Welcome back, everyone! It has been far, far too long an absence on my part, and for that I must apologize. For now, I will say only that certain future ambitions have required me to put my time and efforts into earning money…
But enough of that for the moment! I’ve got some troubling news as usual, but first, come, make yourselves comfortable, honored guests—today there is dim-sum, the season’s best starfruit and mango, and some of my favorite Yellow Flower blend to help it down.
Recent news has lately had me thinking much on a topic that is a perfect example of the tense socio-ecological relationships that are so close to my heart as Omni-Hugger (and which I will assume readers of this blog have at least some familiarity with): the infamous deforestation of the Amazon. To give you a bias alert, and in case you missed the rather vitriolic tone of my last article, I’ve had a special soft spot for this region’s breathtaking beauty since well before I was old enough to understand its full significance to the biosphere’s health. In fact, why mince words? I love it—deeply. The fact that—being the world’s largest tropical rainforest—it contributes significantly to global atmospheric regulation is just icing on the cake for me, and a welcome justification for preserving it. On the other hand, the land needs of the farmers and ranchers who drive much of the destruction are real, both in their own right and because they act to support a larger society that cannot reasonably be expected to adopt the small-scale, near zero-impact lifeways of the Amerindian peoples they co-inhabit the land with.
How to balance these apparently conflicting interests is a topic worthy of much more thorough examination than I could possibly devote to it in the space of one post, but I will start off by saying that up till now, although still not quite what I would wish to see, Brazil (for the moment) in fact already has one of the best forestry codes in the world…theoretically, on paper. Private rural landowners in the Amazon region are required by law to maintain and/or restore eighty percent of their holdings as forested “legal reserves”—even if they rarely obey that law—and there are many strictly protected national parks, preserves and recognized Native territories as well—even if those boundaries are rarely respected any better. The reality of particularly ecologically sensitive areas within an ecosystem is recognized—land clearance along streams and rivers, for instance, is strictly prohibited, as these are designated “areas of permanent protection.” The government’s track record of law enforcement, or for that matter of detecting breaches at all, is abysmal, but I must concede that even that is half-understandable given the nightmarish logistics imposed by the terrain and the sheer size of the land (although bad budgeting and administrative decisions certainly play a role here as well—the town of Jaci-Paraná, to this day, maintains a police force of four to a population of 21,000). It would be a legitimately tricky situation even under the most ideal circumstances, and to my mind that makes it all the more important that what can be done, be done to the utmost.
I’m fairly sure that the latest news I have heard from Brazil’s legislative body is not the way to go.
For the better part of five months now, with mounting trepidation, I have been watching a drama unfold in the Brazilian parliament that will very likely put the Amazon rainforest at immediate, sanctioned risk of the sort it has not been at for decades. As I write these words, the senate has passed a bill, first proposed this May, which would replace Brazil’s 46-year-old Forest Code with a new one, and pending a final second vote by the House of Representatives, President Dilma Rouseff is expected to decide on it once and for all in early 2012. This alone might not be so worrying, were it not for the fact that the country’s “ruralista” agricultural and ranching interests in Parliament were deeply involved in its creation, making up the majority of the delegates influencing the drafting process. The result, sadly, is pretty much what you would expect, only if anything more so.
The ruralista lobby’s main line of argument was blatantly, almost comically, old-guard capitalist in its economics. Basically, they reasoned that the old Forest Code, instituted in 1965, is outdated and unnecessarily restricts Brazil’s economic growth by limiting agriculturally productive land use, so the main item slated for demolition is—you guessed it—the legal reserve requirement, with amnesty for any deforestation illegal under the old code committed before 2008 as a chaser, the only condition being enrollment in what The Economist describes as a “vague and leisurely ‘environmental recovery programme’.” Furthermore, according to the same, under the proposed new code, the Federal government’s ability to designate new national parks and preserves would in very large part be transferred to more local levels of government. This admittedly has potential for both good and evil, but would likely go farther towards reinforcing the already pretty cozy relationship between local authority and local agribusiness. Land-clearance standards would be reduced, allowing for the destruction of riparian growth. In brief, the new code is set to turn the old one more or less on its head.
To be honest, I’ve been fearing something like this for years, and I am surprised it’s taken them this long to get around to it. According to Brazil’s Institute of Applied Economic Research, the projected impact of this bill, if signed into law, could be as much as 79 million hectares worth of further deforestation and about 28 billion tons of released carbon dioxide. I trust the weight of these figures speaks for itself. Fortunately, I am not the only one who recognizes the long-term dangers this would pose: thousands of Brazilian citizens demonstrated against these changes-in-the-works in the capital city of Brasilia on November 29th, and even enjoyed the solidarity of one Senator, in a physical representation of what polls have shown to be majority public opinion. The country’s scientific community is understandably concerned, not the least of the reason for which being that a scientific perspective was hardly consulted on the project, a glaring exception in the record of a nation that prides itself so much on its modernism. Even Brazil’s Catholic Church has spoken out against the reform. And such public pressure has not gone unheeded so far: President Rouseff has threatened to veto at least the parts of the bill that concern amnesty. Indeed, her campaign promises to uphold Brazil’s commitments to greenhouse gas reduction would make it very awkward if she did not at least attempt to address deforestation as well. However, as the source article also points out, there are excuses, such as the aforementioned “environmental recovery programme” she would be able to make use of should it become expedient to do so.
All in all, it looks to be shaping into an extremely unfortunate situation. This is not a new problem, but it looks like it’s about to take on new urgency, with certain long-term global consequences and much irreplaceable short-term environmental loss. I wish I could end this post on a more hopeful note, considering how long it has been since my last, but honestly, although it is hard to tell exactly how the wind will blow in the next few weeks, I’m afraid the law will probably end up changing. Those who wish to contact President Dilma with a message urging her to consider using her veto may do so easily here. Indeed, I hope you will. Stay tuned regardless, and don’t give up hope whatever you do—over the next few weeks I’d like to talk about realistic ways that Amazon deforestation can be halted and reversed that do not require the law’s involvement. If there is a lesson to take away from this turn of events, it’s that that has probably been the way to go all along. And, as always, do your own research—if I’ve overlooked anything here, or if you feel that there’s room to expand the topic (I really hope there is!), please don’t hesitate to chip in.
Love, peace and a better world,
-Ran-Zhen Rui
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