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ISIS Special Miniseries - Soya Destroying the Amazon

press-release

 

The Institute of Science in Society

Science Society Sustainability

http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

General Enquiries sam

Website/Mailing List press-release

ISIS Director m.w.ho

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ISIS Special Miniseries

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Soya Destroying Amazon

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Brazil has been clearing vast stretches of virgin forests to make way for non-GM

soya in order to capture world market. Will it stop under President Lula? Peter

Bunyard reports.

 

 

References for this article are posted on ISIS Members’ website.

www.i-sis.org.uk

 

It’s still early days for President Lula. With his country diving into economic

recession, the division accelerating between the many poor and far fewer rich,

Lula has declared that his first concern is not with Avança Brasil - massive

investments in the Amazon region to advance the industrial and agricultural

sectors into ‘virgin’ regions.

 

 

On the contrary, Lula has come to the presidency of Brazil determined to take on

the campaign Fome Zero, or ‘Zero Hunger’ for Brazil’s diverse population,

especially in areas, such as the Northeast, which traditionally have suffered

from recurrent droughts and failing agriculture.

 

 

Avança Brasil is by no means dead, but it is clear from Lula’s choice of

environmental minister, Marina Silva, that he is determined that policies

affecting the future of Brazil’s Amazon Basin should necessarily take into

account both ecological prerogatives and social needs. Silva is the daughter of

a rubber tapper, whose family were close friends with Chico Mendes, all of whom

were instrumental in the establishment of ‘Extractable Reserves’ in which the

forest, with its rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) and Brazil nut trees would be

protected. Meanwhile, Mary Alegretti, the minister with a special mandate for

the Amazon, who also was associated with the Chico Mendes movement, continues in

the job she first undertook under the Cardoso administration.

 

 

Perhaps, most revealing is the recent government statement ‘on the place of

Amazonia in the development of Brazil’. There, undisguised criticism of past

policies and their consequences must be seen against a new appraisal of how best

the region can serve the long term interests of Brazilians. The old way of

measuring success - gross national product (GNP)- is seen for what it is – a

brute indicator that gives no idea of wealth distribution nor of environmental

degradation. Between 1970 and 1996, the GNP in Brazil’s Legal Amazonia, jumped

from US$8.5 billion to $53.5 billion, while the population in the region

increased from 7.7 million to 18.7 million, a six-fold increase in ‘wealth’

compared with a 2.4 fold increase in population; but at what cost? In terms of

indices of ‘human development’, all the Amazonian states had a much poorer

showing than was found in the rest of the country, with a large proportion of

the local population earning less than the minimal wage. All that can

mean only one thing: the wealth generated in Brazil’s Amazonia had mostly been

exported at the expense of the environment and people.

 

 

Avança Brasil to date has been concerned almost exclusively with establishing

the infrastructure for the export of millions of tonnes of soya, as well as of

minerals and wood. Through a mixture of private and public investment, the plan

envisaged as much as US$228 billions being spent over 8 years, which would lead,

according to INPA, the Institute of Amazonian Research, to a rate of forest

clearing of between 269,000 and 506,000 hectares per year up until 2020. This

‘additional’ deforestation would give rise to an increase in carbon greenhouse

gas emissions from 52.2 millions of tonnes a year to 98.2 million, equivalent to

an annual cost of up to US$2 billion. Lula’s report claims that all that

investment, plus its environmental costs, will result in few local benefits and

in poor social participation.

 

 

Electricity projects of the past, such as the Tucuruí and Balbina hydroelectric

schemes, come under heavy criticism for their failure to meet with expectations,

while having a disastrous impact on the surroundings. Balbina, for instance,

despite causing the flooding and destruction of around 3,000 square kilometres

of forest is incapable of meeting the electricity needs of nearby Manaus during

dry summer seasons. Far from being benign sources of energy with regard to

carbon emissions, such hydroelectric plants bring about the release over their

lifetimes of at least as much carbon greenhouse gases as from a coal-fired plant

generating the same amount of electricity.

 

 

In essence, Lula and his ministers are using their mandate for social reform in

Brazil to give Amazonia something of a breathing space. Nonetheless, the

pressures for making a quick buck are ever present, thereby creating something

of a schizophrenic situation. A few months back, a delegation from the Mato

Grosso visited Europe to inform on new initiatives to regulate and curb

deforestation in Amazonia’s most southern state. According to officials, the

legislation, ‘Environmental Licensing System on Rural Properties’ brought the

rate of deforestation down in the State by one-third in its first year. That

achievement resulted from focussing on large rural enterprises - above 500

hectares - which, although accounting for less than 10 per cent of the total

number of rural properties, have been responsible for over 85 per cent of total

deforestation. The claim is that other benefits have resulted, such as a better

partnership between government and civil society, more government revenue

and of tying environmental concerns in with development agendas.

 

 

But how does all that square with 2002 being one of the worst years for forest

destruction, and particularly in Mato Grosso? Some of the answers may lie with

the governor of Mato Grosso, Blairo Maggi, who is one of the world’s biggest

soya producers. He, it seems unilaterally, has been offering land at dirt-cheap

prices to US farmers. Earlier this year, he told a visiting delegation from the

American Soya Association that only 5 per cent of ‘agricultural land’ in the

State was currently being used. He was looking to 40 per cent of that land being

developed over the next few years.

 

 

Some farmers have taken up the offer of land at US$20 per hectare in the North

of the State, compared with $300 in Goias and $1,215 in the United States. Three

years ago, Douglas Ferrell bought 10,000 hectares. He has started cutting back

the forest. “This year, (2002)” he said, “we cleared 500 hectares and we will

open up a further 500 hectares next year.”

 

 

Current legislation in Brazil demands that rainforest deforestation must first

be authorized by IBAMA, the Ministry of the Environment. Just how the governor’s

plans to expand the agricultural base in Mato Grosso will comply with government

jurisdiction on environmental grounds remains to be seen.

 

 

We will have to see how environmental protection of Amazonia will fare in a

region where frontier politics have so far largely held sway. It took just 13

years for more than half of all the forests to be eradicated in Southern Pará.

In recent years, a similar process of deforestation and degradation has been

taking place in other States of Amazonia, such as Rondonia. There will need to

be some dramatic changes in the rate of deforestation if we are going to see

significant reductions from the tally of more than 2 million hectares a year of

forest destruction over the Legal Amazon of Brazil.

 

 

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This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

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General Enquiries sam

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ISIS Director m.w.ho

 

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