, passengers can go ashore to swim and snorkel, explore villages and towns and hike through rainforests filled with monkeys and armadillos.
Paraty is noted for its well-preserved 17th-century colonial homes.
A former port for the shipment of gold and diamonds to Europe, it was also the centre of an area producing sugar-cane liquor and at one time had 250 distilleries for a population of only 16,000. The end of the slave trade in 1888 saw the population drop to about 600.
Tourism revived Paraty's fortunes in the mid-1970s when a highway linking it with Rio de Janeiro was completed.
The two-masted sailing ship, Tocorime Pamatojari (Adventurous Spirit), sleeps up to 16 passengers and has five crew.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/activities--interests/cruising/in-the-steps-of-the-slave-traders/2008/10/15/1223750091984.html
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
After Acai, What Is Amazon's Next "Cinderella Fruit"?
Once obscure Amazon fruits like açaí are riding health claims to supermarket success. Could a scaly palm fruit with three times the vitamin A of carrots be the rainforest's next popular export?
In the rainforests of Peru's remote Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, mothers don't make kids eat their carrots. Instead, kids munch on aguaje, a crisp, neon yellow palm fruit covered in maroon scales. It tastes a bit like a carrot, but packs three times the vitamin A punch.
Aguaje is just one of more than a hundred wild and domesticated fruits available to people each year in this 8,000-square-mile chunk of protected Amazon wetland at the confluence of two rivers in northeastern Peru.
And with so much variety and abundance, it's not surprising that these fruits form the centerpiece of the local diet. The reserve's 100,000 residents depend on them for many nutrients—like vitamins, protein, and oils—that the rest of us normally get from a variety of other foods, including vegetables and nuts.
Money Trees?
Fruits also serve as an important source of income for the residents—especially aguaje. It generates $4.6 million every year in the markets of Iquitos, the nearest city—more than any other indigenous fruit from the Peruvian Amazon.
While U.S. farmers markets might sell a dozen or two different kinds of fruit in any given week, the Iquitos market boasts nearly 200, with varied tastes, colors, shapes, and textures: spiky yellow rinds, crunchy seeds, and orange pulp.
But outside the Amazon region, their popularity is limited. Although the Amazon has occasionally yielded commercially valuable fruits, such as the antioxidant-rich açaí added to gourmet juices and the caffeine-charged guarana used in energy drinks, international markets have yet to plumb most of the bounty of indigenous fruits growing in lush forests along rivers.
Beyond Peru and parts of Brazil, the aguaje's supercarrot possibilities remain largely unknown.
Could that change? One expert thinks it's possible. Outside the Amazon, few know more about this region's wild and cultivated fruits than Nigel Smith. The Venezuelan-born geographer, a professor at the University of Florida, has devoted much of his four-decade career to the Amazon region.
In recent years he's examined just about every aspect of the obscure fruits that blanket Peru's rich floodplain forests: how, where, and why they're grown; who consumes them; their nutritional and cultural value; and, of course, how they taste. (The sweet, "sublime" pulp of wild macambillo, a dull orange fruit, is his favorite.)
Whether it's the aguaje or a tangy-sweet relative of the cacao called the cupuaçu or macambo seeds, a crunchy new alternative to peanuts, Smith has studied them all with an eye toward promoting conservation, boosting sustainable farming in a threatened region, and supporting local residents' livelihoods.
The Land Squeeze
The past three decades have seen unprecedented human migration into the Pacaya- Samiria reserve, part of an area Smith calls the "epicenter of wild-fruit consumption in the Amazon."
Other pressures, like hunting, logging, and unsustainable fishing, are on the rise as well. As these pressures grow, Smith believes small farmers hold a key to managing and protecting the region.
With support from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, the MacArthur Foundation and the Moore Foundation, he and his team, including Peruvian botanist Rodolfo Vazquez, spent six months in Pacaya-Samiria over several years documenting 148 different fruit species. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
They studied how small landowners in a dozen communities use and depend on these fruits, many of which large-scale farmers ignore.
"I'm interested in landscapes where individual landowners are in control," Smith says. "I think that's the great frontier for Amazon conservation."
Over the years, he notes, small-scale farmers have helped shape the forests where they pick and cultivate fruits by "rearranging the biological furniture" in ways that encourage biodiversity.
These farmers "have retained a biologically diverse landscape that benefits not only wildlife but also their own livelihoods," Smith adds.
Crop Insurance
One way Pacaya-Samiria residents have accomplished that is by domesticating potentially valuable wild fruit species, including macambo seeds and vitamin A-rich sapote.
They often plant and grow several at once in diverse forested plots, a strategy known as agroforestry. The combination of crops, both annual and perennial, helps the farmers avert risk.
Should one crop succumb to inclement weather, disease, or a pest outbreak, the other crops would likely survive, ensuring that the farmers have both food and income.
But Amazon experts agree that more needs to be done.
So far the Peruvian Amazon has been spared much of the deforestation caused by the timber trade and cattle ranching in Brazil, yet Smith warns that the "floodplains are going to come under increasing development pressure in the next few decades."
Overharvesting of fruits would threaten trees. And logging is of enormous concern throughout the entire Amazon region, says Douglas C. Daly, an expert on Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical Garden.
That's one reason Smith's work is important. "If we can educate people about the wealth of diversity, as opposed to just the wealth of timber, we can change things," Daly says.
Finding the Next "Cinderella Fruit"
This is where native fruits may come in. Some of the Amazon's little-known produce has the flavor, the nutrition, or the novelty to tempt commercial producers abroad, and Smith hopes that growing international awareness of the dietary importance of fruit could help create a new hit.
His knowledge is helping at least one entrepreneur take steps to market bottled water flavored with Amazon fruits. Jeff Moats, CEO of the Equa Water Corporation in Naples, Florida, plans to begin building a factory next year in Brazil's Amazon region to process fruits local residents can grow sustainably within forests.
But competition from carbonated soft drinks, a $40-billion industry in the U.S. alone, presents a formidable obstacle to anyone wanting to sell Amazon fruit juices. Entrepreneurs "cannot match the marketing muscle and advertising dollars of the major soda producers," Smith says.
Beyond this, fruit supplies can be erratic, and the Amazon region is still struggling with the basic issues of hygiene, infrastructure, and quality control.
So what are the chances you'll someday see vitamin-rich aguaje in your supermarket's produce section alongside carrots, tomatoes, and apples?
It's hard to predict, but Smith is encouraged by the example of the once obscure açaí, which was enjoyed in Brazil long before becoming a hit in eco- and nutrition-savvy foreign markets.
He also notes the success in Japan of the camu camu, a sour maroon berry with 30 times the vitamin C of oranges. The aguaje might become what he calls a "Cinderella fruit" since it fits some of the criteria that have made these other two fruits successful: It's already popular and abundant locally, easily incorporated into products like juice, and relatively simple to transport.
"The production of fruit is vital to the life of an Amazonian person and is of enormous nutritional importance," emphasizes Walter Wust, a Peruvian forester and environmental journalist who helped Smith document the Pacaya-Samiria fruits.
If Smith has his way, more of that bounty will someday nourish the rest of the world as well.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/92827098.html
In the rainforests of Peru's remote Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, mothers don't make kids eat their carrots. Instead, kids munch on aguaje, a crisp, neon yellow palm fruit covered in maroon scales. It tastes a bit like a carrot, but packs three times the vitamin A punch.
Aguaje is just one of more than a hundred wild and domesticated fruits available to people each year in this 8,000-square-mile chunk of protected Amazon wetland at the confluence of two rivers in northeastern Peru.
And with so much variety and abundance, it's not surprising that these fruits form the centerpiece of the local diet. The reserve's 100,000 residents depend on them for many nutrients—like vitamins, protein, and oils—that the rest of us normally get from a variety of other foods, including vegetables and nuts.
Money Trees?
Fruits also serve as an important source of income for the residents—especially aguaje. It generates $4.6 million every year in the markets of Iquitos, the nearest city—more than any other indigenous fruit from the Peruvian Amazon.
While U.S. farmers markets might sell a dozen or two different kinds of fruit in any given week, the Iquitos market boasts nearly 200, with varied tastes, colors, shapes, and textures: spiky yellow rinds, crunchy seeds, and orange pulp.
But outside the Amazon region, their popularity is limited. Although the Amazon has occasionally yielded commercially valuable fruits, such as the antioxidant-rich açaí added to gourmet juices and the caffeine-charged guarana used in energy drinks, international markets have yet to plumb most of the bounty of indigenous fruits growing in lush forests along rivers.
Beyond Peru and parts of Brazil, the aguaje's supercarrot possibilities remain largely unknown.
Could that change? One expert thinks it's possible. Outside the Amazon, few know more about this region's wild and cultivated fruits than Nigel Smith. The Venezuelan-born geographer, a professor at the University of Florida, has devoted much of his four-decade career to the Amazon region.
In recent years he's examined just about every aspect of the obscure fruits that blanket Peru's rich floodplain forests: how, where, and why they're grown; who consumes them; their nutritional and cultural value; and, of course, how they taste. (The sweet, "sublime" pulp of wild macambillo, a dull orange fruit, is his favorite.)
Whether it's the aguaje or a tangy-sweet relative of the cacao called the cupuaçu or macambo seeds, a crunchy new alternative to peanuts, Smith has studied them all with an eye toward promoting conservation, boosting sustainable farming in a threatened region, and supporting local residents' livelihoods.
The Land Squeeze
The past three decades have seen unprecedented human migration into the Pacaya- Samiria reserve, part of an area Smith calls the "epicenter of wild-fruit consumption in the Amazon."
Other pressures, like hunting, logging, and unsustainable fishing, are on the rise as well. As these pressures grow, Smith believes small farmers hold a key to managing and protecting the region.
With support from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, the MacArthur Foundation and the Moore Foundation, he and his team, including Peruvian botanist Rodolfo Vazquez, spent six months in Pacaya-Samiria over several years documenting 148 different fruit species. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
They studied how small landowners in a dozen communities use and depend on these fruits, many of which large-scale farmers ignore.
"I'm interested in landscapes where individual landowners are in control," Smith says. "I think that's the great frontier for Amazon conservation."
Over the years, he notes, small-scale farmers have helped shape the forests where they pick and cultivate fruits by "rearranging the biological furniture" in ways that encourage biodiversity.
These farmers "have retained a biologically diverse landscape that benefits not only wildlife but also their own livelihoods," Smith adds.
Crop Insurance
One way Pacaya-Samiria residents have accomplished that is by domesticating potentially valuable wild fruit species, including macambo seeds and vitamin A-rich sapote.
They often plant and grow several at once in diverse forested plots, a strategy known as agroforestry. The combination of crops, both annual and perennial, helps the farmers avert risk.
Should one crop succumb to inclement weather, disease, or a pest outbreak, the other crops would likely survive, ensuring that the farmers have both food and income.
But Amazon experts agree that more needs to be done.
So far the Peruvian Amazon has been spared much of the deforestation caused by the timber trade and cattle ranching in Brazil, yet Smith warns that the "floodplains are going to come under increasing development pressure in the next few decades."
Overharvesting of fruits would threaten trees. And logging is of enormous concern throughout the entire Amazon region, says Douglas C. Daly, an expert on Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical Garden.
That's one reason Smith's work is important. "If we can educate people about the wealth of diversity, as opposed to just the wealth of timber, we can change things," Daly says.
Finding the Next "Cinderella Fruit"
This is where native fruits may come in. Some of the Amazon's little-known produce has the flavor, the nutrition, or the novelty to tempt commercial producers abroad, and Smith hopes that growing international awareness of the dietary importance of fruit could help create a new hit.
His knowledge is helping at least one entrepreneur take steps to market bottled water flavored with Amazon fruits. Jeff Moats, CEO of the Equa Water Corporation in Naples, Florida, plans to begin building a factory next year in Brazil's Amazon region to process fruits local residents can grow sustainably within forests.
But competition from carbonated soft drinks, a $40-billion industry in the U.S. alone, presents a formidable obstacle to anyone wanting to sell Amazon fruit juices. Entrepreneurs "cannot match the marketing muscle and advertising dollars of the major soda producers," Smith says.
Beyond this, fruit supplies can be erratic, and the Amazon region is still struggling with the basic issues of hygiene, infrastructure, and quality control.
So what are the chances you'll someday see vitamin-rich aguaje in your supermarket's produce section alongside carrots, tomatoes, and apples?
It's hard to predict, but Smith is encouraged by the example of the once obscure açaí, which was enjoyed in Brazil long before becoming a hit in eco- and nutrition-savvy foreign markets.
He also notes the success in Japan of the camu camu, a sour maroon berry with 30 times the vitamin C of oranges. The aguaje might become what he calls a "Cinderella fruit" since it fits some of the criteria that have made these other two fruits successful: It's already popular and abundant locally, easily incorporated into products like juice, and relatively simple to transport.
"The production of fruit is vital to the life of an Amazonian person and is of enormous nutritional importance," emphasizes Walter Wust, a Peruvian forester and environmental journalist who helped Smith document the Pacaya-Samiria fruits.
If Smith has his way, more of that bounty will someday nourish the rest of the world as well.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/92827098.html
Monday, October 13, 2008
Looking for Brazil's Moon Under Water
In 1946 George Orwell wrote an article in which he described his favorite pub which was called The Moon Under Water. After outlining all the features that made it perfect (including, believe it or not, that it sold loose tobacco as well as cigarettes) he ended by revealing that it did not actually exist as it was too perfect.
Well, smoky English pubs are not my scene but finding an idyllic hidey hole by the sea has been a dream since I first visited Brazil more than 20 years ago. About two years ago I finally found a place which matches a lot of my desires and I have just booked my fourth stay there for the upcoming holidays.
The place is not in some distant, isolated spot but only about 100 miles from São Paulo and is fairly well known. It is next to a small town which is barely touched by commercialism. My fear is that this will change and it will become more popular, condominiums will start being built, fancy restaurants and nightclubs will spring up, and the whole relaxed atmosphere will disappear. It will become like Ubatuba or Boiçucanga, admittedly great places but too much like São Paulo sur mer for my liking.
Like these two places, "my" beach is also on the northern coast somewhere between Santos and Rio de Janeiro. The main road bypasses it, thanks to some mangrove swamps, and the beach itself is basically a crescent-shaped cove about a half a mile long bordered on one side by the mouth of a small river backed by a steep hill and on the other side by a rocky crag.
Looking inland you see the dense Atlantic rainforest rising up into the Serra do Mar mountains which are often shrouded in an ethereal mist as if to remind you that you are in the middle of the steamy tropics. Some scattered islands a mile or so offshore complete the idyllic location and view.
It is a typical Brazilian beach in miniature, marked by the habits and schedules which define beach life here. The kids paddle on one stretch while the surfers have their favorite spot where they can flirt with the girls, the footballers appear at the same time every afternoon to play on "their" stretch and people are always strolling along the water, the joggers early in the morning and the young lovers in the evening.
There are a couple of stalls you can get a caipirinha and plate of shrimps. It is spoiled to an extent by hustlers trying to sell you things you don't want and by the noise of water skiers and motorboats but overall these are a minor inconvenience. Another big plus is that the place is safe. Outside the tourist season, it is empty and even when it gets busy there is usually enough space to stretch out far from others or hop over to one of the islands.
The mangrove swamps restrict building and there are only a couple of houses with direct access to the beach. There are some older buildings on the hills, one of which is a bar which provides a pleasant resting spot after climbing the crag and scrambling around on the huge basalt rocks marking the natural frontier with the neighboring beach.
This geographical location gives you the feeling that you are completely cut off even though the main road is only a few hundred yards away. In fact, the beaches on either side run alongside the road for miles and miles. This means that if you feel like a change you just need to cross over and will find yourself back in "civilization".
The town consists of older houses where the local people, known as caiçaras, live in and more recently built weekend getaways belonging to Paulistanos. The locals are the descendants of the mixture of Indians, Africans and Portuguese who lived here for hundreds of years before the racial mixture of São Paulo was transformed by the arrival of millions of immigrants from Europe, the Middle East and Japan about a century ago.
You occasionally even see full-blooded Indians, a very rare sight indeed in the city of São Paulo. The locals are small subsistence farmers, fishermen, laborers and many now make their living from the tourist trade. Some of their homes are little more than shacks and, despite the holiday atmosphere, there is still quite a lot of poverty.
There are a couple of good pousadas and houses with rooms to let but no hotels. There is no supermarket or bank, not even an ATM, and only a few shops and restaurants. The eating places serve up simple fish dishes, rice, potatoes, beans and salads. There is also a pizzeria and ice cream parlor and a couple of small bars used by the locals.
Oddly enough, there is no Catholic church but there is a small evangelical church which highlights how these Protestant groups are making inroads into the Catholic Church's traditional strongholds.
That's about it in a nutshell. If you live in São Paulo and are familiar with the area you may even know the place. I have tried not to exaggerate the attraction of the place and realize that this is not everyone's idea of a beach retreat. For some, it would still be too built-up and touristy while for others it would be too quiet.
However, it is perfect for someone who needs to be close to the city and it is less than 30 minutes from the more sophisticated resorts. For this reason, the price of houses and land are high. I was told that a modest house in a prime location was sold recently for about 3 million Brazilian reais (US$ 1.3 million). At first I was skeptical but later when I started checking out prices for myself I changed my mind.
I have visited beaches all over Brazil in these two decades and have had mixed experiences. However, in closing, I would like to share two special memories from opposite perspectives.
Once I visited a place where an acquaintance was building a house. It was in an isolated spot on the border of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states near Angra dos Reis which could only be accessed by boat and we had to wade out to sea, balancing supplies on our heads. A local woman cooked the main meal for a group of us one hot night between Christmas and New Year - rice and fish, washed down by bottles of beer.
We slept - or tried to sleep - on the ground listening to the surf and covering our heads with blankets to keep the mosquitoes out. I hated every minute at the time but in retrospect, it has become a favorite memory.
Another time I stayed in a small resort about 20 miles north of Salvador in Bahia in the home of a kindly Brazilian doctor who loaned me his place for a week. One beautiful night I walked through the palms to the strand and there I really did see the moon under water as the sea reflected a great silver orb high in the heavens shining out of a cloudless sky down on Brazil, bestowing God's blessing on this wonderful land.
John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. He can be contacted at jf@celt.com.br.YouThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it can read more by him at his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br.
Well, smoky English pubs are not my scene but finding an idyllic hidey hole by the sea has been a dream since I first visited Brazil more than 20 years ago. About two years ago I finally found a place which matches a lot of my desires and I have just booked my fourth stay there for the upcoming holidays.
The place is not in some distant, isolated spot but only about 100 miles from São Paulo and is fairly well known. It is next to a small town which is barely touched by commercialism. My fear is that this will change and it will become more popular, condominiums will start being built, fancy restaurants and nightclubs will spring up, and the whole relaxed atmosphere will disappear. It will become like Ubatuba or Boiçucanga, admittedly great places but too much like São Paulo sur mer for my liking.
Like these two places, "my" beach is also on the northern coast somewhere between Santos and Rio de Janeiro. The main road bypasses it, thanks to some mangrove swamps, and the beach itself is basically a crescent-shaped cove about a half a mile long bordered on one side by the mouth of a small river backed by a steep hill and on the other side by a rocky crag.
Looking inland you see the dense Atlantic rainforest rising up into the Serra do Mar mountains which are often shrouded in an ethereal mist as if to remind you that you are in the middle of the steamy tropics. Some scattered islands a mile or so offshore complete the idyllic location and view.
It is a typical Brazilian beach in miniature, marked by the habits and schedules which define beach life here. The kids paddle on one stretch while the surfers have their favorite spot where they can flirt with the girls, the footballers appear at the same time every afternoon to play on "their" stretch and people are always strolling along the water, the joggers early in the morning and the young lovers in the evening.
There are a couple of stalls you can get a caipirinha and plate of shrimps. It is spoiled to an extent by hustlers trying to sell you things you don't want and by the noise of water skiers and motorboats but overall these are a minor inconvenience. Another big plus is that the place is safe. Outside the tourist season, it is empty and even when it gets busy there is usually enough space to stretch out far from others or hop over to one of the islands.
The mangrove swamps restrict building and there are only a couple of houses with direct access to the beach. There are some older buildings on the hills, one of which is a bar which provides a pleasant resting spot after climbing the crag and scrambling around on the huge basalt rocks marking the natural frontier with the neighboring beach.
This geographical location gives you the feeling that you are completely cut off even though the main road is only a few hundred yards away. In fact, the beaches on either side run alongside the road for miles and miles. This means that if you feel like a change you just need to cross over and will find yourself back in "civilization".
The town consists of older houses where the local people, known as caiçaras, live in and more recently built weekend getaways belonging to Paulistanos. The locals are the descendants of the mixture of Indians, Africans and Portuguese who lived here for hundreds of years before the racial mixture of São Paulo was transformed by the arrival of millions of immigrants from Europe, the Middle East and Japan about a century ago.
You occasionally even see full-blooded Indians, a very rare sight indeed in the city of São Paulo. The locals are small subsistence farmers, fishermen, laborers and many now make their living from the tourist trade. Some of their homes are little more than shacks and, despite the holiday atmosphere, there is still quite a lot of poverty.
There are a couple of good pousadas and houses with rooms to let but no hotels. There is no supermarket or bank, not even an ATM, and only a few shops and restaurants. The eating places serve up simple fish dishes, rice, potatoes, beans and salads. There is also a pizzeria and ice cream parlor and a couple of small bars used by the locals.
Oddly enough, there is no Catholic church but there is a small evangelical church which highlights how these Protestant groups are making inroads into the Catholic Church's traditional strongholds.
That's about it in a nutshell. If you live in São Paulo and are familiar with the area you may even know the place. I have tried not to exaggerate the attraction of the place and realize that this is not everyone's idea of a beach retreat. For some, it would still be too built-up and touristy while for others it would be too quiet.
However, it is perfect for someone who needs to be close to the city and it is less than 30 minutes from the more sophisticated resorts. For this reason, the price of houses and land are high. I was told that a modest house in a prime location was sold recently for about 3 million Brazilian reais (US$ 1.3 million). At first I was skeptical but later when I started checking out prices for myself I changed my mind.
I have visited beaches all over Brazil in these two decades and have had mixed experiences. However, in closing, I would like to share two special memories from opposite perspectives.
Once I visited a place where an acquaintance was building a house. It was in an isolated spot on the border of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states near Angra dos Reis which could only be accessed by boat and we had to wade out to sea, balancing supplies on our heads. A local woman cooked the main meal for a group of us one hot night between Christmas and New Year - rice and fish, washed down by bottles of beer.
We slept - or tried to sleep - on the ground listening to the surf and covering our heads with blankets to keep the mosquitoes out. I hated every minute at the time but in retrospect, it has become a favorite memory.
Another time I stayed in a small resort about 20 miles north of Salvador in Bahia in the home of a kindly Brazilian doctor who loaned me his place for a week. One beautiful night I walked through the palms to the strand and there I really did see the moon under water as the sea reflected a great silver orb high in the heavens shining out of a cloudless sky down on Brazil, bestowing God's blessing on this wonderful land.
John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. He can be contacted at jf@celt.com.br.YouThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it can read more by him at his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br.
Brazil has superpower visions
Giant offshore discovery could transform nation, but hurdles loom
Four miles under the ocean's surface off Brazil's lush coast lie billions of barrels of recently discovered light crude — a treasure that could transform the country into an oil superpower.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called it "a gift from God" and pledged to end chronic poverty and narrow the country's broad gap between the rich and the poor.
But before rhetoric becomes reality, Brazil must first get to the underwater reserves, among the world's deepest, and then manage a massive influx of wealth — a formidable task that has left other national economies awash in corruption and even greater gaps between the rich and poor.
Spending the proceeds
Jockeying for a cut of the proceeds has already begun.
Military officials are calling for increased military spending, stressing the need for a nuclear submarine program and new fighter jet fleet to protect the oil from rivals.
The nine fields discovered in the last year are thought to hold 50 billion to 80 billion barrels of light crude — more than four times Brazil's current proven reserves. With the find, Brazil could supply all of its own needs for nearly a century or become one of the world's top oil exporters.
Even getting to that point will test the state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, which has decades of experience in deep-water drilling.
The oil fields will be the most complicated and costly it has ever developed. Analysts say the project will require at least a $600 billion investment over 30 years.
The deep-water reservoirs lie some 185 miles offshore in the Atlantic, more than a mile below the ocean's surface and under another 2.5 miles of earth and corrosive salt. The salt beds can break loose and shear off piping, making it one of the toughest substances to drill.
Given those conditions, rough ocean currents and floating rigs, the technology required to tap Brazil's so-called "pre-salt" oil is on par with that needed to land a man on the moon, said Eric Smith a drilling expert at the Entergy-Tulane Energy Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans.
"If you were doing this with a drill from atop the Empire State building, about 1,000 feet up, you'd be trying to hit a target on 34th Street the size of a quarter," Smith said.
"Then you've got to go down an equivalent distance to reach the oil, and it might not be on 34th Street, it might be on 42nd Street."
Murky view
Petrobras will use seismic imaging to map the reserves, but even that will not provide a clear view under the salt, which blurs images, said Judson Jacobs, director of upstream technology at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Cambridge, Mass.
Drilled wells must also withstand crushing pressure of extreme depths, Jacobs said.
But there are logistical problems beyond engineering.
The recent record prices for oil have led to global shortages of drilling equipment just when Brazil needs it most. The country will have to rent 138 drilling platforms — or build them for as much as $1.7 billion each — and find at least 200 ships to transport oil and gas over the next 30 years, a mid-September study by Brazil's national development bank found.
The financial spillover could begin with Brazil's dormant shipping industry and create tens of thousands of jobs, Silva has said.
Silva appointed a Cabinet-level committee to draft plans for restructuring the oil industry to accommodate rapid growth. That committee is expected to recommend a new state-owned oil company negotiate contracts for the pre-salt finds.
Still, some consider that a return to nationalism — and an unfair rebuff of Petrobras shareholders, whose capital largely financed the most recent discoveries and who expect returns.
Petrobras will have to work with private partners, more likely through production-sharing deals than the current concession contracts it now favors, said Christopher Garman, head of Latin America research for the New York-based Eurasia Group consulting firm.
Fears of nationalism
Garman called fears of nationalism that once dominated Brazil's energy industry a bit overblown. Laws passed in 1997 broke the government's monopoly over Petrobras, allowing foreign investors to buy stakes in 60 percent of the company. About a million Brazilian citizens hold shares, too.
Brazilian officials insist any new oil company would not actually drill, but negotiate production-sharing agreements between Petrobras and private partners, which already include Royal Dutch Shell, BG Group, and a division of Galp Energia, Portugal's biggest energy company. Petrobras, the dominant player in Brazil's energy sector, would retain its leadership position.
If oil hovers around $100 a barrel, the pre-salt fields would yield at least $5 trillion, doubling the oil sector's share of Brazil's economy to 20 percent, according to Garman. It would also triple currency reserves to $600 billion, the president of Brazil's central bank said.
Taxes and royalties from Petrobras were $34 billion, or about 4 percent of government income in 2007.
Bad examples
How the money is spent will have serious ramifications. A deluge of oil money has fueled labor abuses and economic imbalances that hit the poor hardest in many nations, such as Nigeria. It has also triggered rapid inflation and even overvalued local currencies, like the Netherlands saw in the 1960s. In those and other cases, the result was slashed exports and unemployment.
Silva has suggested Brazil might invest a good portion of its oil revenue, as Norway has done, rather than pump it into the economy. Treasury officials in May unveiled plans to funnel pre-salt income into a sovereign investment fund, which could ultimately hold between $10 billion and $20 billion.
But with 57 million Brazilians living in poverty, the government may spend much of its oil money to help the poor and boost education — though no new programs have been outlined.
During a visit to an offshore oil platform, Silva promised that oil income would be "a direct bridge between nature's riches and the eradication of poverty."
"We will transform a perishable wealth, like oil and gas, into a source of permanent wealth for the Brazilian people," he said, clad in a Petrobras hard hat after dipping his fingers into some of the first crude pumped from the pre-salt area last month.
"God has given Brazil one more chance," he said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/6052572.html
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