Human activity continue to be biggest threat to the “planet’s lungs.”
British researchers recently found that the Amazon rainforest is in a better state to confront climate change than previously thought.
But the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, said there is a clear possibility that human activity could cause a rapid degradation of Amazon forest this century.
The study simulated and compared 19 possible global climate change models and their effects on the land, but found that they underestimated current rainfall levels in the Amazon region and were unable to copy some of the intricacies of the South American climate and geography.
The researchers found that the eastern Amazon will likely maintain its rainfall level to possibly become a seasonally dry, or monsoonal climate, instead of a dry savannah climate, but added that greenhouse gas emissions must be controlled.
"The study warns that [seasonal dry] areas will become tinderboxes if deforestation, logging and heavy fire use is not controlled," a release said.
Natural resource exploitation, infrastructure development and human settlements are further threatening the Amazon, which includes Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
The population in the Amazon region has increased by nearly 580 percent in the last 40 years, the United Nations Environment Program said in a Feb. 18 study. Brazil´s Amazon region highways increased 10-fold between 1975 and 2005.
"The dominant production model that does not take any lasting development criteria into account, is driving the fragmentation of ecosystems and the erosion of biodiversity," said the UN study, which was conducted along with Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization.
http://www.latinamericapress.org/articles.asp?art=5803
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Friday, February 27, 2009
The Endless Allure of El Dorado
Following in the Footsteps of a British Explorer Who Vanished in the Brazilian Jungle
Percy Harrison Fawcett, the affection-starved son of an independently wealthy Devon cricketer, joined the British army, got "slightly gassed" during World War I, surveyed Bolivia, went quietly mad, devoted his middle years to searching for the Lost Cities of the Brazilian rainforest and, while doing so in 1925, vanished.
Men who go missing -- think Livingstone, Scott, Shackleton -- are much beloved in the British Isles. Col. Fawcett's story gripped the nation for years: Expeditions were sent to look for him; contrite Brazilian Indians offered up bones, strips of cloth and wristwatches that may have been his; and others told stories of how he had been clubbed to death or tossed into the Xingu River by their recent ancestors. His widow, Cheeky, still alive when I was a schoolboy, to her very last kept up pressure to find her long-lost husband. But his fate remains unknown, and his Lost City -- of which Arthur Conan Doyle made much, with the Professor Challenger of his novels based largely on Fawcett -- remains unfound.
[Percy Fawcett mapping the frontier between Brazil and Bolivia in 1908.] Royal Geographical Society
Numberless books and articles have over the past 80 years retold a story that is known to British audiences to the point of tedium but less familiar here in America. Now in the hands of David Grann, an amusingly self-deprecating Brooklyn nerd on the staff of the New Yorker, it is brought vividly alive once more in "The Lost City of Z."
So good is his recounting of the yarn that no less a luminary than Brad Pitt is said to be interested in a film version. Since poisoned arrows, cannibalism, impenetrable canopies of rainforest, incomprehensible maps, utility-pole-size pythons, stiff upper lips, gray-bearded geographers, steam packets, naked jungle folk and incessant drumming -- as well as possibly the aforementioned Mr. Pitt -- all figure boldly in the epic, it is not hard to imagine Hollywood backer-types feeling the near-certainty of commercial reward.
What makes Mr. Grann's telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero -- but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL.
Fawcett had first read about the supposed city in 1920, while researching the El Dorado legend in the manuscript department of the National Library of Brazil, in Rio. He came across a slim and rather beautiful book, its fabric pages half-eaten by ants and worms. It had apparently been written by an 18th-century Portuguese mercenary and gold-seeking adventurer offering an account of his discovery in the heart of the jungle of "a large, hidden, and very ancient city."
Fawcett was certain that the document was genuine (so was the explorer Richard Burton, who also saw it and translated it). Though others have not been so sure (could a mere gold prospector have mastered such impeccable calligraphy?), the account swiftly became the fons et origo of Fawcett's fatal obsession. He persuaded the Brazilian government and the Royal Geographical Society in London to help fund a series of expeditions to go and look for the city, which he somewhat unimaginatively called "Z." Six months after first reading the bandeirante's account, he was axing his way merrily through the remote jungles of an Amazon tributary, at the start of what would be five years of incessant questing.
Mr. Grann -- with his kindly sounding wife clearly fretting that the degenerative eye condition from which he suffers might make it tricky for him to avoid pythons and poisoned darts and so advising him not to be "stupid" while up-country -- went off to Rio to examine the same book. He found himself as convinced by it as Fawcett and Burton had been 80 years before and promptly thrust his exercise-averse body off into the jungle to look for Z himself. Before venturing to Brazil he also went to London to ferret through the well-thumbed RGS archives and then cleverly found, living in a Welsh bungalow, one of Fawcett's descendants, who let him look at her grandfather's diaries. (They turned out to be amusing but perhaps a little less valuable to the quest than the book's publicist would have us believe.)
[The Lost City of Z]
The Lost City of Z
Mr. Grann's accounts of his travels in central Brazil -- where he had a GPS device and satellite phone, ate freeze-dried chicken teriyaki, traveled in planes and SUVs, and suffered rather fewer hardships (other than getting muddy and pricked by thorns) than his illustrious predecessor -- are somewhat less successful than his well-wrought and occasionally funny historical account of the Fawcett saga. The characters he encounters are rather smaller than life: His guide was a samba dancer who dresses up as an explorer; his jungle Indians, who watch Woody Woodpecker on TV, seem more interested in coming to Manhattan than in hearing the story of Fawcett; and his expedition adviser turns out to be a smooth São Paolo banker wannabe who took a trip into the jungle in 1996 only to get his party detained and then released on payment of a derisory ransom.
Then again, and crucially, the author also encounters anthropological theories (with which South America is all too replete) that lead him to end the book all too fancifully. I found it tricky, for instance, to judge Michael Heckenberger, the Florida anthropology professor he meets in mid-jungle. In an online description of his work of 13 years in Brazil, Mr. Heckenberger says that it "requires a commitment to holistic and deeply contextual research and interpretation" and "is not framed in opposition to 'positivist' viewpoints, whether evolutionist or functionalist." But Mr. Grann has few doubts and seizes on his theories -- all too readily -- as a neat way to conclude his own search.
For when the bouffant-haired professor shows him what he insists is an ancient moat cut through the jungle and goes on to display other relics that, Mr. Grann says, "were, clearly, the remains of a massive man-made landscape," the author drinks the Kool-Aid lustily. "I began to picture the flutists and dancers . . . crossing moats and passing through tall palisade fences . . . along wide boulevards and bridges. . . . I could see this vanished world as if it were right in front of me. Z."
Oh, please. It is all just too pat, too wanting in healthy skepticism. Sure, after all the mud and scratched knees and far too many astronaut dinners, Mr. Grann surely wanted to go home to Brooklyn. But I wish he had lingered and considered the legacy of the poor, mad and utterly memorable Percy Harrison Fawcett. Though Brad Pitt might never notice, it would have made for an even better book.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123569217402288043.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Percy Harrison Fawcett, the affection-starved son of an independently wealthy Devon cricketer, joined the British army, got "slightly gassed" during World War I, surveyed Bolivia, went quietly mad, devoted his middle years to searching for the Lost Cities of the Brazilian rainforest and, while doing so in 1925, vanished.
Men who go missing -- think Livingstone, Scott, Shackleton -- are much beloved in the British Isles. Col. Fawcett's story gripped the nation for years: Expeditions were sent to look for him; contrite Brazilian Indians offered up bones, strips of cloth and wristwatches that may have been his; and others told stories of how he had been clubbed to death or tossed into the Xingu River by their recent ancestors. His widow, Cheeky, still alive when I was a schoolboy, to her very last kept up pressure to find her long-lost husband. But his fate remains unknown, and his Lost City -- of which Arthur Conan Doyle made much, with the Professor Challenger of his novels based largely on Fawcett -- remains unfound.
[Percy Fawcett mapping the frontier between Brazil and Bolivia in 1908.] Royal Geographical Society
Numberless books and articles have over the past 80 years retold a story that is known to British audiences to the point of tedium but less familiar here in America. Now in the hands of David Grann, an amusingly self-deprecating Brooklyn nerd on the staff of the New Yorker, it is brought vividly alive once more in "The Lost City of Z."
So good is his recounting of the yarn that no less a luminary than Brad Pitt is said to be interested in a film version. Since poisoned arrows, cannibalism, impenetrable canopies of rainforest, incomprehensible maps, utility-pole-size pythons, stiff upper lips, gray-bearded geographers, steam packets, naked jungle folk and incessant drumming -- as well as possibly the aforementioned Mr. Pitt -- all figure boldly in the epic, it is not hard to imagine Hollywood backer-types feeling the near-certainty of commercial reward.
What makes Mr. Grann's telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero -- but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL.
Fawcett had first read about the supposed city in 1920, while researching the El Dorado legend in the manuscript department of the National Library of Brazil, in Rio. He came across a slim and rather beautiful book, its fabric pages half-eaten by ants and worms. It had apparently been written by an 18th-century Portuguese mercenary and gold-seeking adventurer offering an account of his discovery in the heart of the jungle of "a large, hidden, and very ancient city."
Fawcett was certain that the document was genuine (so was the explorer Richard Burton, who also saw it and translated it). Though others have not been so sure (could a mere gold prospector have mastered such impeccable calligraphy?), the account swiftly became the fons et origo of Fawcett's fatal obsession. He persuaded the Brazilian government and the Royal Geographical Society in London to help fund a series of expeditions to go and look for the city, which he somewhat unimaginatively called "Z." Six months after first reading the bandeirante's account, he was axing his way merrily through the remote jungles of an Amazon tributary, at the start of what would be five years of incessant questing.
Mr. Grann -- with his kindly sounding wife clearly fretting that the degenerative eye condition from which he suffers might make it tricky for him to avoid pythons and poisoned darts and so advising him not to be "stupid" while up-country -- went off to Rio to examine the same book. He found himself as convinced by it as Fawcett and Burton had been 80 years before and promptly thrust his exercise-averse body off into the jungle to look for Z himself. Before venturing to Brazil he also went to London to ferret through the well-thumbed RGS archives and then cleverly found, living in a Welsh bungalow, one of Fawcett's descendants, who let him look at her grandfather's diaries. (They turned out to be amusing but perhaps a little less valuable to the quest than the book's publicist would have us believe.)
[The Lost City of Z]
The Lost City of Z
Mr. Grann's accounts of his travels in central Brazil -- where he had a GPS device and satellite phone, ate freeze-dried chicken teriyaki, traveled in planes and SUVs, and suffered rather fewer hardships (other than getting muddy and pricked by thorns) than his illustrious predecessor -- are somewhat less successful than his well-wrought and occasionally funny historical account of the Fawcett saga. The characters he encounters are rather smaller than life: His guide was a samba dancer who dresses up as an explorer; his jungle Indians, who watch Woody Woodpecker on TV, seem more interested in coming to Manhattan than in hearing the story of Fawcett; and his expedition adviser turns out to be a smooth São Paolo banker wannabe who took a trip into the jungle in 1996 only to get his party detained and then released on payment of a derisory ransom.
Then again, and crucially, the author also encounters anthropological theories (with which South America is all too replete) that lead him to end the book all too fancifully. I found it tricky, for instance, to judge Michael Heckenberger, the Florida anthropology professor he meets in mid-jungle. In an online description of his work of 13 years in Brazil, Mr. Heckenberger says that it "requires a commitment to holistic and deeply contextual research and interpretation" and "is not framed in opposition to 'positivist' viewpoints, whether evolutionist or functionalist." But Mr. Grann has few doubts and seizes on his theories -- all too readily -- as a neat way to conclude his own search.
For when the bouffant-haired professor shows him what he insists is an ancient moat cut through the jungle and goes on to display other relics that, Mr. Grann says, "were, clearly, the remains of a massive man-made landscape," the author drinks the Kool-Aid lustily. "I began to picture the flutists and dancers . . . crossing moats and passing through tall palisade fences . . . along wide boulevards and bridges. . . . I could see this vanished world as if it were right in front of me. Z."
Oh, please. It is all just too pat, too wanting in healthy skepticism. Sure, after all the mud and scratched knees and far too many astronaut dinners, Mr. Grann surely wanted to go home to Brooklyn. But I wish he had lingered and considered the legacy of the poor, mad and utterly memorable Percy Harrison Fawcett. Though Brad Pitt might never notice, it would have made for an even better book.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123569217402288043.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Preventing pillage in the rainforest
A scheme to regularise land holdings in the Amazon forest faces many obstacles
GRAND plans to halt the destruction of the Amazon rainforest have come and gone over the years with scant success, so a degree of scepticism about Brazil’s latest scheme seems justified. However, one positive sign is that, this time, the federal government seems to have recognised the importance of working with, rather than against, state governments in the region.
The new plan, discussed at a meeting of state governors and federal officials earlier this month, involves regularising the titles to 80% of the private land holdings in Brazilian Amazonia over the coming three years. This, it is hoped, will encourage the occupants to stay and improve their land instead of abandoning it and moving on to clear the next patch of virgin forest.
Click here to find out more!
A small-scale initiative under way near the village of São Luiz do Anauá in Roraima state provides an illustration of what the scheme hopes to achieve. The local soil is the colour of cement and almost as rich in nutrients. The area was deforested 15 years ago. Cattle ranchers came and went, and for the past few years the land has been unproductive. But now, neat rows of palms sit waiting to be planted, thanks to a biofuels company based in São Paulo.
Brazil lacks a central land register, suffers widespread forgery of title deeds and has a long history of squatters seizing land. A widely-quoted study by Imazon, an NGO, reckoned that only 4% of private land in Amazonia is covered by secure title deeds. Much of the rest has been grabbed in the hope of establishing de facto ownership eventually.
The government’s new scheme is, in principle, simple. Plots of up to 100 hectares (247 acres) will be given to the people farming them. Larger ones, of between 100 and 2,500 hectares, will be sold using various different pricing mechanisms. Plots of over 2,500 hectares will be reclaimed by the government, which is meant to own them anyway. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the minister responsible for the new scheme, believes that solving the problem of insecure land title will “change the economic equation that has made pillage more attractive than either preservation or production in the Amazon.”
In the past, however, similar initiatives have floundered, for a number of reasons. First, state and federal governments have disagreed over who should be responsible for what. The state governors particularly dislike INCRA, a federal agency charged with distributing small plots of land. Eduardo Braga, the governor of Amazonas, says “INCRA abandoned the families it settled on land in the Amazon without electricity or infrastructure.” The agency certainly has a poor record of preventing deforestation on the land it administers.
Second, the existing laws that govern what land can be used and what cannot are confusing and close to unenforceable. In the 1960s and 1970s, farmers were sometimes required to cut down trees as a condition for getting credit from the state. Some token efforts were made to change this regime in the 1980s, and then in 1996 a decree was issued requiring 80% of each plot of land to be preserved as forest, with only 20% to be cultivated or ranched. This law is widely ignored, and when the government has tried to enforce it, it has often met with strong resistance from the men with the chainsaws. Given this history of mutual antagonism, the process is unlikely to be smooth.
Still, some of these problems have been resolved in the new plan, which has the force of law via a presidential decree. On a federal level, the Ministry for Agrarian Development will handle some of the implementation, taking it away from INCRA, which could be described politely as troubled. Mr Unger, a former Harvard law professor, seems to have succeeded in charming the governors of the states in the Amazon into a more co-operative mood. “We have Obama’s teacher here,” says José de Anchieta Júnior, the governor of Roraima, while addressing a public meeting in the state. “Things are looking up.”
Nevertheless, there is a risk that the scheme, by making it easier to get secure title for dubious land claims, might somehow stimulate demand for virgin forest land, not damp it. And, as ever, enforcing the rules will be the difficult bit. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government has shown an indulgent attitude to violations of property rights elsewhere in the country by the Landless Movement, making it an unlikely guardian of them now. The new scheme is not bound to fail, but the sceptics will take a bit more convincing.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13184683
GRAND plans to halt the destruction of the Amazon rainforest have come and gone over the years with scant success, so a degree of scepticism about Brazil’s latest scheme seems justified. However, one positive sign is that, this time, the federal government seems to have recognised the importance of working with, rather than against, state governments in the region.
The new plan, discussed at a meeting of state governors and federal officials earlier this month, involves regularising the titles to 80% of the private land holdings in Brazilian Amazonia over the coming three years. This, it is hoped, will encourage the occupants to stay and improve their land instead of abandoning it and moving on to clear the next patch of virgin forest.
Click here to find out more!
A small-scale initiative under way near the village of São Luiz do Anauá in Roraima state provides an illustration of what the scheme hopes to achieve. The local soil is the colour of cement and almost as rich in nutrients. The area was deforested 15 years ago. Cattle ranchers came and went, and for the past few years the land has been unproductive. But now, neat rows of palms sit waiting to be planted, thanks to a biofuels company based in São Paulo.
Brazil lacks a central land register, suffers widespread forgery of title deeds and has a long history of squatters seizing land. A widely-quoted study by Imazon, an NGO, reckoned that only 4% of private land in Amazonia is covered by secure title deeds. Much of the rest has been grabbed in the hope of establishing de facto ownership eventually.
The government’s new scheme is, in principle, simple. Plots of up to 100 hectares (247 acres) will be given to the people farming them. Larger ones, of between 100 and 2,500 hectares, will be sold using various different pricing mechanisms. Plots of over 2,500 hectares will be reclaimed by the government, which is meant to own them anyway. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the minister responsible for the new scheme, believes that solving the problem of insecure land title will “change the economic equation that has made pillage more attractive than either preservation or production in the Amazon.”
In the past, however, similar initiatives have floundered, for a number of reasons. First, state and federal governments have disagreed over who should be responsible for what. The state governors particularly dislike INCRA, a federal agency charged with distributing small plots of land. Eduardo Braga, the governor of Amazonas, says “INCRA abandoned the families it settled on land in the Amazon without electricity or infrastructure.” The agency certainly has a poor record of preventing deforestation on the land it administers.
Second, the existing laws that govern what land can be used and what cannot are confusing and close to unenforceable. In the 1960s and 1970s, farmers were sometimes required to cut down trees as a condition for getting credit from the state. Some token efforts were made to change this regime in the 1980s, and then in 1996 a decree was issued requiring 80% of each plot of land to be preserved as forest, with only 20% to be cultivated or ranched. This law is widely ignored, and when the government has tried to enforce it, it has often met with strong resistance from the men with the chainsaws. Given this history of mutual antagonism, the process is unlikely to be smooth.
Still, some of these problems have been resolved in the new plan, which has the force of law via a presidential decree. On a federal level, the Ministry for Agrarian Development will handle some of the implementation, taking it away from INCRA, which could be described politely as troubled. Mr Unger, a former Harvard law professor, seems to have succeeded in charming the governors of the states in the Amazon into a more co-operative mood. “We have Obama’s teacher here,” says José de Anchieta Júnior, the governor of Roraima, while addressing a public meeting in the state. “Things are looking up.”
Nevertheless, there is a risk that the scheme, by making it easier to get secure title for dubious land claims, might somehow stimulate demand for virgin forest land, not damp it. And, as ever, enforcing the rules will be the difficult bit. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government has shown an indulgent attitude to violations of property rights elsewhere in the country by the Landless Movement, making it an unlikely guardian of them now. The new scheme is not bound to fail, but the sceptics will take a bit more convincing.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13184683
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Brazil's burden ... slavery
IT was just after 8am when the growl of pick-up truck engines filled the car park outside the Augusto Palace Hotel and a convoy of four Mitsubishi 4x4s roared off into the tropical morning, the sun's fierce gaze already beating down on this remote and notoriously violent Amazon city.
Inside one of the vehicles sat Claudio Secchin, a fresh-faced Work Ministry inspector from Rio de Janeiro who has spent the past nine years battling a practice that was officially outlawed in Brazil over a century ago: slavery.
As ever, the atmosphere was tense as the convoy sped out of town and towards that day's target, kicking red clouds of dust up into the scorching air.
Four years ago, almost to the day, four of Secchin's colleagues from Brazil's mobile anti-slavery taskforce had been gunned down while on a similar mission. Now Secchin's team was accompanied by a handful of heavily-armed federal police agents, carrying pistols and automatic rifles.
"My wife thinks it's too dangerous," sighed 40-year-old Secchin, the father of a three-year-old girl. "She gets nervous."
Officially, slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888. But today, at the start of the 21st century, activists say as many as 50,000 impoverished Brazilian workers are still caught up in a web of exploitation, the majority here in the sprawling Amazon region.
The majority of Brazil's indentured workers hail from the country's dirt-poor north east and end up working as forced labourers in the Amazon.
Uneducated, unskilled and often almost completely unpaid, they are recruited by middlemen and then put to work clearing rainforest and making charcoal in order to pay off debts they have incurred while travelling to the region. Often they are forced to live in pigsties or squalid jungle camps. Some are prevented even from leaving by gunmen known here as pistoleiros.
Jose Batista, a local human rights activist who has dedicated his life to the battle against slavery, said one of the biggest challenges facing the government was the sheer size of the Amazon. It could take government officials days or even weeks to reach the remote areas where slaves were being held, he pointed out, making the Amazon a paradise for those wishing to profit from modern-day slavery.
"In this region of Brazil, crime pays," he said baldly.
In 2003 Brazil's leftist president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva came to power vowing to change this reality and to bring the rule of law to a region often described as Brazil's Wild West.
Having been elected promising to transform Brazil, one of the world's most unequal countries, and help the poor, Lula doubled the work ministry's budget and began pumping extra funds into the mobile anti-slavery taskforces, known as the grupo moveis. It was an attempt, he said, to put an end to "Brazil's shame" once and for all.
Few doubt the group's successes. Last year the government's anti-slavery taskforce announced it had freed 4634 workers from "slave-like conditions" in 2008. According to government figures 31,726 workers were freed between 1995 and 2008, while more than 200 businesses are currently blacklisted because of involvement in slavery.
But despite the growing crackdown the practice of modern-day slavery persists, not just across the Amazon region but also in Brazil's south and midwest, where workers are put to work on sugar-cane plantations or soy farms.
With the sun forcing its way into the skies above Maraba, the Work Ministry convoy headed north, rattling past a monotonous horizon of cattle ranches and sawmills. Once this area was home to native Amazon rainforest. Now there is hardly a tree in sight, the result of 40 years of destruction at the hands of illegal loggers and cattle ranchers.
Fifteen kilometres out of town, Secchin and his team of inspectors pulled up at the gates of the Geladinho ranch. They had arrived at the day's target. On cue, 11 dishevelled workers emerged from the farm's rickety wooden charcoal factory. Wearing torn trousers, filthy T-shirts and rubber flip-flops, they wandered slowly towards the vehicles and asked simply: "Who are you?" The idea they might be saved by government officials hadn't crossed their minds.
Among the 11 workers was Walmir dos Santos, a 39-year-old farm hand from the north-eastern state of Maranhao. Mr Santos had arrived in Maraba by coach and was picked up from the bus station by a farmer who said he was looking for workers. For Mr Santos, born and brought up in one of the poorest backlands of Brazil, it had seemed like an opportunity too good to miss.
"At first I thought it was good because we came here in search of a better future," he recalled. "You know, we can't go back home without money and they said it was good around here."
But once at the farm he quickly realised he had been wrong. The workers were forced to drink from the same river used by cattle. The smoke from the charcoal furnace stung their eyes day and night. And while the farm owner did not directly threaten them, they had seen his weapons and feared what he might do if they tried to flee. It was difficult to sleep at night, he remembered.
"It hasn't been very good because all these things are happening and I don't really know what is going on," Mr Santos said.
For Claudio Secchin, a veteran of anti-slavery missions in the Amazon, this was just another day at work. But that made the situation no less disturbing.
"It is a shock for us when we come here. It is a situation of virtual anarchy' where everyone invents their own rules," he said.
Work inspectors like Mr Secchin share the frontline of Brazil's war on modern day slavery with dozens of anonymous heroes such as Jose Batista, a member of the Catholic support group the CPT, or Pastoral Land Commission.
The CPT, which has offices scattered across the Amazon, offers aid to workers who have fled abuse at remote jungle camps and provides information to the Brazilian work Ministry about the possible location of slaves.
Each year, hundreds of workers, fleeing their employers, arrive at the front door of the CPT's offices in central Maraba - a remote Amazon city so violent that locals have renamed it Marabala (Marabullet). Covered in insect bites and with their feet swollen from days walking in the forest, their stories are depressingly familiar.
"The story repeats itself," said Batista, explaining that the poverty-stricken north-east provided a constant flow of desperate workers who come to the region week after week only to fall into the same network of slavery.
As the son of an immigrant worker who was enslaved by unscrupulous farmers, Batista understands the mechanics of this trade better than most.
Batista charts the re-emergence of slavery back to the 1970s and the national integration plan, or Plano de Integracao Nacional, as it was known in Portuguese. Seeking to populate this vast Amazon region, the Brazilian government began to build a vast network of roads across the Amazon and offered incentives to farmers and businessmen who came to live and work here.
At the same time, faced with grinding poverty in the country's arid north east, many workers set off on open-backed trucks in search of a better future.
Some headed south to the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo, Batista says, where they found "slums, misery and hunger". Others headed west to the Amazon rainforest, hoping to claim a piece of land or perhaps to build a house. Instead, however, many encountered debt-slavery, violence and even murder.
Having spent decades illegally deforesting the world's largest tropical rainforest, many ranchers no longer cared about what the government, thousands of kilometres away in Brasilia, might do, he said. "Impunity is the rule here."
"To say to these people that they should tell their workers they have rights well, it's unthinkable to them," Batista said, sitting next to eight bulging grey filing cabinets with labels such as "Massacres", "Slave Labour", "Conflict Areas" and "Rural murders".
The creation of Brazil's anti-slave taskforce in 1995 was an attempt to rescue these rights for men such as Francisco Raimundo Mendes, a 48-year-old farm hand from the rural north east who was also recently freed by the government taskforce.
"We were treated like slaves," said Mendes, who was paid less than two pounds a day to lift tree trunks. "We didn't stop work on Saturday, Sundays or even Christmas Day. It was so much suffering."
Few doubt that the raids, which have earned Brazil international praise, have improved things.
"Things have improved a lot here. Lots of people have corrected their ways and we are trying to move this cultural reality that means people come here and take advantage of the absence of the state to exploit others," says Secchin.
"The posture of the state over the last 15 years has made many people reflect on whether or not it is worth carrying on with this model."
Many, however, still do think it is worth it. While the public face of slavery are the exhausting looking workers the government rescues from remote farms, Batista, the activist, said he believed many workers were simply assassinated before they could report their employers to the government.
One worker, recently interviewed by Batista's team, recounted being told by his employer: "Any worker who has the courage to report me deserves a bullet." Another CPT activist in the remote Amazon town of Sao Felix do Xingu said she had recently heard reports of one worker's body being found floating in a local river, bound to a tractor tyre and riddled with bullets. The worker, she was told, had demanded his pay.
"The number of workers who are killed deep inside these farms is not in our statistics," Batista said.
"The raids are fundamental and have helped reduce the number of cases, but it is not enough," Batista added, arguing that without resolving the social problems of the north east, little would change.
Two says after the raid on the Geladinho ranch outside Maraba, Claudio Secchin and his team pulled up outside the city's work ministry in their white Mitsubishi L200. It was early afternoon and awaiting them were a dozen dusty-faced workers, among them the men freed earlier that week. They had come to receive compensation from their former employers.
The mood was upbeat among the unshaven workers, many of whom had not received their pay for months.
"I'll tell my friends back home not to come here, because it isn't very good," joked Walmir dos Santos, who said he planned to get the first bus out of Maraba as soon as he was paid. "That's what I'll tell them."
"After I leave the hospital I'm going back home to the north east," chipped in his colleague, Francisco Raimundo Mendes, who said he had suffered a hernia while lifting tree trunks at the ranch but had received no medical assistance. "Then I'll have to work again, I suppose."
But where would he find work, apart from here in the Amazon? He frowned and gazed out at a haze of pick-up trucks and lorries rushing past on the Trans-Amazonian highway.
"I don't have a clue," he said.
http://www.sundayherald.com/misc/print.php?artid=2490875
Inside one of the vehicles sat Claudio Secchin, a fresh-faced Work Ministry inspector from Rio de Janeiro who has spent the past nine years battling a practice that was officially outlawed in Brazil over a century ago: slavery.
As ever, the atmosphere was tense as the convoy sped out of town and towards that day's target, kicking red clouds of dust up into the scorching air.
Four years ago, almost to the day, four of Secchin's colleagues from Brazil's mobile anti-slavery taskforce had been gunned down while on a similar mission. Now Secchin's team was accompanied by a handful of heavily-armed federal police agents, carrying pistols and automatic rifles.
"My wife thinks it's too dangerous," sighed 40-year-old Secchin, the father of a three-year-old girl. "She gets nervous."
Officially, slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888. But today, at the start of the 21st century, activists say as many as 50,000 impoverished Brazilian workers are still caught up in a web of exploitation, the majority here in the sprawling Amazon region.
The majority of Brazil's indentured workers hail from the country's dirt-poor north east and end up working as forced labourers in the Amazon.
Uneducated, unskilled and often almost completely unpaid, they are recruited by middlemen and then put to work clearing rainforest and making charcoal in order to pay off debts they have incurred while travelling to the region. Often they are forced to live in pigsties or squalid jungle camps. Some are prevented even from leaving by gunmen known here as pistoleiros.
Jose Batista, a local human rights activist who has dedicated his life to the battle against slavery, said one of the biggest challenges facing the government was the sheer size of the Amazon. It could take government officials days or even weeks to reach the remote areas where slaves were being held, he pointed out, making the Amazon a paradise for those wishing to profit from modern-day slavery.
"In this region of Brazil, crime pays," he said baldly.
In 2003 Brazil's leftist president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva came to power vowing to change this reality and to bring the rule of law to a region often described as Brazil's Wild West.
Having been elected promising to transform Brazil, one of the world's most unequal countries, and help the poor, Lula doubled the work ministry's budget and began pumping extra funds into the mobile anti-slavery taskforces, known as the grupo moveis. It was an attempt, he said, to put an end to "Brazil's shame" once and for all.
Few doubt the group's successes. Last year the government's anti-slavery taskforce announced it had freed 4634 workers from "slave-like conditions" in 2008. According to government figures 31,726 workers were freed between 1995 and 2008, while more than 200 businesses are currently blacklisted because of involvement in slavery.
But despite the growing crackdown the practice of modern-day slavery persists, not just across the Amazon region but also in Brazil's south and midwest, where workers are put to work on sugar-cane plantations or soy farms.
With the sun forcing its way into the skies above Maraba, the Work Ministry convoy headed north, rattling past a monotonous horizon of cattle ranches and sawmills. Once this area was home to native Amazon rainforest. Now there is hardly a tree in sight, the result of 40 years of destruction at the hands of illegal loggers and cattle ranchers.
Fifteen kilometres out of town, Secchin and his team of inspectors pulled up at the gates of the Geladinho ranch. They had arrived at the day's target. On cue, 11 dishevelled workers emerged from the farm's rickety wooden charcoal factory. Wearing torn trousers, filthy T-shirts and rubber flip-flops, they wandered slowly towards the vehicles and asked simply: "Who are you?" The idea they might be saved by government officials hadn't crossed their minds.
Among the 11 workers was Walmir dos Santos, a 39-year-old farm hand from the north-eastern state of Maranhao. Mr Santos had arrived in Maraba by coach and was picked up from the bus station by a farmer who said he was looking for workers. For Mr Santos, born and brought up in one of the poorest backlands of Brazil, it had seemed like an opportunity too good to miss.
"At first I thought it was good because we came here in search of a better future," he recalled. "You know, we can't go back home without money and they said it was good around here."
But once at the farm he quickly realised he had been wrong. The workers were forced to drink from the same river used by cattle. The smoke from the charcoal furnace stung their eyes day and night. And while the farm owner did not directly threaten them, they had seen his weapons and feared what he might do if they tried to flee. It was difficult to sleep at night, he remembered.
"It hasn't been very good because all these things are happening and I don't really know what is going on," Mr Santos said.
For Claudio Secchin, a veteran of anti-slavery missions in the Amazon, this was just another day at work. But that made the situation no less disturbing.
"It is a shock for us when we come here. It is a situation of virtual anarchy' where everyone invents their own rules," he said.
Work inspectors like Mr Secchin share the frontline of Brazil's war on modern day slavery with dozens of anonymous heroes such as Jose Batista, a member of the Catholic support group the CPT, or Pastoral Land Commission.
The CPT, which has offices scattered across the Amazon, offers aid to workers who have fled abuse at remote jungle camps and provides information to the Brazilian work Ministry about the possible location of slaves.
Each year, hundreds of workers, fleeing their employers, arrive at the front door of the CPT's offices in central Maraba - a remote Amazon city so violent that locals have renamed it Marabala (Marabullet). Covered in insect bites and with their feet swollen from days walking in the forest, their stories are depressingly familiar.
"The story repeats itself," said Batista, explaining that the poverty-stricken north-east provided a constant flow of desperate workers who come to the region week after week only to fall into the same network of slavery.
As the son of an immigrant worker who was enslaved by unscrupulous farmers, Batista understands the mechanics of this trade better than most.
Batista charts the re-emergence of slavery back to the 1970s and the national integration plan, or Plano de Integracao Nacional, as it was known in Portuguese. Seeking to populate this vast Amazon region, the Brazilian government began to build a vast network of roads across the Amazon and offered incentives to farmers and businessmen who came to live and work here.
At the same time, faced with grinding poverty in the country's arid north east, many workers set off on open-backed trucks in search of a better future.
Some headed south to the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo, Batista says, where they found "slums, misery and hunger". Others headed west to the Amazon rainforest, hoping to claim a piece of land or perhaps to build a house. Instead, however, many encountered debt-slavery, violence and even murder.
Having spent decades illegally deforesting the world's largest tropical rainforest, many ranchers no longer cared about what the government, thousands of kilometres away in Brasilia, might do, he said. "Impunity is the rule here."
"To say to these people that they should tell their workers they have rights well, it's unthinkable to them," Batista said, sitting next to eight bulging grey filing cabinets with labels such as "Massacres", "Slave Labour", "Conflict Areas" and "Rural murders".
The creation of Brazil's anti-slave taskforce in 1995 was an attempt to rescue these rights for men such as Francisco Raimundo Mendes, a 48-year-old farm hand from the rural north east who was also recently freed by the government taskforce.
"We were treated like slaves," said Mendes, who was paid less than two pounds a day to lift tree trunks. "We didn't stop work on Saturday, Sundays or even Christmas Day. It was so much suffering."
Few doubt that the raids, which have earned Brazil international praise, have improved things.
"Things have improved a lot here. Lots of people have corrected their ways and we are trying to move this cultural reality that means people come here and take advantage of the absence of the state to exploit others," says Secchin.
"The posture of the state over the last 15 years has made many people reflect on whether or not it is worth carrying on with this model."
Many, however, still do think it is worth it. While the public face of slavery are the exhausting looking workers the government rescues from remote farms, Batista, the activist, said he believed many workers were simply assassinated before they could report their employers to the government.
One worker, recently interviewed by Batista's team, recounted being told by his employer: "Any worker who has the courage to report me deserves a bullet." Another CPT activist in the remote Amazon town of Sao Felix do Xingu said she had recently heard reports of one worker's body being found floating in a local river, bound to a tractor tyre and riddled with bullets. The worker, she was told, had demanded his pay.
"The number of workers who are killed deep inside these farms is not in our statistics," Batista said.
"The raids are fundamental and have helped reduce the number of cases, but it is not enough," Batista added, arguing that without resolving the social problems of the north east, little would change.
Two says after the raid on the Geladinho ranch outside Maraba, Claudio Secchin and his team pulled up outside the city's work ministry in their white Mitsubishi L200. It was early afternoon and awaiting them were a dozen dusty-faced workers, among them the men freed earlier that week. They had come to receive compensation from their former employers.
The mood was upbeat among the unshaven workers, many of whom had not received their pay for months.
"I'll tell my friends back home not to come here, because it isn't very good," joked Walmir dos Santos, who said he planned to get the first bus out of Maraba as soon as he was paid. "That's what I'll tell them."
"After I leave the hospital I'm going back home to the north east," chipped in his colleague, Francisco Raimundo Mendes, who said he had suffered a hernia while lifting tree trunks at the ranch but had received no medical assistance. "Then I'll have to work again, I suppose."
But where would he find work, apart from here in the Amazon? He frowned and gazed out at a haze of pick-up trucks and lorries rushing past on the Trans-Amazonian highway.
"I don't have a clue," he said.
http://www.sundayherald.com/misc/print.php?artid=2490875
Saturday, February 21, 2009
A Brief Tour of Brazilian Payments for Ecosystem Services
Brazil is home to more than four million plant and animal species – and, it seems, nearly as many laws and mechanisms for preserving the environment. That's one reason the next Katoomba Meeting is taking place in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso – at the heart of South America and the southern edge of the Amazon Rainforest.
Leading up to that event, Ecosystem Marketplace is examining Payments for Ecosystem Services in Latin America.First in a series
What pops to mind when you think of Brazil?
For many of us, it's the country's unending string of soccer virtuosos. For others, it's the four-day Carnaval that fills the streets of Rio and other cities this weekend.
But for ecologists, Brazil is something else altogether. It's the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado Savanna and other amazing biomes that help purify the world's air by extracting greenhouse gasses and other impurities from the atmosphere while supporting countless species of plant and animal.
Unfortunately, for the bulk of us, what comes to mind are not these natural treasures themselves, but their destruction – a direct result of our economy's inability to recognize the value of the ecosystems on which its own existence depends.
Twelve Steps to a Better Biosphere
Ecosystem Marketplace has documented scores of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and corporate donors who have launched voluntary Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes designed to incorporate the economic value of ecosystems into our market economy and to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), but such schemes will only bear enough fruit to make a difference if governments provide the regulatory drivers they need.
Brazilian state and federal governments have also launched a dizzying array of instruments and efforts to funnel private money towards environmental projects, and anyone looking to understand the evolution of PES in Brazil needs to be familiar with twelve of these efforts – even though many of them are not PES schemes in the strict sense of the word.
Most, for example, don't create a direct payment from the beneficiary of an ecosystem service (such as a city that gets clean water from mountain streams) to a provider of that service (such as indigenous farmers who maintain the catchments that provide the water). The principle of "protector receives" isn't always adhered to, but the principle of "polluter pays" is.
Furthermore, not all are created equally: some are little more than proposals, while others are backed by legislation long in force.
This brief overview of these mechanisms is by no means a comprehensive analysis, but rather a summary of the goals, strengths, and weaknesses of each effort. Many of these issues will be explored in more detail in the weeks leading up to the 14th Katoomba Meeting, which takes place April 1-2 in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.
ICMS Ecológico: the Ecological Sales Tax
The first mechanism is "ICMS Ecológico" (Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços Ecológico, the "ecological sales tax" – although a direct translation is "Ecological Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services. Download the TNC brochure, right). ICMS Ecológico raises funds through a sales tax on all goods and services and then pays the money out to municipalities based on how many "conservation units" (protected areas) they maintain or the level of sanitation infrastructure present in the municipality.
This is not a federal initiative, but rather a common name for initiatives launched by several Brazilian states. The primary aim is to compensate municipal governments for the tax revenue they lose when land is designated a protected areas, but it also has an incentive effect, encouraging the designation of new conservation areas.
The main motivation for the ICMS is the creation of new protected areas, and criteria for improving management of existing reserves only exist in some states. However, we should add here that the money that gets distributed to the municipality is not earmarked for conservation – it is up to the local government to define how to utilize the resources, and in some cases, depending on the state there are quality criteria related to the use of the resources which ends up acting as an incentive to reinvest in protected areas.
The state of Paraná launched the first ICMS Ecológico in 1992, followed by São Paulo one year later. The idea quickly spread to the states of Minas Gerais (1995), Rondônia (1996), Amapá (1996), Rio Grande do Sul (1998), Mato Grosso (2001), Mato Grosso do Sul (2001), Pernambuco (2001), and Tocantins (2002).
São Paulo alone has amassed a conservation coffer of 40 million Brazilian Real ($R) since 1993, but critics say the mechanism isn't really delivering new conservation – in part because it simply rewards municipalities that are already fortunate enough to have large swathes of conservation, but also because debate over the best mechanism for distributing the funds is far from resolved.
Compensação Ambiental: Environmental Compensation
Brazil – like the United States and the European Union – has a program to offset the environmental impact of new development by requiring a compensatory payment for the non-avoidable impacts of new development. The program was initiated in 2000, but until recently required the payment of a licensing fee that had nothing to do with a project's environmental impact and everything to do with its budget.
to either the federal Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA – Ministry of Environment)
Specifically, developers were required to pay a licensing fee, usually amounting to between 0.5% and 2.0% of the cost of their development. The payment is supposed to bypass public budgets and go straight to a protected area that is impacted by the project, but the law failed to define a method for determining the size of the payment.
As we all know, the debate over how to best value the economic impact of environmental degradation is central to all PES schemes, and simply ignoring that debate in favor of a mechanism based on the cost of the project led to a flurry of lawsuits, culminating in a 2008 Supreme Court decision mandating license fees more closely related to actual impacts.
Now the licensing fee is truly meant to be a "Compensação Ambiental" (Environmental Compensation), which means that licensing agreements should be tied to environmental impacts, and payments are directed towards protected areas (in Brazil, these are protected areas equivalent to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Category One (nature reserve, free of development) or Category Two (limited protection) Protected Areas.
It all looks great on paper, right down to prescribing five specific uses for the money (studies for the creation of new reserves, management plan, sorting out land-tenure, purchase of goods and services necessary for managing an area, and management related research). The law creates a direct connection between private money and public action, and the amount of money raised since the initial licensing began is estimated at anywhere from $R237 million to double that amount.
In practice, however, there's still no way to assess environmental impact as mandated by the court ruling – and, as with ICMS Ecológico, no agreement on the best mechanism for executing the funds – or getting them into the protected areas. Now with the Supreme Court ruling everything has come to a halt while we await a new methodology for defining how to calculate costs associated with impacts, and with determining whether past payments needs to be revisited in order to meet the new valuation criteria.
Payment for Watershed Services
In 1997, Brazil passed the Lei da Política Nacional de Recursos, a law that essentially recognizes water as a public "good", whose use must be duly compensated through a financial payment. Furthermore it stipulates that resources generated through this means should be used to protect the resource at its origin. This opens up the possibility for water payments to be directed towards conservation projects, but does not mean that all resources from water usage is directed towards conservation. Part of the payments can go towards maintaining the infrastructure that delivers the water, and the water that we pay for through our utility bill has nothing to do with the charges that are established under this law.
Water payments that relate to the use of resources from a particular watershed are collected by the local water management agency, which charges a usage fee and redistributes a portion of the payment to local watershed management committees.
In an effort to promote local participation, payments are to be assessed and distributed by local committees made up of volunteers, whose job is to assess the charges and then distribute payments to reforestation or environmental conservation projects within their watershed.
Unfortunately, this very effort to involve local communities is also the program's weakness, subject to the same challenges that efforts involving community input face around the world. (Anyone who has ever been involved in a local civic group can attest to the heated battles that rage over what color to paint a fence – let alone the best way to revive a degraded watershed.)
As this is a new initiative, many committees either don't exist or have yet to figure out how to work together, how to develop a plan, or how to conceive a vision that sets priorities and guides what needs to be funded and where and how to control costs. Few of the participants are trained conservationists or engineers.
The challenge is to promote an understanding of organizational structures and technical issues – not to mention good governance. A fundamental problem is water theft: water is often diverted from existing pipelines, which means that funding never really makes its way into the budget. This is a promising law, but one that needs better enforcement and practical guidance for committees to function in order to achieve the program's goals.
Gas and Oil Royalty Payments
As in other parts of Latin America, oil and gas companies in Brazil are forced to pay royalties, either to the federal government or the local government, depending on the jurisdiction.
These payments are earmarked for protection of biodiversity and reduction of air and water pollution – but the priorities aren't clearly defined, and the money is often pooled into larger budgets. This leaves the money it public coffers with no financial mechanisms for channeling it to the economic projects for which it is intended.
Many of these local governance issues flow from the newness of Brazil's democracy, which is just over 20 years old. If these local governance issues are not resolved, authority may be consolidated at a higher level. Other examples where this happens are the compensation payments for hydroelectric dams and for mineral extraction, which include the concept of compensating for environmental impact but are not necessarily directed towards environmental conservation.
Private Nature Reserves
Brazil offers private land-owners an opportunity to avoid paying property taxes by turning their land into a private nature reserve (Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural, RPPN).
Again, this can be done either at the state or federal level, and the treatment is different for each.
If registered at the federal level, the land is considered a "sustainable use" reserve, which means that some productive activity is allowed, provided the land becomes part of the national protected area system – following the SNUC law (Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação or the National System of Protected Areas). This law obligates the owner to develop a management and monitoring plan and to earn money from limited extractive activities.
If registered at the state level, the land is considered a "strict protection" area, which means it can only be used for research and eco-tourism.
If incorporated into the national system, RPPNs fall into a category between strict protection and "sustainable use" – largely because the article describing sustainable use was vetted in congress. The result is a category that is often described as sustainable use, but in reality is more restricted.
Either way, the land is incorporated into Brazil's protected area system – and the designation is permanent. Because there is no turning back, most landowners have been reluctant to take advantage of this program.
Furthermore, exemption from the Imposto Territorial Rural (ITR, the Rural Land Tax) has proven to be a weak incentive, because the tax itself is low and often not enforced, and the bureaucracy created to administer the SNUC makes it difficult to create RPPNs.
While for-profit landowners have generally paid little heed to getting RPPN designation, we are seeing interest on the part of environmental NGOs and research organizations.
Mitigation Banking, Brazilian Style
Under the 1965 Código Florestal (Forestry Code), Brazil requires anyone owning more than 50 hectares of rural land to make sure that a certain number of hectares are set aside in a Reserva Legal (Legal Reserve). As in mitigation banking, the Código Florestal makes it possible for landowners to reach their quota either by setting aside their own land or by purchasing tradable certificates from other landowners within the same micro-region or watershed.
The percentage required to be set aside varies from as little as 20% to as much 80%, depending on the biome – and is the focus of a heated battle between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Not surprisingly, the highest figure for protection is in the Amazon, where the required set-aside was raised from 50% to 80% under the administration of President Fernando Cardoso, who preceded Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva.
The deadline for compliance is 2010, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries – backed by large agriculture interests – wants to not only roll back the ceiling to 50% in the Amazon, but also to allow the trading of certificates across watersheds and allow reforestation with non-native species. The Ministry of Environment wants to keep the ceiling at 80%, focus trading within watersheds, and limit most reforestation to native species.
The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism
China and India have been erecting wind parks and other clean energy projects with funding from the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows greenhouse gas emitters in the developed world to offset some of their emissions by funding such projects in the developing world.
Brazil, however, already gets the bulk of its electricity from hydro plants and wind farms, while 75% of its cars run on ethanol. This leaves few options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources under the current Kyoto Protocol.
The bulk of Brazil's CDM income (or "MDL" income, for Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo) goes to support methane capture projects in landfills, and is not a significant generator of income.
Since the majority of Brazil's emissions come from deforestation, its main contribution for reducing emissions would come from avoiding forest loss. However, avoided deforestation is not eligible to receive carbon credits under the current regulated market. This opens the door for a voluntary market and for new negotiations that will unfold from a post-Kyoto agreement (post 2012).
Amazon Protected Areas Program
The Amazon Protected Areas Program (ARPA) is a federal program designed to protect 37.5 million hectares of Protected Area by 2012 – a size equivalent to all of Spain. It also aims to consolidate another 12.5 million hectares of existing reserves. It is estimated that R$900 million (US$395 million) is needed to meet this objective.
This program is now entering its third and final phase and now funds 60 protected areas covering 23 million hectares. It is overseen by a multistakeholder governing council, funded primarily by Germany's KfW Bank Group (formerly the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, or Reconstruction Credit Institute), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and WWF (formerly the Worldwide Fund for Nature), and administered by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO).
Ultimately, the hope is to create a R$544 Million (US$240 million) endowment fund to cover recurring costs and support the protected areas. The fund currently has R$50 million (US$22 million).
The program is currently focused only on the Amazon, leaving other protected biomes such as the Caatinga and Atlantic Forest on their own.
Forest Concessions
Brazil also earns money from public lands by leasing them to timber companies, which are obligated to re-plant the forests and pay a tax. The program, however, is unevenly administered, and obligations to replant are often ignored by leasers, who find it easy to simply get away with non-compliance.
As with many of Brazil's environmental laws, this effort will hinge on enforcement, and the development of an effective enforcement mechanism is central to the debate.
Commercial Forestry Certificates
The environmental community is lobbying for a certification program that will go along with forest concessions to improve monitoring and enforcement of these instruments.
Such programs already exist, and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been active in Brazil, but instead of one nationally-agreed upon standard for certifying that timber has been harvested in a sustainable way, the market has generated a gaggle of varying certificates that mean different things to different people.
Larger users of wood products, including Aracruz Celulose, Brazil's leading paper and pulp company, have expressed an interest in supporting a national standard. Indeed, companies like Aracruz have much to gain on the public relations front, but smaller producers say they can't afford the administrative costs.
Green Tax Deduction
In Brazil, as in most countries, people and companies can write charitable donations off on their income tax – but in Brazil, the only recognized categories of charity are Culture, Education, and Athletics.
A new bill, Imposto de Renda (Income Tax) Ecológico, aims to extend that status to donations in support of environmental projects. It has the backing of major NGOs like WWF, Conservation International, and the Nature Conservancy, as well as support from the Moore Foundation, but has run into stiff resistance from government entities concerned about reduced tax revenues and NGOs active in education, culture, and athletics.
http://ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/article.news.php?component_id=6524&component_version_id=9770&language_id=12
Leading up to that event, Ecosystem Marketplace is examining Payments for Ecosystem Services in Latin America.First in a series
What pops to mind when you think of Brazil?
For many of us, it's the country's unending string of soccer virtuosos. For others, it's the four-day Carnaval that fills the streets of Rio and other cities this weekend.
But for ecologists, Brazil is something else altogether. It's the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado Savanna and other amazing biomes that help purify the world's air by extracting greenhouse gasses and other impurities from the atmosphere while supporting countless species of plant and animal.
Unfortunately, for the bulk of us, what comes to mind are not these natural treasures themselves, but their destruction – a direct result of our economy's inability to recognize the value of the ecosystems on which its own existence depends.
Twelve Steps to a Better Biosphere
Ecosystem Marketplace has documented scores of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and corporate donors who have launched voluntary Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes designed to incorporate the economic value of ecosystems into our market economy and to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), but such schemes will only bear enough fruit to make a difference if governments provide the regulatory drivers they need.
Brazilian state and federal governments have also launched a dizzying array of instruments and efforts to funnel private money towards environmental projects, and anyone looking to understand the evolution of PES in Brazil needs to be familiar with twelve of these efforts – even though many of them are not PES schemes in the strict sense of the word.
Most, for example, don't create a direct payment from the beneficiary of an ecosystem service (such as a city that gets clean water from mountain streams) to a provider of that service (such as indigenous farmers who maintain the catchments that provide the water). The principle of "protector receives" isn't always adhered to, but the principle of "polluter pays" is.
Furthermore, not all are created equally: some are little more than proposals, while others are backed by legislation long in force.
This brief overview of these mechanisms is by no means a comprehensive analysis, but rather a summary of the goals, strengths, and weaknesses of each effort. Many of these issues will be explored in more detail in the weeks leading up to the 14th Katoomba Meeting, which takes place April 1-2 in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.
ICMS Ecológico: the Ecological Sales Tax
The first mechanism is "ICMS Ecológico" (Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços Ecológico, the "ecological sales tax" – although a direct translation is "Ecological Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services. Download the TNC brochure, right). ICMS Ecológico raises funds through a sales tax on all goods and services and then pays the money out to municipalities based on how many "conservation units" (protected areas) they maintain or the level of sanitation infrastructure present in the municipality.
This is not a federal initiative, but rather a common name for initiatives launched by several Brazilian states. The primary aim is to compensate municipal governments for the tax revenue they lose when land is designated a protected areas, but it also has an incentive effect, encouraging the designation of new conservation areas.
The main motivation for the ICMS is the creation of new protected areas, and criteria for improving management of existing reserves only exist in some states. However, we should add here that the money that gets distributed to the municipality is not earmarked for conservation – it is up to the local government to define how to utilize the resources, and in some cases, depending on the state there are quality criteria related to the use of the resources which ends up acting as an incentive to reinvest in protected areas.
The state of Paraná launched the first ICMS Ecológico in 1992, followed by São Paulo one year later. The idea quickly spread to the states of Minas Gerais (1995), Rondônia (1996), Amapá (1996), Rio Grande do Sul (1998), Mato Grosso (2001), Mato Grosso do Sul (2001), Pernambuco (2001), and Tocantins (2002).
São Paulo alone has amassed a conservation coffer of 40 million Brazilian Real ($R) since 1993, but critics say the mechanism isn't really delivering new conservation – in part because it simply rewards municipalities that are already fortunate enough to have large swathes of conservation, but also because debate over the best mechanism for distributing the funds is far from resolved.
Compensação Ambiental: Environmental Compensation
Brazil – like the United States and the European Union – has a program to offset the environmental impact of new development by requiring a compensatory payment for the non-avoidable impacts of new development. The program was initiated in 2000, but until recently required the payment of a licensing fee that had nothing to do with a project's environmental impact and everything to do with its budget.
to either the federal Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA – Ministry of Environment)
Specifically, developers were required to pay a licensing fee, usually amounting to between 0.5% and 2.0% of the cost of their development. The payment is supposed to bypass public budgets and go straight to a protected area that is impacted by the project, but the law failed to define a method for determining the size of the payment.
As we all know, the debate over how to best value the economic impact of environmental degradation is central to all PES schemes, and simply ignoring that debate in favor of a mechanism based on the cost of the project led to a flurry of lawsuits, culminating in a 2008 Supreme Court decision mandating license fees more closely related to actual impacts.
Now the licensing fee is truly meant to be a "Compensação Ambiental" (Environmental Compensation), which means that licensing agreements should be tied to environmental impacts, and payments are directed towards protected areas (in Brazil, these are protected areas equivalent to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Category One (nature reserve, free of development) or Category Two (limited protection) Protected Areas.
It all looks great on paper, right down to prescribing five specific uses for the money (studies for the creation of new reserves, management plan, sorting out land-tenure, purchase of goods and services necessary for managing an area, and management related research). The law creates a direct connection between private money and public action, and the amount of money raised since the initial licensing began is estimated at anywhere from $R237 million to double that amount.
In practice, however, there's still no way to assess environmental impact as mandated by the court ruling – and, as with ICMS Ecológico, no agreement on the best mechanism for executing the funds – or getting them into the protected areas. Now with the Supreme Court ruling everything has come to a halt while we await a new methodology for defining how to calculate costs associated with impacts, and with determining whether past payments needs to be revisited in order to meet the new valuation criteria.
Payment for Watershed Services
In 1997, Brazil passed the Lei da Política Nacional de Recursos, a law that essentially recognizes water as a public "good", whose use must be duly compensated through a financial payment. Furthermore it stipulates that resources generated through this means should be used to protect the resource at its origin. This opens up the possibility for water payments to be directed towards conservation projects, but does not mean that all resources from water usage is directed towards conservation. Part of the payments can go towards maintaining the infrastructure that delivers the water, and the water that we pay for through our utility bill has nothing to do with the charges that are established under this law.
Water payments that relate to the use of resources from a particular watershed are collected by the local water management agency, which charges a usage fee and redistributes a portion of the payment to local watershed management committees.
In an effort to promote local participation, payments are to be assessed and distributed by local committees made up of volunteers, whose job is to assess the charges and then distribute payments to reforestation or environmental conservation projects within their watershed.
Unfortunately, this very effort to involve local communities is also the program's weakness, subject to the same challenges that efforts involving community input face around the world. (Anyone who has ever been involved in a local civic group can attest to the heated battles that rage over what color to paint a fence – let alone the best way to revive a degraded watershed.)
As this is a new initiative, many committees either don't exist or have yet to figure out how to work together, how to develop a plan, or how to conceive a vision that sets priorities and guides what needs to be funded and where and how to control costs. Few of the participants are trained conservationists or engineers.
The challenge is to promote an understanding of organizational structures and technical issues – not to mention good governance. A fundamental problem is water theft: water is often diverted from existing pipelines, which means that funding never really makes its way into the budget. This is a promising law, but one that needs better enforcement and practical guidance for committees to function in order to achieve the program's goals.
Gas and Oil Royalty Payments
As in other parts of Latin America, oil and gas companies in Brazil are forced to pay royalties, either to the federal government or the local government, depending on the jurisdiction.
These payments are earmarked for protection of biodiversity and reduction of air and water pollution – but the priorities aren't clearly defined, and the money is often pooled into larger budgets. This leaves the money it public coffers with no financial mechanisms for channeling it to the economic projects for which it is intended.
Many of these local governance issues flow from the newness of Brazil's democracy, which is just over 20 years old. If these local governance issues are not resolved, authority may be consolidated at a higher level. Other examples where this happens are the compensation payments for hydroelectric dams and for mineral extraction, which include the concept of compensating for environmental impact but are not necessarily directed towards environmental conservation.
Private Nature Reserves
Brazil offers private land-owners an opportunity to avoid paying property taxes by turning their land into a private nature reserve (Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural, RPPN).
Again, this can be done either at the state or federal level, and the treatment is different for each.
If registered at the federal level, the land is considered a "sustainable use" reserve, which means that some productive activity is allowed, provided the land becomes part of the national protected area system – following the SNUC law (Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação or the National System of Protected Areas). This law obligates the owner to develop a management and monitoring plan and to earn money from limited extractive activities.
If registered at the state level, the land is considered a "strict protection" area, which means it can only be used for research and eco-tourism.
If incorporated into the national system, RPPNs fall into a category between strict protection and "sustainable use" – largely because the article describing sustainable use was vetted in congress. The result is a category that is often described as sustainable use, but in reality is more restricted.
Either way, the land is incorporated into Brazil's protected area system – and the designation is permanent. Because there is no turning back, most landowners have been reluctant to take advantage of this program.
Furthermore, exemption from the Imposto Territorial Rural (ITR, the Rural Land Tax) has proven to be a weak incentive, because the tax itself is low and often not enforced, and the bureaucracy created to administer the SNUC makes it difficult to create RPPNs.
While for-profit landowners have generally paid little heed to getting RPPN designation, we are seeing interest on the part of environmental NGOs and research organizations.
Mitigation Banking, Brazilian Style
Under the 1965 Código Florestal (Forestry Code), Brazil requires anyone owning more than 50 hectares of rural land to make sure that a certain number of hectares are set aside in a Reserva Legal (Legal Reserve). As in mitigation banking, the Código Florestal makes it possible for landowners to reach their quota either by setting aside their own land or by purchasing tradable certificates from other landowners within the same micro-region or watershed.
The percentage required to be set aside varies from as little as 20% to as much 80%, depending on the biome – and is the focus of a heated battle between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Not surprisingly, the highest figure for protection is in the Amazon, where the required set-aside was raised from 50% to 80% under the administration of President Fernando Cardoso, who preceded Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva.
The deadline for compliance is 2010, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries – backed by large agriculture interests – wants to not only roll back the ceiling to 50% in the Amazon, but also to allow the trading of certificates across watersheds and allow reforestation with non-native species. The Ministry of Environment wants to keep the ceiling at 80%, focus trading within watersheds, and limit most reforestation to native species.
The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism
China and India have been erecting wind parks and other clean energy projects with funding from the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows greenhouse gas emitters in the developed world to offset some of their emissions by funding such projects in the developing world.
Brazil, however, already gets the bulk of its electricity from hydro plants and wind farms, while 75% of its cars run on ethanol. This leaves few options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources under the current Kyoto Protocol.
The bulk of Brazil's CDM income (or "MDL" income, for Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo) goes to support methane capture projects in landfills, and is not a significant generator of income.
Since the majority of Brazil's emissions come from deforestation, its main contribution for reducing emissions would come from avoiding forest loss. However, avoided deforestation is not eligible to receive carbon credits under the current regulated market. This opens the door for a voluntary market and for new negotiations that will unfold from a post-Kyoto agreement (post 2012).
Amazon Protected Areas Program
The Amazon Protected Areas Program (ARPA) is a federal program designed to protect 37.5 million hectares of Protected Area by 2012 – a size equivalent to all of Spain. It also aims to consolidate another 12.5 million hectares of existing reserves. It is estimated that R$900 million (US$395 million) is needed to meet this objective.
This program is now entering its third and final phase and now funds 60 protected areas covering 23 million hectares. It is overseen by a multistakeholder governing council, funded primarily by Germany's KfW Bank Group (formerly the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, or Reconstruction Credit Institute), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and WWF (formerly the Worldwide Fund for Nature), and administered by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO).
Ultimately, the hope is to create a R$544 Million (US$240 million) endowment fund to cover recurring costs and support the protected areas. The fund currently has R$50 million (US$22 million).
The program is currently focused only on the Amazon, leaving other protected biomes such as the Caatinga and Atlantic Forest on their own.
Forest Concessions
Brazil also earns money from public lands by leasing them to timber companies, which are obligated to re-plant the forests and pay a tax. The program, however, is unevenly administered, and obligations to replant are often ignored by leasers, who find it easy to simply get away with non-compliance.
As with many of Brazil's environmental laws, this effort will hinge on enforcement, and the development of an effective enforcement mechanism is central to the debate.
Commercial Forestry Certificates
The environmental community is lobbying for a certification program that will go along with forest concessions to improve monitoring and enforcement of these instruments.
Such programs already exist, and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been active in Brazil, but instead of one nationally-agreed upon standard for certifying that timber has been harvested in a sustainable way, the market has generated a gaggle of varying certificates that mean different things to different people.
Larger users of wood products, including Aracruz Celulose, Brazil's leading paper and pulp company, have expressed an interest in supporting a national standard. Indeed, companies like Aracruz have much to gain on the public relations front, but smaller producers say they can't afford the administrative costs.
Green Tax Deduction
In Brazil, as in most countries, people and companies can write charitable donations off on their income tax – but in Brazil, the only recognized categories of charity are Culture, Education, and Athletics.
A new bill, Imposto de Renda (Income Tax) Ecológico, aims to extend that status to donations in support of environmental projects. It has the backing of major NGOs like WWF, Conservation International, and the Nature Conservancy, as well as support from the Moore Foundation, but has run into stiff resistance from government entities concerned about reduced tax revenues and NGOs active in education, culture, and athletics.
http://ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/article.news.php?component_id=6524&component_version_id=9770&language_id=12
Ancient Acai – The Brazilian Amazon’s Super-Berry
Acai (ah-sigh-ee) is a small purple berry from the Brazilian Amazon that has been found to be one of the most nutritious and powerful foods on the planet – jam packed with antioxidants, healthy omega fats, amino acids and dietary fiber.
Ancient Acai - the purple berry with an energy punch has been enjoyed and used as a subsistence food by the natives of the Amazon region for millennia. But it is only now beginning to become known to the American consumer, looking for ways to slow the aging process and maintain vibrant health.
Amazonian acai is establishing itself as an important superfood - gaining popularity with the healthconscious crowd.
Antioxidants help the body get rid of free radicals. The body produces free radicals when it digests food, metabolizes medicine and fights disease, so they are necessary parts of the human condition, but a buildup can damage the body. Antioxidants are credited with preventing coronary artery disease, some cancers, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and some arthritis-related conditions. according to WebMD.com.
Pomegranates, blueberries -- even wine, chocolate and coffee -- contain high levels of antioxidants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures those levels with something called an ORAC score -- Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.
Acai berries have nearly eight times higher ORAC scores than pomegranate, which is near the top of published charts.
Anecdotal evidence may be good and well, but what have the lab studies said about the substances and ingredients that are actually proven to be contained in this ancient fruit?
The Acai Berry's proven antioxidants:
Beta carotene -- Beta carotene is a proven free-radical scavenger associated with lowered risks for several types of cancer, including breast, lung, skin and stomach cancers. Research also supports its use in promoting eye health, lowering cholesterol levels and preventing heart disease.
Vitamin C -- This vitamin is a powerful antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties found to improve symptoms of asthma and arthritis. Studies have also found vitamin C supplementation useful in protecting against atherosclerosis, stroke, cancer and reducing complications in macular degeneration in diabetics and promoting healthy immune function. When used in combination with vitamin E, a 2004 study from the Archives of Neurology found vitamin C reduced the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Vitamin E -- Several studies have linked this vitamin to reduced risk of heart attacks and found it beneficial in lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. The National Eye Institute also found vitamin E to be one of several antioxidants (including vitamin C, beta carotene and zinc)that may help reduce the risk of macular degeneration-related vision loss. New clinical research is also recommending vitamin E for diabetes prevention and treatment. Other benefits linked to vitamin E include use for inflammation, blood cell and cell-division regulation and connective tissue health.
Magnesium -- Magnesium deficiency has been linked to several chronic conditions. As an antioxidant magnesium improves the cardiovascular system's antioxidant threshold and increases the body's resistance to free radicals. It also protects agains free radical damage to mitochondria (cellular energy producers) and has been used to regulate heart rhythm and blood pressure.
Polyphenolic flavonoids -- Sixteen types of bioactive polypheolic compounds have been identified in acai berry. Polyphenols are antioxidant compounds found in produce, grains, tea and soybeans. Research shows that polyphenolic compounds have anti-tumor properties and may be useful in the treatment and prevention of cancers of the breast, colon, skin, lung and liver. Other benefits include antiinflammatory antiallergenic, immunostimulatory and cardioprotective properties.
Anthocyanins -- Two major types of anhocyanins have been found in acai, including cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyaninidin-3-rutinoside. Anthocyanins are exceptional antioxidant compounds believed to reduce heart disease risk by neutralizing free radicals that could damage blood vessel walls, leading to cholesterol and plaque buildup. Acai is believed to have up to 30 times the anthocyanins found in red wine.
Keep in mind that this does not require you to take a pill, these antioxidants are contained in this superfood from the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, the Ancient Acai Berry.
http://www.ancientacai.com/
Ancient Acai - the purple berry with an energy punch has been enjoyed and used as a subsistence food by the natives of the Amazon region for millennia. But it is only now beginning to become known to the American consumer, looking for ways to slow the aging process and maintain vibrant health.
Amazonian acai is establishing itself as an important superfood - gaining popularity with the healthconscious crowd.
Antioxidants help the body get rid of free radicals. The body produces free radicals when it digests food, metabolizes medicine and fights disease, so they are necessary parts of the human condition, but a buildup can damage the body. Antioxidants are credited with preventing coronary artery disease, some cancers, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and some arthritis-related conditions. according to WebMD.com.
Pomegranates, blueberries -- even wine, chocolate and coffee -- contain high levels of antioxidants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures those levels with something called an ORAC score -- Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.
Acai berries have nearly eight times higher ORAC scores than pomegranate, which is near the top of published charts.
Anecdotal evidence may be good and well, but what have the lab studies said about the substances and ingredients that are actually proven to be contained in this ancient fruit?
The Acai Berry's proven antioxidants:
Beta carotene -- Beta carotene is a proven free-radical scavenger associated with lowered risks for several types of cancer, including breast, lung, skin and stomach cancers. Research also supports its use in promoting eye health, lowering cholesterol levels and preventing heart disease.
Vitamin C -- This vitamin is a powerful antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties found to improve symptoms of asthma and arthritis. Studies have also found vitamin C supplementation useful in protecting against atherosclerosis, stroke, cancer and reducing complications in macular degeneration in diabetics and promoting healthy immune function. When used in combination with vitamin E, a 2004 study from the Archives of Neurology found vitamin C reduced the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Vitamin E -- Several studies have linked this vitamin to reduced risk of heart attacks and found it beneficial in lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. The National Eye Institute also found vitamin E to be one of several antioxidants (including vitamin C, beta carotene and zinc)that may help reduce the risk of macular degeneration-related vision loss. New clinical research is also recommending vitamin E for diabetes prevention and treatment. Other benefits linked to vitamin E include use for inflammation, blood cell and cell-division regulation and connective tissue health.
Magnesium -- Magnesium deficiency has been linked to several chronic conditions. As an antioxidant magnesium improves the cardiovascular system's antioxidant threshold and increases the body's resistance to free radicals. It also protects agains free radical damage to mitochondria (cellular energy producers) and has been used to regulate heart rhythm and blood pressure.
Polyphenolic flavonoids -- Sixteen types of bioactive polypheolic compounds have been identified in acai berry. Polyphenols are antioxidant compounds found in produce, grains, tea and soybeans. Research shows that polyphenolic compounds have anti-tumor properties and may be useful in the treatment and prevention of cancers of the breast, colon, skin, lung and liver. Other benefits include antiinflammatory antiallergenic, immunostimulatory and cardioprotective properties.
Anthocyanins -- Two major types of anhocyanins have been found in acai, including cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyaninidin-3-rutinoside. Anthocyanins are exceptional antioxidant compounds believed to reduce heart disease risk by neutralizing free radicals that could damage blood vessel walls, leading to cholesterol and plaque buildup. Acai is believed to have up to 30 times the anthocyanins found in red wine.
Keep in mind that this does not require you to take a pill, these antioxidants are contained in this superfood from the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, the Ancient Acai Berry.
http://www.ancientacai.com/
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Brazilian palm berry sweeping the globe as a popular health food
- though little research has been done on it – now may have its purported benefits better understood.
In the first research involving people, the acai (ah-sigh-EE) berry has proven its ability to be absorbed in the human body when consumed both as juice and pulp. That finding, by a team of Texas AgriLife Research scientists, was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Showing the berry’s absorption in humans is important because it is known to contain numerous antioxidants. The berry is heavily marketed in the U.S. as a health food.
The study involved 12 healthy volunteers who consumed a single serving of acai juice or pulp. Researchers believe the results point to the need for continued research on the berry which is commonly used in juices, beverages, smoothies, frozen treats and dietary supplements.
"Acai is naturally low in sugar, and the flavor is described as a mixture of red wine and chocolate,” said lead investigator Dr. Susanne Talcott, “so what more would you want from a fruit?”
Talcott, who also is assistant professor with the Texas A&M University’s nutrition and food science department, said that previous studies have shown the ability of the human body to absorb target antioxidants (from other produce), but “no one had really tested to see if acai antioxidants are absorbed in humans."
Sales of acai products have increased dramatically in the U.S. where it has been touted as a metabolism booster, weight reducer and athletic enhancer. Advertisements use buzzwords such as health, wellness, energy, taste and organic.
About the only buzzword not used with acai is "local." The berries are harvested in the Brazilian rainforest from acai palms that may reach heights in excess of 60 feet - one of the same palms used to harvest edible hearts of palm.
The fruit is about the size of a large blueberry yet only the outermost layers of the fruit, the pulp surrounding a large internal seed, are edible, Talcott noted.
Talcott and her co-researcher and husband Dr. Steve Talcott began studying the palm- berry in 2001. His first scientific report on acai, apparently the first such study in English, was published in 2004.
Initially, their studies on the berry examined antioxidant and nutritional components in pulp and juice. Later studies showed the berry’s activity against cancer cells, Talcott noted.
With that background, the researchers then decided to find out whether those elements were actually being absorbed into the human body or being eliminated unused as waste.
"Like vitamin C, the body can only absorb so much at a time," Steve Talcott explained.
He said the researchers now “need to determine potential disease-fighting health benefits, so we can make intelligent recommendations on how much acai should be consumed.
For the clinical trial, people were given acai pulp and acai juice containing half the concentration of anthocyanins as the pulp and each compared to the control foods: applesauce and a non-antioxidant beverage.
Blood and urine samples at 12 and 24 hours after consumption showed significant increases in antioxidant activity in the blood after both the acai pulp and applesauce consumption, she said. Both acai pulp and acai juice showed significant absorption of antioxidant anthocyanins into the blood and antioxidant effects. The research couple said future studies hopefully will help determine whether the consumption of acai will result in any disease-preventing health benefit and the proper serving sizes for a beneficial dose for people.
"Our concern has been that it is sold as a super food – and it definitely has some good attributes – but it is not a solution to all diseases,” she said. “There are a great number of foods on the market, and this could just be part of a well-balanced diet."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081006112053.htm
In the first research involving people, the acai (ah-sigh-EE) berry has proven its ability to be absorbed in the human body when consumed both as juice and pulp. That finding, by a team of Texas AgriLife Research scientists, was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Showing the berry’s absorption in humans is important because it is known to contain numerous antioxidants. The berry is heavily marketed in the U.S. as a health food.
The study involved 12 healthy volunteers who consumed a single serving of acai juice or pulp. Researchers believe the results point to the need for continued research on the berry which is commonly used in juices, beverages, smoothies, frozen treats and dietary supplements.
"Acai is naturally low in sugar, and the flavor is described as a mixture of red wine and chocolate,” said lead investigator Dr. Susanne Talcott, “so what more would you want from a fruit?”
Talcott, who also is assistant professor with the Texas A&M University’s nutrition and food science department, said that previous studies have shown the ability of the human body to absorb target antioxidants (from other produce), but “no one had really tested to see if acai antioxidants are absorbed in humans."
Sales of acai products have increased dramatically in the U.S. where it has been touted as a metabolism booster, weight reducer and athletic enhancer. Advertisements use buzzwords such as health, wellness, energy, taste and organic.
About the only buzzword not used with acai is "local." The berries are harvested in the Brazilian rainforest from acai palms that may reach heights in excess of 60 feet - one of the same palms used to harvest edible hearts of palm.
The fruit is about the size of a large blueberry yet only the outermost layers of the fruit, the pulp surrounding a large internal seed, are edible, Talcott noted.
Talcott and her co-researcher and husband Dr. Steve Talcott began studying the palm- berry in 2001. His first scientific report on acai, apparently the first such study in English, was published in 2004.
Initially, their studies on the berry examined antioxidant and nutritional components in pulp and juice. Later studies showed the berry’s activity against cancer cells, Talcott noted.
With that background, the researchers then decided to find out whether those elements were actually being absorbed into the human body or being eliminated unused as waste.
"Like vitamin C, the body can only absorb so much at a time," Steve Talcott explained.
He said the researchers now “need to determine potential disease-fighting health benefits, so we can make intelligent recommendations on how much acai should be consumed.
For the clinical trial, people were given acai pulp and acai juice containing half the concentration of anthocyanins as the pulp and each compared to the control foods: applesauce and a non-antioxidant beverage.
Blood and urine samples at 12 and 24 hours after consumption showed significant increases in antioxidant activity in the blood after both the acai pulp and applesauce consumption, she said. Both acai pulp and acai juice showed significant absorption of antioxidant anthocyanins into the blood and antioxidant effects. The research couple said future studies hopefully will help determine whether the consumption of acai will result in any disease-preventing health benefit and the proper serving sizes for a beneficial dose for people.
"Our concern has been that it is sold as a super food – and it definitely has some good attributes – but it is not a solution to all diseases,” she said. “There are a great number of foods on the market, and this could just be part of a well-balanced diet."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081006112053.htm
Acai Berry Information
By now you probably know that the Acai berry grows in the Amazon rainforest. It has a wide range of health benefits and has been consumed by the inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest for as long as anyone can remember. It is only in the rest of the world that it seems a new discovery.
The Acai berry has become a modern health trend, highlighting its content of amino acids, fatty acids (Omegas), vitamins and minerals. It is also considered as a superfood with high levels of antioxidants – more than any other known fruit.
The benefits of using Acai fruits continue to be the subject of research. Acai has been shown to flush out harmful toxins, increases metabolism and some studies have even suggested that it may help prevent cancer.
The little known benefits of Acai berry attracted more attention when Dr. Nicholas Perricone published a book proclaiming Acai to be the earth’s number one super food.
There are number of companies selling Acai products, one of the most prominent is Sambazon. Sambazon’s product can be found on the shelves of most health food stores – or you may purchase online and have it shipped to your door.
Check ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) test results when buying Acai products. The ORAC rating will indicate the amount of antioxidants in the bottled product.
Acai is important in the context of preserving the rainforest. It is one way to have sustainable development where the local population can benefit from harvesting a renewable natural resource – an alternative to the threat of deforestation.
Read more:
http://www.excitingbrazil.com/acaisecret.html
The Acai berry has become a modern health trend, highlighting its content of amino acids, fatty acids (Omegas), vitamins and minerals. It is also considered as a superfood with high levels of antioxidants – more than any other known fruit.
The benefits of using Acai fruits continue to be the subject of research. Acai has been shown to flush out harmful toxins, increases metabolism and some studies have even suggested that it may help prevent cancer.
The little known benefits of Acai berry attracted more attention when Dr. Nicholas Perricone published a book proclaiming Acai to be the earth’s number one super food.
There are number of companies selling Acai products, one of the most prominent is Sambazon. Sambazon’s product can be found on the shelves of most health food stores – or you may purchase online and have it shipped to your door.
Check ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) test results when buying Acai products. The ORAC rating will indicate the amount of antioxidants in the bottled product.
Acai is important in the context of preserving the rainforest. It is one way to have sustainable development where the local population can benefit from harvesting a renewable natural resource – an alternative to the threat of deforestation.
Read more:
http://www.excitingbrazil.com/acaisecret.html
GDAE explores deforestation in Amazon
A Tufts research institute earlier this month introduced a program to examine agricultural-induced deforestation in the Amazon Basin.
Tufts' Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) will explore the consequences of the globalized soybean industry on the developing Amazon region in its new initiative: Trade, Agricultural Expansion and Climate Change in the Amazon Basin.
The soybean industry is now one of the main forces pushing back the frontiers of the Amazon. The GDAE project seeks to model and eventually predict where deforestation is likely to occur, on what scale and how the market will respond to the rising industry.
"The project puts its finger on the most difficult issue that all emerging and emerged large and small economies face, which is how you can grow, compete globally and preserve the natural resources the whole planet needs," said Julia Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, located in Washington, D.C.
Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz, a senior research fellow for the GDAE, is heading the project. Vera-Diaz, who spent several years in Brazil, witnessed the transformation of wilderness to cultured fields through her experiences with local farmers.
"You get an idea of how the farmer thinks, works," she said. "Most of the people have very small incomes." Though they are surrounded by the rich resources of the Amazon, farmers increasingly find the profits from deforestation enticing, Vera-Diaz said.
"The tension between natural preservation and stewardship and global competition is what the project is looking at," Sweig said.
Vera-Diaz plans to explore the changing ecology of the region through analysis methods focusing on the effects of transnational companies, regional politics, international trade agreements, climate change and geological attributes.
"[This] research goes straight to the heart of the issues with very creative and sophisticated modeling and mapping techniques. [It is] very much on the cutting edge," Tim Wise, the director of the GDAE's Research and Policy Program, said.
Vera-Diaz noted that the research will be valuable to policymakers. "They can use this kind of analysis to avoid deforestation, war [and] evicting indigenous peoples," she said. "You can take this as a guide to future investments."
Vera-Diaz's prior research on the topic focuses on the consequences of trading rainforest land for farmland. She considers these tradeoffs to be shortsighted.
In her first GDAE paper, to be published in the coming weeks, she illustrates the blind spot in some plans to support the Amazon region's transformation.
She cited a project that the Brazilian government expects will net $180 million for soybean farmers over the next 20 years. In her eyes, this logic is inaccurate since it does not take into account the harmfulness of deforestation.
"By valuing the lost forest resources, her cost-benefit shows there's actually a net loss four times greater than the supposed economic benefit," Wise said.
The GDAE aims for an ongoing project, which will eventually expanding to include different aspects of Latin American development. Currently, the GDAE is looking for funding to ensure the complete development of the program.
The GDAE is administered by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Tufts' Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Founded in 1993, it explores global ecological and economic issues through multi-disciplinary approaches to research.
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/1.1487828-1.1487828
Tufts' Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) will explore the consequences of the globalized soybean industry on the developing Amazon region in its new initiative: Trade, Agricultural Expansion and Climate Change in the Amazon Basin.
The soybean industry is now one of the main forces pushing back the frontiers of the Amazon. The GDAE project seeks to model and eventually predict where deforestation is likely to occur, on what scale and how the market will respond to the rising industry.
"The project puts its finger on the most difficult issue that all emerging and emerged large and small economies face, which is how you can grow, compete globally and preserve the natural resources the whole planet needs," said Julia Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, located in Washington, D.C.
Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz, a senior research fellow for the GDAE, is heading the project. Vera-Diaz, who spent several years in Brazil, witnessed the transformation of wilderness to cultured fields through her experiences with local farmers.
"You get an idea of how the farmer thinks, works," she said. "Most of the people have very small incomes." Though they are surrounded by the rich resources of the Amazon, farmers increasingly find the profits from deforestation enticing, Vera-Diaz said.
"The tension between natural preservation and stewardship and global competition is what the project is looking at," Sweig said.
Vera-Diaz plans to explore the changing ecology of the region through analysis methods focusing on the effects of transnational companies, regional politics, international trade agreements, climate change and geological attributes.
"[This] research goes straight to the heart of the issues with very creative and sophisticated modeling and mapping techniques. [It is] very much on the cutting edge," Tim Wise, the director of the GDAE's Research and Policy Program, said.
Vera-Diaz noted that the research will be valuable to policymakers. "They can use this kind of analysis to avoid deforestation, war [and] evicting indigenous peoples," she said. "You can take this as a guide to future investments."
Vera-Diaz's prior research on the topic focuses on the consequences of trading rainforest land for farmland. She considers these tradeoffs to be shortsighted.
In her first GDAE paper, to be published in the coming weeks, she illustrates the blind spot in some plans to support the Amazon region's transformation.
She cited a project that the Brazilian government expects will net $180 million for soybean farmers over the next 20 years. In her eyes, this logic is inaccurate since it does not take into account the harmfulness of deforestation.
"By valuing the lost forest resources, her cost-benefit shows there's actually a net loss four times greater than the supposed economic benefit," Wise said.
The GDAE aims for an ongoing project, which will eventually expanding to include different aspects of Latin American development. Currently, the GDAE is looking for funding to ensure the complete development of the program.
The GDAE is administered by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Tufts' Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Founded in 1993, it explores global ecological and economic issues through multi-disciplinary approaches to research.
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/1.1487828-1.1487828
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Economic Demands Threaten Amazon
The Amazon continues to lose more forest due to excess strain from accelerating rates of industrialized growth in the region, according to a report issued by the United Nations on Wednesday.
Supported by the UN Environment Program and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), the GEO Amazonia report shows troubling signs of deforestation due to poorly planned human settlements.
As of 2005, “857,666 square kilometers of the forest had been transformed, reducing vegetation cover by approximately 17 percent, equal to two-thirds of Peru or 94 percent of Venezuela,” according to the UN.
Since then, the rate of deforestation has decreased. However, an additional 11,224 square kilometers (4,333 square miles) of forest disappeared in Brazil in 2007.
Deforestation in the region is being driven by foreign markets’ conquests for timber, cash crops and beef, and unprecedented levels of pollution, according to the report, which used data from more than 150 experts in eight nearby countries.
“Our Amazonia is changing at an accelerated rate with very profound modifications in its ecosystems,” the eight Amazonian countries declared in the GEO Amazonia report.
The region today holds some 35 million people, nearly 65 percent of them in cities, including three with more than one million inhabitants, according to the AFP.
The report recommended that Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela should take part in a coordinated effort for sustainable use of the iconic rainforest’s ecosystems.
"If the loss of forests exceeds 30 percent of the vegetation cover, then rainfall levels will decrease," the report said. "This will produce a vicious circle that favors forest burning, reduces water vapor release and increases smoke emissions into the atmosphere."
The UN also announced that Copenhagen, which will host the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in less than 300 days, has become the 100th member of the Climate Change Network (CN Net), which is aimed at bringing “a wide range of participants, including countries, cities, major international companies, UN agencies and leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs),” according to the UNEP.
“One year on, the unfolding financial and environmental crises make the CN Net more relevant than ever before as a showcase of both the promise and viability of the low-carbon development model which goes hand-in-hand with the emerging Green Economy initiatives around the globe,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said at the agency’s annual Governing Council meeting in Nairobi.
The report also noted a threat to water resources in the region where about 20 percent of the world’s fresh water flows each year.
"Climate change and extreme (weather) events are putting pressure on the Amazonia ecosystems and making it more vulnerable," the UNEP said in a statement.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) today also urged the world maritime shipping fleet to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of seaborne vessels, adding that dealing with climate change is a priority that should not be undermined by other concerns such as the current global financial crisis.
“With 80 percent of the volume of international trade being carried by sea, shipping - the cornerstone of globalized trade - has a role to play in addressing this challenge,” said the UNCTAD.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1642296/economic_demands_threaten_amazon/
Supported by the UN Environment Program and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), the GEO Amazonia report shows troubling signs of deforestation due to poorly planned human settlements.
As of 2005, “857,666 square kilometers of the forest had been transformed, reducing vegetation cover by approximately 17 percent, equal to two-thirds of Peru or 94 percent of Venezuela,” according to the UN.
Since then, the rate of deforestation has decreased. However, an additional 11,224 square kilometers (4,333 square miles) of forest disappeared in Brazil in 2007.
Deforestation in the region is being driven by foreign markets’ conquests for timber, cash crops and beef, and unprecedented levels of pollution, according to the report, which used data from more than 150 experts in eight nearby countries.
“Our Amazonia is changing at an accelerated rate with very profound modifications in its ecosystems,” the eight Amazonian countries declared in the GEO Amazonia report.
The region today holds some 35 million people, nearly 65 percent of them in cities, including three with more than one million inhabitants, according to the AFP.
The report recommended that Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela should take part in a coordinated effort for sustainable use of the iconic rainforest’s ecosystems.
"If the loss of forests exceeds 30 percent of the vegetation cover, then rainfall levels will decrease," the report said. "This will produce a vicious circle that favors forest burning, reduces water vapor release and increases smoke emissions into the atmosphere."
The UN also announced that Copenhagen, which will host the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in less than 300 days, has become the 100th member of the Climate Change Network (CN Net), which is aimed at bringing “a wide range of participants, including countries, cities, major international companies, UN agencies and leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs),” according to the UNEP.
“One year on, the unfolding financial and environmental crises make the CN Net more relevant than ever before as a showcase of both the promise and viability of the low-carbon development model which goes hand-in-hand with the emerging Green Economy initiatives around the globe,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said at the agency’s annual Governing Council meeting in Nairobi.
The report also noted a threat to water resources in the region where about 20 percent of the world’s fresh water flows each year.
"Climate change and extreme (weather) events are putting pressure on the Amazonia ecosystems and making it more vulnerable," the UNEP said in a statement.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) today also urged the world maritime shipping fleet to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of seaborne vessels, adding that dealing with climate change is a priority that should not be undermined by other concerns such as the current global financial crisis.
“With 80 percent of the volume of international trade being carried by sea, shipping - the cornerstone of globalized trade - has a role to play in addressing this challenge,” said the UNCTAD.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1642296/economic_demands_threaten_amazon/
Marriott Gives Guests a Chance to Combat Climate Change
Guests at Marriott hotels can offset the carbon generated during their stay by contributing $10 to a Brazilian rainforest preservation fund already supported with a $2 million commitment by the company. Through an agreement with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation, Marriott and its guests are protecting 1.4 million acres of pristine rainforest in the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve in the State of Amazonas, Brazil. Without this intervention, up to 62 percent of the Juma rainforest will be lost to illegal deforestation activities by 2050, resulting in 4 million tons of carbon emissions in the first 10 years alone.
The fund also supports 2,500 residents of Juma who in turn will help protect the rainforest from illegal farming and logging. Contributions will help fund personnel and equipment to monitor and protect the forest, a school and education curriculum, medical facility, community center, and more.
www.marriott.com/green-brazilian-rainforest.mi
The fund also supports 2,500 residents of Juma who in turn will help protect the rainforest from illegal farming and logging. Contributions will help fund personnel and equipment to monitor and protect the forest, a school and education curriculum, medical facility, community center, and more.
www.marriott.com/green-brazilian-rainforest.mi
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Amazon dieback could be prevented
Parts of the Amazon rainforest may face less serious droughts this century than previously feared, according to new research.
Climate models don't yet quite capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America.
Scientists compared 19 global climate models with actual rainfall measurements for the region.
The team found that the models tended to underestimate current rainfall levels because the models don't quite capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America. The models also 'vary greatly in their projections of future climate change in Amazonia,' according to the paper.
Some climate models have predicted that parts of the eastern Amazon will turn from rainforest to savannah this century. The new findings, with corrected rainfall patterns, suggest the region may move from year-long wet seasons to wet and dry seasons. This will result in a seasonal forest - not quite a rainforest, but, crucially, not savannah.
Western Amazonia could remain a rainforest, while the findings suggest north and south Amazonia may dry out.
The drier areas will become more susceptible to fires, which are rare at present, say the researchers in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Fire associated with deforestation, logging and fragmentation may trigger a transition of these seasonal forests to what is described as 'fire-dominated, low biomass forests.'
Map of the Amazon
The Amazon is biologically the richest region on Earth, hosting a quarter of global species.
Tipping point
In 2008, the same journal published another paper entitled 'Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system.' The paper listed Amazon rainforest dieback as one of nine policy-relevant tipping points that could happen this century. The paper warned that climate change may not be linear: as carbon dioxide levels gradually rise, the climate is some parts of the world may switch state more rapidly. The Amazon ranked eight on the list.
The new research suggests eastern Amazonia could escape this fate if deforestation and fires are controlled effectively. 'Such intervention may be enough to navigate eastern Amazonia away from a possible ''tipping point,'' beyond which extensive rainforest would become unsustainable,' says the paper.
Lead author Professor Yadvinder Malhi from the University of Oxford says, 'Active forest protection in the Amazon forest region can help the region adapt to climate change and minimise the risk of a dieback. This strategy will also contribute to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.'
Surveying rain forest clearance
Controlling deforestation and fires may have a more far-reaching impact on the fate of the Amazon than previously thought.
'Even with sufficient funds and willpower, implementing biosphere management on such a scale will be a huge challenge. Brazil has recently announced an ambitious plan for slowing down Amazonian deforestation and deserves full international support. It will be critically important to understand the local and national social, political and economic context if this strategy is to succeed,' he adds.
Rainfall predictions remain a major challenge for climate models, which is why reducing uncertainty is a key priority for the research community. In February, the Natural Environment Research Council launched the £10 million Changing Water Cycle programme.
The Amazon is biologically the richest region on Earth, hosting a quarter of global species.
The research was led by Oxford University in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the University of Sheffield, and the Met Office Hadley Centre.
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=328
Climate models don't yet quite capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America.
Scientists compared 19 global climate models with actual rainfall measurements for the region.
The team found that the models tended to underestimate current rainfall levels because the models don't quite capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America. The models also 'vary greatly in their projections of future climate change in Amazonia,' according to the paper.
Some climate models have predicted that parts of the eastern Amazon will turn from rainforest to savannah this century. The new findings, with corrected rainfall patterns, suggest the region may move from year-long wet seasons to wet and dry seasons. This will result in a seasonal forest - not quite a rainforest, but, crucially, not savannah.
Western Amazonia could remain a rainforest, while the findings suggest north and south Amazonia may dry out.
The drier areas will become more susceptible to fires, which are rare at present, say the researchers in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Fire associated with deforestation, logging and fragmentation may trigger a transition of these seasonal forests to what is described as 'fire-dominated, low biomass forests.'
Map of the Amazon
The Amazon is biologically the richest region on Earth, hosting a quarter of global species.
Tipping point
In 2008, the same journal published another paper entitled 'Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system.' The paper listed Amazon rainforest dieback as one of nine policy-relevant tipping points that could happen this century. The paper warned that climate change may not be linear: as carbon dioxide levels gradually rise, the climate is some parts of the world may switch state more rapidly. The Amazon ranked eight on the list.
The new research suggests eastern Amazonia could escape this fate if deforestation and fires are controlled effectively. 'Such intervention may be enough to navigate eastern Amazonia away from a possible ''tipping point,'' beyond which extensive rainforest would become unsustainable,' says the paper.
Lead author Professor Yadvinder Malhi from the University of Oxford says, 'Active forest protection in the Amazon forest region can help the region adapt to climate change and minimise the risk of a dieback. This strategy will also contribute to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.'
Surveying rain forest clearance
Controlling deforestation and fires may have a more far-reaching impact on the fate of the Amazon than previously thought.
'Even with sufficient funds and willpower, implementing biosphere management on such a scale will be a huge challenge. Brazil has recently announced an ambitious plan for slowing down Amazonian deforestation and deserves full international support. It will be critically important to understand the local and national social, political and economic context if this strategy is to succeed,' he adds.
Rainfall predictions remain a major challenge for climate models, which is why reducing uncertainty is a key priority for the research community. In February, the Natural Environment Research Council launched the £10 million Changing Water Cycle programme.
The Amazon is biologically the richest region on Earth, hosting a quarter of global species.
The research was led by Oxford University in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the University of Sheffield, and the Met Office Hadley Centre.
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=328
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, Stanford researcher warns
Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.
"If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she warned.
Policies favoring biofuel crop production may inadvertently contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change, Gibbs said. Such an environmental disaster could be "just around the corner without more thoughtful energy policies that consider potential ripple effects on tropical forests," she added.
Gibbs' predictions are based on her new study, in which she analyzed detailed satellite images collected between 1980 and 2000. The study is the first to do such a detailed characterization of the pathways of agricultural expansion throughout the entire tropical region. Gibbs hopes that this new knowledge will contribute to making prudent decisions about future biofuel policies and subsidies.
Gibbs will present her findings in Chicago on Saturday, Feb. 14, during a symposium that begins at 1:30 p.m. CT at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The symposium is titled "Biofuels, Tropical Deforestation, and Climate Policy: Key Challenges and Opportunities." She will participate in a press conference at 12 p.m. CT on the same day.
With climates ideal for growing biofuel crops and an abundance of arable land, tropical countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have already responded to growing demand for food, feed and fuel from crops such sugarcane, soy and oil palm by increasing their production, Gibbs said.
For example, the area of cropland dedicated to soybean production in Brazil has increased at a rate of nearly 15 percent per year since 1990, and Indonesia's oil palm production tripled during the 1990's and then doubled again from 2000 to 2007, said Gibbs.
These increases are due in part to soaring global demand for food and feed. However, scientists have reason to suspect that biofuels also are playing a significant role in recent cropland expansion. "Biofuels have caused alarm because of how quickly production has been growing: Global ethanol production increased by four times and biodiesel by 10 times between 2000 and 2007," Gibbs said. "Moreover, agricultural subsidies in Indonesia and in the United States are providing added incentives to increase production of these crops."
"The crops that are most prized as current-generation biofuels, such as oil palm and sugarcane, also are those crops most suited to tropical countries," she added.
Land expansion controversy
Before Gibbs' study, few had focused on the question of the origin of new croplands—a question that has been a source of heated debate among scientists and policymakers alike over the past few years.
"Biofuel producers typically indicate that they are establishing new soy fields or oil palm plantations on degraded or already cleared lands," Gibbs said, "while environmental groups and some scientists point to Amazonian rainforests or Southeast Asian peat swamps as the land sources."
Gibbs was one of the first to approach the question by quantifying the types of land—pristine forest, disturbed forest, woody savannas, grasslands, plantations or agricultural land—that are being cleared to make space for the new cropland.
"If biofuels are grown in place of forests, we're actually going to end up emitting a huge amount of carbon. When trees are cut down to make room for new farmland, they are usually burned, sending their stored carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That creates what's called a carbon debt," Gibbs said. "This is because the carbon lost from deforestation is much greater than the carbon saved from using the current-generation biofuels."
Indeed, tropical forests are the world's most efficient storehouses for carbon, harboring more than 340 billion tons, according to Gibbs' research. This is equivalent to more than 40 years worth of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Gibbs' previous findings asserted that the carbon debt incurred from cutting down a tropical forest could take several centuries or even millennia to repay through carbon savings produced from the resultant biofuels.
On the other hand, planting biofuel croplands on degraded land—land that has been previously cultivated but is now providing very low productivity due to salinity, soil erosion, nutrient leaching, etc.—could have an overall positive environmental impact, Gibbs said.
"In a sense that would be restoring the land to a higher potential to provide environmental services for people," she added.
Both Brazil and Indonesia contain significant areas of degraded land—in Brazil, the total area may be as large as California—that could be replanted with crops, thereby decreasing the burden on forested land. "But this is challenging without new policies or economic incentives to encourage establishing crops on these lands," Gibbs said.
This is because farmers who convert degraded land to cropland must shoulder the costs of fertilizer and learn improved soil management practices to make the lands productive, whereas farmers who clear forested land often avoid these burdens.
"Government subsidies, environmental certification schemes or carbon markets could provide incentives to grow crops on degraded rather than forest lands," Gibbs said.
However, in some cases, allowing the degraded land to be returned to its natural, forested state might be the wisest use of the land, absorbing more carbon and providing ecological services such as flood mitigation, rainwater recycling and habitat for endangered species, Gibbs said.
"There are tradeoffs in all these decisions that need to be made on a case-by-case basis," she said. "We need to keep in mind that more cropland will be needed to meet the global demands for food, feed and fuel, so the best options will likely vary by circumstance."
Analyzing changing lands
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) maintains a database of detailed satellite images taken over the last 20 years through the Global Forest Resources Assessment, an initiative that dates back to 1946. The FAO releases a new global assessment every 10 years.
Working closely with the FAO, Gibbs analyzed satellite data for more than 100 randomly selected sites across the tropics. By comparing satellite images taken of each specific site in 1980, 1990 and 2000, Gibbs was able to clearly see whether croplands were expanding, and if so, what they were replacing.
She examined more than 600 satellite images from the FAO and other organizations, and noticed a clear trend: "What we found was that indeed forests were the primary source for new croplands as they expanded across the tropics during the 1980s and 1990s. So cropland expansion, whether it's for fuel, feed or food, has undoubtedly led to more deforestation, and evidence is mounting that this trend will continue."
For example, Gibbs' data show that between 1980 and 2000, more than half of new cropland came from intact rainforests and another 30 percent from disturbed forests, "This is contrary to what some biofuel proponents have suggested is occurring today," she said.
"This is a major concern for the global environment," Gibbs said. "As we look toward biofuels to help reduce climate change we must consider the rainforests and savannas that may lie in the pathway of expanding biofuel cropland."
The FAO is in the process of collecting and interpreting the data for the current decade. "This will be important to provide more recent information about expansion of croplands occurring in the midst of the biofuels boom," Gibbs said.
Although Gibbs recognizes that biofuels have certain drawbacks, including those documented in her study, she is not opposed to their regulated use. "I think that biofuels may have a critical place in our future energy plan," she said. "But the way that we're currently going about producing biofuels could have a lot of unintended consequences."
"The new administration should carefully consider the full consequences of any energy plan to make sure we protect the carbon stored in rainforests as well as reduce our fossil fuel emissions," she said.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/su-bbc021309.php
"If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she warned.
Policies favoring biofuel crop production may inadvertently contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change, Gibbs said. Such an environmental disaster could be "just around the corner without more thoughtful energy policies that consider potential ripple effects on tropical forests," she added.
Gibbs' predictions are based on her new study, in which she analyzed detailed satellite images collected between 1980 and 2000. The study is the first to do such a detailed characterization of the pathways of agricultural expansion throughout the entire tropical region. Gibbs hopes that this new knowledge will contribute to making prudent decisions about future biofuel policies and subsidies.
Gibbs will present her findings in Chicago on Saturday, Feb. 14, during a symposium that begins at 1:30 p.m. CT at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The symposium is titled "Biofuels, Tropical Deforestation, and Climate Policy: Key Challenges and Opportunities." She will participate in a press conference at 12 p.m. CT on the same day.
With climates ideal for growing biofuel crops and an abundance of arable land, tropical countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have already responded to growing demand for food, feed and fuel from crops such sugarcane, soy and oil palm by increasing their production, Gibbs said.
For example, the area of cropland dedicated to soybean production in Brazil has increased at a rate of nearly 15 percent per year since 1990, and Indonesia's oil palm production tripled during the 1990's and then doubled again from 2000 to 2007, said Gibbs.
These increases are due in part to soaring global demand for food and feed. However, scientists have reason to suspect that biofuels also are playing a significant role in recent cropland expansion. "Biofuels have caused alarm because of how quickly production has been growing: Global ethanol production increased by four times and biodiesel by 10 times between 2000 and 2007," Gibbs said. "Moreover, agricultural subsidies in Indonesia and in the United States are providing added incentives to increase production of these crops."
"The crops that are most prized as current-generation biofuels, such as oil palm and sugarcane, also are those crops most suited to tropical countries," she added.
Land expansion controversy
Before Gibbs' study, few had focused on the question of the origin of new croplands—a question that has been a source of heated debate among scientists and policymakers alike over the past few years.
"Biofuel producers typically indicate that they are establishing new soy fields or oil palm plantations on degraded or already cleared lands," Gibbs said, "while environmental groups and some scientists point to Amazonian rainforests or Southeast Asian peat swamps as the land sources."
Gibbs was one of the first to approach the question by quantifying the types of land—pristine forest, disturbed forest, woody savannas, grasslands, plantations or agricultural land—that are being cleared to make space for the new cropland.
"If biofuels are grown in place of forests, we're actually going to end up emitting a huge amount of carbon. When trees are cut down to make room for new farmland, they are usually burned, sending their stored carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That creates what's called a carbon debt," Gibbs said. "This is because the carbon lost from deforestation is much greater than the carbon saved from using the current-generation biofuels."
Indeed, tropical forests are the world's most efficient storehouses for carbon, harboring more than 340 billion tons, according to Gibbs' research. This is equivalent to more than 40 years worth of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Gibbs' previous findings asserted that the carbon debt incurred from cutting down a tropical forest could take several centuries or even millennia to repay through carbon savings produced from the resultant biofuels.
On the other hand, planting biofuel croplands on degraded land—land that has been previously cultivated but is now providing very low productivity due to salinity, soil erosion, nutrient leaching, etc.—could have an overall positive environmental impact, Gibbs said.
"In a sense that would be restoring the land to a higher potential to provide environmental services for people," she added.
Both Brazil and Indonesia contain significant areas of degraded land—in Brazil, the total area may be as large as California—that could be replanted with crops, thereby decreasing the burden on forested land. "But this is challenging without new policies or economic incentives to encourage establishing crops on these lands," Gibbs said.
This is because farmers who convert degraded land to cropland must shoulder the costs of fertilizer and learn improved soil management practices to make the lands productive, whereas farmers who clear forested land often avoid these burdens.
"Government subsidies, environmental certification schemes or carbon markets could provide incentives to grow crops on degraded rather than forest lands," Gibbs said.
However, in some cases, allowing the degraded land to be returned to its natural, forested state might be the wisest use of the land, absorbing more carbon and providing ecological services such as flood mitigation, rainwater recycling and habitat for endangered species, Gibbs said.
"There are tradeoffs in all these decisions that need to be made on a case-by-case basis," she said. "We need to keep in mind that more cropland will be needed to meet the global demands for food, feed and fuel, so the best options will likely vary by circumstance."
Analyzing changing lands
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) maintains a database of detailed satellite images taken over the last 20 years through the Global Forest Resources Assessment, an initiative that dates back to 1946. The FAO releases a new global assessment every 10 years.
Working closely with the FAO, Gibbs analyzed satellite data for more than 100 randomly selected sites across the tropics. By comparing satellite images taken of each specific site in 1980, 1990 and 2000, Gibbs was able to clearly see whether croplands were expanding, and if so, what they were replacing.
She examined more than 600 satellite images from the FAO and other organizations, and noticed a clear trend: "What we found was that indeed forests were the primary source for new croplands as they expanded across the tropics during the 1980s and 1990s. So cropland expansion, whether it's for fuel, feed or food, has undoubtedly led to more deforestation, and evidence is mounting that this trend will continue."
For example, Gibbs' data show that between 1980 and 2000, more than half of new cropland came from intact rainforests and another 30 percent from disturbed forests, "This is contrary to what some biofuel proponents have suggested is occurring today," she said.
"This is a major concern for the global environment," Gibbs said. "As we look toward biofuels to help reduce climate change we must consider the rainforests and savannas that may lie in the pathway of expanding biofuel cropland."
The FAO is in the process of collecting and interpreting the data for the current decade. "This will be important to provide more recent information about expansion of croplands occurring in the midst of the biofuels boom," Gibbs said.
Although Gibbs recognizes that biofuels have certain drawbacks, including those documented in her study, she is not opposed to their regulated use. "I think that biofuels may have a critical place in our future energy plan," she said. "But the way that we're currently going about producing biofuels could have a lot of unintended consequences."
"The new administration should carefully consider the full consequences of any energy plan to make sure we protect the carbon stored in rainforests as well as reduce our fossil fuel emissions," she said.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/su-bbc021309.php
Friday, February 13, 2009
Climate change may kill the Amazon rainforest
The dieback of the Amazonian forests caused by climate change is not inevitable but remains a distinct possibility, according to a study led by the Professor of Ecosystem Science at Oxford.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a detailed examination of the climatic and ecological evidence of the likelihood of an Amazon dieback. The researchers conclude that the fate of Amazonian forests will critically depend on the interaction between global climate change and local deforestation and fire use. The study suggests direct intervention to maintain the forest is needed to minimise the risk of a ‘tipping point’ or dieback occurring.
Researchers analysed the simulations of 19 Global Climate Models, comparing them with climate observations from the 20th century, and found that almost all the models under-estimated current Amazonian rainfall. This underestimation occurs because climate models are unable to capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America.
After correcting this underestimation of rainfall, they found that most models suggested that Eastern Amazonia was likely to shift towards a more seasonally dry ‘monsoonal’ climate rather than a dry ‘savannah’ climate. This suggests that Amazonia would remain wet enough over the year to sustain a forest although some models suggested a large reduction in rainfall was still a possibility.
The study then examined recent ecological field studies that have explored how Amazonian forests respond to seasonal drying. Critically, these seasonal forests may be fairly resilient to occasional drought, but are likely to be more vulnerable to fires. The study warns that these areas will become tinderboxes if deforestation, logging and heavy fire use is not controlled.
Lead author Professor Yadvinder Malhi, from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford, said: ‘Forest protection within Eastern Amazonia could play a major role in minimising the prospects of major dieback, while also contributing to tackling global climate change. Forest cover will help Eastern Amazonia adapt to climate change by helping maintain local rainfall in the dry season, limiting the spread of fires and stopping surface temperatures rising too high. This will help people living in the local towns as well as the forests themselves.
He added: ‘Even with sufficent funds and willpower, the implementation of ‘Biosphere Management’ on such a scale will be a huge challenge. Brazil has recently announced an ambitious plan for slowing down Amazonian deforestation and deserves full international support. It will be critically important to understand the local and national social, political and economic context if this strategy is to succeed. We urgently need to protect one of our planet’s most important ecosystems and at the same time mitigate against climate change.
‘Active forest protection in the Amazon forest region can help the region adapt to climate change and minimise the risk of a dieback. This strategy will also contribute to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’
The research was led by Oxford University in collaboration with the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire; Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Sheffield; and the Met Office Hadley Centre, Jointcentre for Hydro-Meteorological Research, Wallingford.
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=2171
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a detailed examination of the climatic and ecological evidence of the likelihood of an Amazon dieback. The researchers conclude that the fate of Amazonian forests will critically depend on the interaction between global climate change and local deforestation and fire use. The study suggests direct intervention to maintain the forest is needed to minimise the risk of a ‘tipping point’ or dieback occurring.
Researchers analysed the simulations of 19 Global Climate Models, comparing them with climate observations from the 20th century, and found that almost all the models under-estimated current Amazonian rainfall. This underestimation occurs because climate models are unable to capture some of the peculiar features of the geography of South America.
After correcting this underestimation of rainfall, they found that most models suggested that Eastern Amazonia was likely to shift towards a more seasonally dry ‘monsoonal’ climate rather than a dry ‘savannah’ climate. This suggests that Amazonia would remain wet enough over the year to sustain a forest although some models suggested a large reduction in rainfall was still a possibility.
The study then examined recent ecological field studies that have explored how Amazonian forests respond to seasonal drying. Critically, these seasonal forests may be fairly resilient to occasional drought, but are likely to be more vulnerable to fires. The study warns that these areas will become tinderboxes if deforestation, logging and heavy fire use is not controlled.
Lead author Professor Yadvinder Malhi, from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford, said: ‘Forest protection within Eastern Amazonia could play a major role in minimising the prospects of major dieback, while also contributing to tackling global climate change. Forest cover will help Eastern Amazonia adapt to climate change by helping maintain local rainfall in the dry season, limiting the spread of fires and stopping surface temperatures rising too high. This will help people living in the local towns as well as the forests themselves.
He added: ‘Even with sufficent funds and willpower, the implementation of ‘Biosphere Management’ on such a scale will be a huge challenge. Brazil has recently announced an ambitious plan for slowing down Amazonian deforestation and deserves full international support. It will be critically important to understand the local and national social, political and economic context if this strategy is to succeed. We urgently need to protect one of our planet’s most important ecosystems and at the same time mitigate against climate change.
‘Active forest protection in the Amazon forest region can help the region adapt to climate change and minimise the risk of a dieback. This strategy will also contribute to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’
The research was led by Oxford University in collaboration with the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire; Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Sheffield; and the Met Office Hadley Centre, Jointcentre for Hydro-Meteorological Research, Wallingford.
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=2171
Prince Charles dedicates 2009 to rainforests
Prince Charles plans to spend this year focused on his project to save the world’s rainforests.
The heir to the throne said he is dedicating 2009 to what he describes as “one of the biggest crises facing the planet,” global warming caused by deforestation.
Sixty year old Charles may also appear in adverts with Hollywood star Harrison Ford to raise awareness of rainforest destruction.
Next month Charles is visiting the Amazon rainforest, where he will deliver a key note speech prior to the Copenhagen 2009 summit on climate change.
A spokesperson for the Prince said: “The Prince’s Rainforest Project is working to build a coalition to find a solution to deforestation.
“Part of this project is looking at improving public awareness of the link between climate change and deforestation.
“Any campaign, if one were to run, would be likely to be focused on the digital media.”
http://www.fairhome.co.uk/2009/02/12/prince-charles-dedicates-2009-to-rainforests/
The heir to the throne said he is dedicating 2009 to what he describes as “one of the biggest crises facing the planet,” global warming caused by deforestation.
Sixty year old Charles may also appear in adverts with Hollywood star Harrison Ford to raise awareness of rainforest destruction.
Next month Charles is visiting the Amazon rainforest, where he will deliver a key note speech prior to the Copenhagen 2009 summit on climate change.
A spokesperson for the Prince said: “The Prince’s Rainforest Project is working to build a coalition to find a solution to deforestation.
“Part of this project is looking at improving public awareness of the link between climate change and deforestation.
“Any campaign, if one were to run, would be likely to be focused on the digital media.”
http://www.fairhome.co.uk/2009/02/12/prince-charles-dedicates-2009-to-rainforests/
WSF: Is Another World Possible?
Global Justice Movement
At a time of worldwide economic, climatic and political crisis, advocates of social justice gathered for the annual World Social Forum to contemplate a new vision for a better world.
The recently concluded World Social Forum is a good gauge for assessing the state of the world's alternative social, economic and political movements. Organized in 2001 as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, the annual meeting of global and corporate elites held in Davos, Switzerland, the WSF brings social movement organizations and activists from around the world together around the idea that "another world is possible." If Davos represents a failed globalization from above, the WSF represents an emerging globalization from below. It's a massive affair--this year more than 100,000 people gathered here for the five-day event. Part political convention, part carnival, part countercultural happening, the WSF serves as the center of gravity for the global justice movement that emerged in the late 1990s to contest corporate globalization.
The question on the minds of many was how to respond to what some call the "crisis of crises"--the economic, climate, political and cultural catastrophes that have engulfed the planet--and whether social movements can provide a unifying alternative vision for a better world. Economist Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South summed it up: "There is a sense of urgency and seriousness combining both pragmatism and principle. There is much less rhetoric. Things are taking place very fast outstripping what many predicted. There is a clear collapse of neo-liberalism. We have been triumphant over Davos.... Now we need alternatives and must get down to the hard work of creating them."
Why Belém?
Even before the economic crisis broke, Belém was chosen as this year's site to highlight environmental threats. Located sixty miles from the Atlantic on Guajara Bay in the Amazon estuary, Belém is no stranger to environmental conflicts or to impact of globalization. Originally built as an outpost of the Portuguese empire, it served for centuries as a gateway to Amazonia and shipping point for the region's natural resources. Today it is a port of call for container ships picking up aluminum, iron ore, lumber and other riches of the rainforest.
According to climate change activist Oscar Reyes of Carbon Watch, the selection Belém was appropriate: "The deforestation issue is connected into the global negotiations and essential to dealing with climate change. The threat to the Amazon--an area that contains half the remaining rainforest in the world--is not primarily from small-scale deforestation, it's pulp mills, mining, cattle, soy, and agrifuels. You can make sense of that in Belém where these are real and live issues."
Hard economic times and the remoteness of the location skewed the turnout this year--the vast majority of the participants were from Brazil and Latin America--but there were still healthy contingents from every continent. While most of the 5,808 participating organizations were from Latin America, about 1,600 were drawn from the rest of the world, including 491 from Europe, 489 from Africa, 334 from Asia and 155 from North America. In addition to the rank-and-file participants, the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay also made appearances.
The WSF also chose to highlight the Amazon's indigenous people. Their attendance was not a folkloric touch: in marches and other events, indigenous participants demanded that their concerns be addressed and that their struggle for cultural survival be part of the global justice movement. From their perspective, the "other world" the WSF envisions must include space for those who have made a different pact with modernity.
This forum carried on its tradition of logistical chaos. The 2,310 "self-organized seminars" and other events were spread out over two university campuses along the banks of the river about a mile and a half apart and a few miles from the center of the city. Some participants complained of spending more time ferrying back and forth between campuses in taxis, buses and on a flotilla of old riverboats than they did in meetings.
The global economic meltdown made the Belém forum different from previous ones. The WSF and the global justice movement were formed in the expansive phase of globalization; now they must adapt to global economic contraction and impending environmental disaster. This year's participants know that they were right about the failure of corporate-led globalization, but they also know that just saying no is no longer adequate. The prospects of a global wave of beggar-thy-neighbor currency devaluations and destructive trade policies in response to the crisis and the revival of virulent nationalism loomed over the discussions. Many wondered if what was once dubbed the "anti-globalization movement" could produce a global response based on global solidarity.
Impacts of the Global Crisis
There was general agreement that the economic meltdown is spilling over national borders, but it is unfolding at a different pace and in varied ways across the world.
Gautam Mody ,of India's New Trade Union Initiative, told The Nation that "given the sheer number of irregular workers, most on contract, in India the crisis is as yet invisible...but millions of these workers have been pushed off the shop floor." These layoffs go largely unrecorded and workers receive no benefits. And Kjeld Jacobsen, of the Social Observatory in Sao Paulo, said that despite obvious signs that the crisis will rival that of the 1930s, "it's still hard to convince some workers of the severity of the coming crisis because it is just beginning."
In continental Europe, the crisis is still dubbed the "financial crisis," an indication that it is not yet being felt in the so-called "real economy" of everyday life. Bruno Ciccaglione, an Italian trade unionist, told us that "in the US the crisis helped to delegitimize the political class and particularly the Bush administration. But in Europe many of the governments that were very weak before the crisis--like Sarkozy in France, Brown in the UK and to some extent Berlusconi in Italy--came out stronger as a result of their economic packages and solutions, so the delegitimization of the political class for the moment has not occurred. But it will as the crisis moves into the real economy." The current strikes in France in response to large-scale layoffs are an indication that things are changing fast in Europe, he added.
There is also widespread worry in Europe over a possible right-wing backlash. Norwegian political activist Asbjorn Wahl explained why: "We have strong right-wing parties in many European countries, including my own country where they get almost 35 percent of the vote--and about that much of the working-class vote. If we don't come up with good alternatives that address people's needs, we may see that grow. It's a race between the right and the left, and at the moment, and for the last ten years, the right is gaining more. We have a history of the right taking over during in a crisis in Europe."
A recurrent theme in many of the discussions was that elites could use the crisis to reinvent capitalism in new and insidious ways. And many from developing countries raised concerns that the emerging crises piled onto to the longstanding crises of global poverty, migration and access to basic human needs like healthcare and clean water could have a devastating impact.
Networks of Networks
The World Social Forum has played an essential role in the "post-Seattle" world (a reference to the 1999 confrontation between anti-globalization activists and the World Trade Association) by serving as a center of gravity for a movement comprised of a diverse array of organizations, each with its own issues, agendas, programs and constituencies and with a global geographic spread. The WSF has been an incubator for the creation of many successful advocacy networks focused on specific issues related to labor, trade, finance, migration, the environment, human rights, poverty and alternative economic organizations. But there has been limited interaction among these networks. The networks remained "trapped in their own silos," in the words of one forum speaker.
That changed this year. A major push for "cross-network convergence"--creating networks of networks--dominated much of the discussion, and could mark a new stage in the global justice movement's development. French activist Ameile Cannone, of the Seattle to Brussels Network, described it this way: "The context is different; we face a global crisis, people have decided to put that at the center of their activities. It's a real opportunity to work across networks, a great first step to start working on climate, labor and development issues I don't think it would have been possible before and for us this is really a good step."
There is a great deal of work to be done. For instance, the discussion in Belém among labor organizations demonstrated that they have still not found ways to integrate action on climate change--something that will change the way their members live and work--into their daily strategies and practices. Indeed, the climate issue rarely came up in debates about labor's future, but when pressed most acknowledged it as a critical trade union issue.
It was also clear that environmental activists need to develop a better understanding of the effects of climate change mitigation on employment if they are to build lasting alliances with unions. Only a few trade unionists attended the climate change network meetings and only a few climate change activists attended the labor gatherings. But those exchanges are likely to increase as a result of actions taken in Belém
G-20 and Copenhagen
Amid the usual anti-capitalist boilerplate, the closing statement of the Bel& eacute;m Forum, says: "The challenge for the social movements is to achieve a convergence of global mobilization. It is also to strengthen our ability to act by supporting the convergence of all movements striving to withstand oppression and exploitation."
Two upcoming events will test this new commitment to "convergence:" the G-20 Economic Summit, to be held in London at the end of March, and the climate treaty talks, to be held Copenhagen in December. There is a general sense that these events offer a crucial opportunity for popular movements to mobilize and make their voices heard.
As for the future of the World Social Forum, it remains a flawed but essential institution of global civil society. Critics believe it has become too big and unruly--a carnival rather than a political gathering. It is not a setting for serious policy debates. And there has always been tension between those who would push the forum to be more of a social actor and those that want the forum to remain an "open space" for building relationships and sharing ideas. On her way home, Haeyoung Yoon, of the New York-based CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities as well as the Grassroots Global Justice Network, reflected on this tension: "The Social Forum has to be different. It should be an open space, but a partisan open space." Finding that balance in a time of crisis will be difficult.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/costello_smith
At a time of worldwide economic, climatic and political crisis, advocates of social justice gathered for the annual World Social Forum to contemplate a new vision for a better world.
The recently concluded World Social Forum is a good gauge for assessing the state of the world's alternative social, economic and political movements. Organized in 2001 as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, the annual meeting of global and corporate elites held in Davos, Switzerland, the WSF brings social movement organizations and activists from around the world together around the idea that "another world is possible." If Davos represents a failed globalization from above, the WSF represents an emerging globalization from below. It's a massive affair--this year more than 100,000 people gathered here for the five-day event. Part political convention, part carnival, part countercultural happening, the WSF serves as the center of gravity for the global justice movement that emerged in the late 1990s to contest corporate globalization.
The question on the minds of many was how to respond to what some call the "crisis of crises"--the economic, climate, political and cultural catastrophes that have engulfed the planet--and whether social movements can provide a unifying alternative vision for a better world. Economist Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South summed it up: "There is a sense of urgency and seriousness combining both pragmatism and principle. There is much less rhetoric. Things are taking place very fast outstripping what many predicted. There is a clear collapse of neo-liberalism. We have been triumphant over Davos.... Now we need alternatives and must get down to the hard work of creating them."
Why Belém?
Even before the economic crisis broke, Belém was chosen as this year's site to highlight environmental threats. Located sixty miles from the Atlantic on Guajara Bay in the Amazon estuary, Belém is no stranger to environmental conflicts or to impact of globalization. Originally built as an outpost of the Portuguese empire, it served for centuries as a gateway to Amazonia and shipping point for the region's natural resources. Today it is a port of call for container ships picking up aluminum, iron ore, lumber and other riches of the rainforest.
According to climate change activist Oscar Reyes of Carbon Watch, the selection Belém was appropriate: "The deforestation issue is connected into the global negotiations and essential to dealing with climate change. The threat to the Amazon--an area that contains half the remaining rainforest in the world--is not primarily from small-scale deforestation, it's pulp mills, mining, cattle, soy, and agrifuels. You can make sense of that in Belém where these are real and live issues."
Hard economic times and the remoteness of the location skewed the turnout this year--the vast majority of the participants were from Brazil and Latin America--but there were still healthy contingents from every continent. While most of the 5,808 participating organizations were from Latin America, about 1,600 were drawn from the rest of the world, including 491 from Europe, 489 from Africa, 334 from Asia and 155 from North America. In addition to the rank-and-file participants, the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay also made appearances.
The WSF also chose to highlight the Amazon's indigenous people. Their attendance was not a folkloric touch: in marches and other events, indigenous participants demanded that their concerns be addressed and that their struggle for cultural survival be part of the global justice movement. From their perspective, the "other world" the WSF envisions must include space for those who have made a different pact with modernity.
This forum carried on its tradition of logistical chaos. The 2,310 "self-organized seminars" and other events were spread out over two university campuses along the banks of the river about a mile and a half apart and a few miles from the center of the city. Some participants complained of spending more time ferrying back and forth between campuses in taxis, buses and on a flotilla of old riverboats than they did in meetings.
The global economic meltdown made the Belém forum different from previous ones. The WSF and the global justice movement were formed in the expansive phase of globalization; now they must adapt to global economic contraction and impending environmental disaster. This year's participants know that they were right about the failure of corporate-led globalization, but they also know that just saying no is no longer adequate. The prospects of a global wave of beggar-thy-neighbor currency devaluations and destructive trade policies in response to the crisis and the revival of virulent nationalism loomed over the discussions. Many wondered if what was once dubbed the "anti-globalization movement" could produce a global response based on global solidarity.
Impacts of the Global Crisis
There was general agreement that the economic meltdown is spilling over national borders, but it is unfolding at a different pace and in varied ways across the world.
Gautam Mody ,of India's New Trade Union Initiative, told The Nation that "given the sheer number of irregular workers, most on contract, in India the crisis is as yet invisible...but millions of these workers have been pushed off the shop floor." These layoffs go largely unrecorded and workers receive no benefits. And Kjeld Jacobsen, of the Social Observatory in Sao Paulo, said that despite obvious signs that the crisis will rival that of the 1930s, "it's still hard to convince some workers of the severity of the coming crisis because it is just beginning."
In continental Europe, the crisis is still dubbed the "financial crisis," an indication that it is not yet being felt in the so-called "real economy" of everyday life. Bruno Ciccaglione, an Italian trade unionist, told us that "in the US the crisis helped to delegitimize the political class and particularly the Bush administration. But in Europe many of the governments that were very weak before the crisis--like Sarkozy in France, Brown in the UK and to some extent Berlusconi in Italy--came out stronger as a result of their economic packages and solutions, so the delegitimization of the political class for the moment has not occurred. But it will as the crisis moves into the real economy." The current strikes in France in response to large-scale layoffs are an indication that things are changing fast in Europe, he added.
There is also widespread worry in Europe over a possible right-wing backlash. Norwegian political activist Asbjorn Wahl explained why: "We have strong right-wing parties in many European countries, including my own country where they get almost 35 percent of the vote--and about that much of the working-class vote. If we don't come up with good alternatives that address people's needs, we may see that grow. It's a race between the right and the left, and at the moment, and for the last ten years, the right is gaining more. We have a history of the right taking over during in a crisis in Europe."
A recurrent theme in many of the discussions was that elites could use the crisis to reinvent capitalism in new and insidious ways. And many from developing countries raised concerns that the emerging crises piled onto to the longstanding crises of global poverty, migration and access to basic human needs like healthcare and clean water could have a devastating impact.
Networks of Networks
The World Social Forum has played an essential role in the "post-Seattle" world (a reference to the 1999 confrontation between anti-globalization activists and the World Trade Association) by serving as a center of gravity for a movement comprised of a diverse array of organizations, each with its own issues, agendas, programs and constituencies and with a global geographic spread. The WSF has been an incubator for the creation of many successful advocacy networks focused on specific issues related to labor, trade, finance, migration, the environment, human rights, poverty and alternative economic organizations. But there has been limited interaction among these networks. The networks remained "trapped in their own silos," in the words of one forum speaker.
That changed this year. A major push for "cross-network convergence"--creating networks of networks--dominated much of the discussion, and could mark a new stage in the global justice movement's development. French activist Ameile Cannone, of the Seattle to Brussels Network, described it this way: "The context is different; we face a global crisis, people have decided to put that at the center of their activities. It's a real opportunity to work across networks, a great first step to start working on climate, labor and development issues I don't think it would have been possible before and for us this is really a good step."
There is a great deal of work to be done. For instance, the discussion in Belém among labor organizations demonstrated that they have still not found ways to integrate action on climate change--something that will change the way their members live and work--into their daily strategies and practices. Indeed, the climate issue rarely came up in debates about labor's future, but when pressed most acknowledged it as a critical trade union issue.
It was also clear that environmental activists need to develop a better understanding of the effects of climate change mitigation on employment if they are to build lasting alliances with unions. Only a few trade unionists attended the climate change network meetings and only a few climate change activists attended the labor gatherings. But those exchanges are likely to increase as a result of actions taken in Belém
G-20 and Copenhagen
Amid the usual anti-capitalist boilerplate, the closing statement of the Bel& eacute;m Forum, says: "The challenge for the social movements is to achieve a convergence of global mobilization. It is also to strengthen our ability to act by supporting the convergence of all movements striving to withstand oppression and exploitation."
Two upcoming events will test this new commitment to "convergence:" the G-20 Economic Summit, to be held in London at the end of March, and the climate treaty talks, to be held Copenhagen in December. There is a general sense that these events offer a crucial opportunity for popular movements to mobilize and make their voices heard.
As for the future of the World Social Forum, it remains a flawed but essential institution of global civil society. Critics believe it has become too big and unruly--a carnival rather than a political gathering. It is not a setting for serious policy debates. And there has always been tension between those who would push the forum to be more of a social actor and those that want the forum to remain an "open space" for building relationships and sharing ideas. On her way home, Haeyoung Yoon, of the New York-based CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities as well as the Grassroots Global Justice Network, reflected on this tension: "The Social Forum has to be different. It should be an open space, but a partisan open space." Finding that balance in a time of crisis will be difficult.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/costello_smith
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Global warming may drive the Amazon rainforest toward seasonal forests rather than savanna
Changes in rainfall resulting from climate change may drive the parts of Amazon rainforest toward seasonal forests rather than savanna, argue researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Comparing climate simulations by 19 global climate models with observations from the 20th century, Yadvinder Malhi and colleagues found that most projections underestimate rainfall, suggesting the Eastern Amazon will still have enough precipitation to support seasonal forest, rather than savanna. The conclusion contrast to the "dieback" theory — which holds that the southern and eastern Amazon would transition towards savanna with warming — advanced by other researchers.
Deforesation, fire, and forest in the Peruvian Amazon
"The rainfall regime of E. Amazonia is likely to shift over the 21st century in a direction that favors more seasonal forests rather than savanna," write the authors. "Under mid-high-range emissions scenarios, there is a high probability of intensified dry seasons in E. Amazonia and a medium probability that the rainfall regime will shift sufficiently to a climate state where seasonal forest is more viable than rainforest."
However, the authors caution that a die-back is still a "distinct possibility" due to increasing deforestation, forest degradation through logging, and fragmentation, which desiccate forests and increase their risk to fire.
"These seasonal forests may be resilient to seasonal drought but are likely to face intensified water stress caused by higher temperatures and to be vulnerable to fires, which are at present naturally rare in much of Amazonia," they write. "The spread of fire ignition associated with advancing deforestation, logging, and fragmentation may act as nucleation points that trigger the transition of these seasonal forests into fire-dominated, low biomass forests."
The authors say that reducing human pressures on the Amazon could increase its resilience to climate change.
"Deliberate limitation of deforestation and fire may be an effective intervention to maintain Amazonian forest resilience in the face of imposed 21st-century climate change. This may be enough to navigate Eastern Amazonia away from a possible 'tipping point,' beyond which extensive rainforest would become unsustainable."
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-amazon.html
Comparing climate simulations by 19 global climate models with observations from the 20th century, Yadvinder Malhi and colleagues found that most projections underestimate rainfall, suggesting the Eastern Amazon will still have enough precipitation to support seasonal forest, rather than savanna. The conclusion contrast to the "dieback" theory — which holds that the southern and eastern Amazon would transition towards savanna with warming — advanced by other researchers.
Deforesation, fire, and forest in the Peruvian Amazon
"The rainfall regime of E. Amazonia is likely to shift over the 21st century in a direction that favors more seasonal forests rather than savanna," write the authors. "Under mid-high-range emissions scenarios, there is a high probability of intensified dry seasons in E. Amazonia and a medium probability that the rainfall regime will shift sufficiently to a climate state where seasonal forest is more viable than rainforest."
However, the authors caution that a die-back is still a "distinct possibility" due to increasing deforestation, forest degradation through logging, and fragmentation, which desiccate forests and increase their risk to fire.
"These seasonal forests may be resilient to seasonal drought but are likely to face intensified water stress caused by higher temperatures and to be vulnerable to fires, which are at present naturally rare in much of Amazonia," they write. "The spread of fire ignition associated with advancing deforestation, logging, and fragmentation may act as nucleation points that trigger the transition of these seasonal forests into fire-dominated, low biomass forests."
The authors say that reducing human pressures on the Amazon could increase its resilience to climate change.
"Deliberate limitation of deforestation and fire may be an effective intervention to maintain Amazonian forest resilience in the face of imposed 21st-century climate change. This may be enough to navigate Eastern Amazonia away from a possible 'tipping point,' beyond which extensive rainforest would become unsustainable."
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-amazon.html
Brazilian environmental activist rehabilitated
The late Brazilian environmental activist Chico Mendes has been officially rehabilitated more than 20 years after his death. The Brazilian government published the decision in today's edition of the gazette.
Mr Mendes' widow will receive 112,000 euros in damages and a life pension of 1,000 euros a month. Chico Mendes was also acquitted of all charges brought against him.
The former union leader is known as one the first prominent activists fighting for the preservation of Brazil's tropical rainforest. He was shot dead outside his house by landowners in 1988.
Before that, he was repeatedly prosecuted by the then Brazilian dictatorship.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/6172892/Brazilian-environmental-activist-rehabilitated
Mr Mendes' widow will receive 112,000 euros in damages and a life pension of 1,000 euros a month. Chico Mendes was also acquitted of all charges brought against him.
The former union leader is known as one the first prominent activists fighting for the preservation of Brazil's tropical rainforest. He was shot dead outside his house by landowners in 1988.
Before that, he was repeatedly prosecuted by the then Brazilian dictatorship.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/6172892/Brazilian-environmental-activist-rehabilitated
France's Suez liable for illegal deforestation, "dynamite fishing" in the Amazon rainforest
A consortium building the Jirau hydroelectric dam in Brazil near the Bolivian border has been ordered to pay roughly $3.5 million in fines for illegally logging nearly 50 acres (18.6 ha) of forest and using dynamite to kill 11 tons of fish in local rivers, reports the Spanish news agency EFE.
The consortium, led by France's Suez, began construction on the project last November. The $5.3 billion dam will generate 3.3 gigawatts (GW) of power when it becomes operational in 2016. The Madeira hydroelectric complex also includes the 3.15 GW San Antonio dam, which is scheduled to go online in 2012 and will cost $5 billion.
The project has been fiercely contested by environmentalists who say it will impede migration of fish species, flood more than 200 square miles (520 sq km) of rainforest triggering greenhouse gas emissions from rotting vegetation, and promote colonization in the ecologically-sensitive area.
The Madeira is the longest tributary of the Amazon River.
$11B Amazon rainforest dam gets initial approval July 10, 2007
The Brazilian government has given preliminary go-ahead on a massive Amazon dam project that environmentalists and scientists say could be a potential ecological disaster.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-madeira_dam.html
The consortium, led by France's Suez, began construction on the project last November. The $5.3 billion dam will generate 3.3 gigawatts (GW) of power when it becomes operational in 2016. The Madeira hydroelectric complex also includes the 3.15 GW San Antonio dam, which is scheduled to go online in 2012 and will cost $5 billion.
The project has been fiercely contested by environmentalists who say it will impede migration of fish species, flood more than 200 square miles (520 sq km) of rainforest triggering greenhouse gas emissions from rotting vegetation, and promote colonization in the ecologically-sensitive area.
The Madeira is the longest tributary of the Amazon River.
$11B Amazon rainforest dam gets initial approval July 10, 2007
The Brazilian government has given preliminary go-ahead on a massive Amazon dam project that environmentalists and scientists say could be a potential ecological disaster.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-madeira_dam.html
Monday, February 9, 2009
Amazon forest may get drier, but survive warming
Amazonian forests may be less vulnerable to dying off from global warming than feared because many projections underestimate rainfall, a study showed.
The report, by scientists in Britain, said Brazil and other nations in the region would also have to act to help avert any irreversible drying of the eastern Amazon, the region most at risk from climate change, deforestation and fires.
"The rainfall regime in eastern Amazonia is likely to shift over the 21st century in a direction that favors more seasonal forests rather than savannah," they wrote in this week's U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, released on Monday.
Seasonal forests have wet and dry seasons rather than the current rainforest, which is permanently drenched. That shift could favor new species of trees, other plants and animals.
The findings contrast with past projections that the Amazon forest could die and be replaced by savannah.
A 2007 report by the U.N. Climate Panel, which is a snapshot of global warming science by the world's leading experts, said: "By mid-century, increases in temperature and associated decreases in soil water are projected to lead to gradual replacement of tropical forest by savannah in eastern Amazonia."
The new study said that almost all of 19 global climate models underestimated rainfall in the world's biggest tropical forest after the scientists compared the models with observations of 20th century climate.
Lowland forests in the Amazon have annual average rainfall of 2,400 mm (94 inches), it said. Projected cuts in rainfall meant the region would still be wet enough to sustain a forest.
The experts also examined field studies of how the Amazon might react to drying. It said that seasonal forests would be more resilient to the occasional drought but more vulnerable to fires than the current rainforest.
"The fundamental way to minimize the risk of Amazon dieback is to control greenhouse gas emissions globally, particularly from fossil fuel combustion in the developed world and Asia," said Yadvinder Malhi, the lead author from Oxford University.
But he said that governments led by Brazil also needed to manage the forests better.
Global warming is "accompanied by an unprecedented intensity of direct pressure on the tropical forests through logging, deforestation, fragmentation, and fire use," the scientists wrote.
And fires, including those touched off by lightning, were more likely to cause wide damage to forests already fragmented by roads or by farmers clearing land to plant crops such as soya beans.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKTRE5187OV20090209
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