the zona franca verde - prospects for environmental governance in amazonia, marinella wallis,
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The economic development of Manaus - in the middle of the Amazon forest - and the Zona Franca Verde is a good example of the struggle Brazil faces to balance forest preservation and development.TRANSCRIPT
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THE ZONA FRANCA VERDE
PROSPECTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN AMAZONIA
Marinella Wallis, CEDLA
Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA),
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Prepared for delivery at the 2012 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Francisco, California May 2326, 2012
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THE ZONA FRANCA VERDE
PROSPECTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN AMAZONIA
Marinella Wallis, CEDLA
Introduction
With today’s focus on climate change the struggle between development and conservation remains prominent. This conflict is seen most clearly in the Brazilian Amazon.
In the middle of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest the city of Manaus is situated, a fast‐growing urban area with two million inhabitants. The Amazon region and its forest, due to the location of such a big city – with difficulties for logistics and with aspirations to grow – is an illustrative case of the struggle to be solved between economic growth and environment conservation. A major element for the growth of Manaus is the Zona Franca de Manaus (ZFM) with its Polo Industrial de Manaus (PIM) focusing on high‐tech industry and boosting the need for infrastructure. Through the industrial zone, the State of Amazonas had an accumulated growth of 502 per cent in the processing industry between 1985 and 2002, yielding the state the highest growth of Brazil in 2004 of 13,9 per cent (State Government of Amazonas 2005). The dynamics of the Manaus industrialization model is reflected by the capability of the PIM to generate employment: 123,000 jobs directly and about four times as many jobs indirectly through backward and forward linkages in 2011.
The economic dynamics of the city and of its connections with the outside world will generate significant environmental impacts. In that context however, innovative alternative solutions offer options for sustainable growth. Cases in point are region‐wide employment policies with emphasis on higher value added manufacturing and the Zona Franca scenario including the Zona Franca Verde (ZFV) (Wallis in van Dijck forthcoming). Rivas et al. (2009) show that the industrial zone is a major instrument for ‘avoiding deforestation’ and they calculated on the basis of econometric research that the PIM accounted for 72 per cent less deforestation.
The PIM is embedded in the Zona Franca de Manaus, which has very explicit goals of sustainability and boasts the Zona Franca Verde (Green Free Trade Zone). The ZFV, initiated in 2003 by the State of Amazonas, has been designed as a programme to generate employment and income for people living in the hinterland by sustainable use of forests, rivers, and lakes, and puts special emphasis on poverty reduction,
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extrativism and smallscale agriculture. One of the innovations of the programme is the creation of the Bolsa Floresta, or Forest Conservation Allowance programme, to facilitate remuneration of environmental services in selected so‐called conservation units (CUs). The programme covers more than 10 million hectares and more than 7,000 families (Viana 2008).
This paper focuses on the prospects of the Zona Franca Verde as a model of environmental governance and tries to assess the sustainability of it. Valorization of the forest, ‘make the forest more worth standing than cut’, will be a major element for the ZFV to promote conservation policies. In addition, so as to attract finance for sustainable growth, what does the ZFV‐programme mean for the participation in the post‐Kyoto REDD+ mechanism compensating for greenhouse gas reduction? Important aspect of governance is how the ZFV fits in the broader framework of the Brazilian conservation policy, be it at the municipal, federal or state level.
Section‐wise this paper deals with the following themes. The next section deals with the necessity of protecting the forest while the third section focuses on the changing economic model in Amazonia and its implications for the environment. The fourth section deals with the environmental governance instrument of protected area and the importance of a participatory approach. The fifth section focuses on the Zona Franca Verde as a new intitiative to install a cross‐sectional policy for a sustainable development model in Amazonia. Section six deals with problems in the implementation of sustainable policies and section seven shows how the ZFV programme develops a new governance framework to implement the sustainable development model. In section eight some final reflections are presented on the odds of environmental governance in the Brazilian Amazon.
The urge for conservation
Deforestation in Latin America, especially in the Amazon basin, is a major source of climate change in the region itself, and of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Remarkably, as early as 1911, President Da Fonseca published a decree for the protection of Acre territory, as they saw droughts and flooding related to deforestation:
‘The President of the Republic of the United States of Brazil, observing that the disorderly devastation of the forests is producing sensitive and desastrous effects, among which alterations in the climatic make‐up of various zones and in the system of rain water in the whole country and of the currents that are dependent on it; recognizing that it is of major and most urgent necessity to prevent that such a phenomenon extends to the Territory of Acre (………) decretes: Art. 1. In the Acre Territory a forest reserve will be created and be
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placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce ….’. (Decree N. 8.843, of 26 July 1911, translation by the author and accessed on the internet on 16/04/12 http://www6.senado.gov.br/legislacao/ ListaPublicacoes. action? id=53549)
Protected areas play a vital role in minimizing forest loss and in supplying key environmental services, including carbon sequestration and rainfall regulation, which mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change amid a rising tide of economic development in the region. Since 1980, the area of protected forest has expanded rapidly to cover one‐fifth of Latin America and more than two‐fifths of Amazonia, a region whose rain forest captures some 40 percent of Latin America’s carbon emissions (Hall, 2011). Unfortunately, the reserve sector has traditionally suffered from severe underfunding but the possibility of new resources being generated through financial compensation for ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (the so‐called REDD‐mechanism) or ‘avoided deforestation’ under a new Kyoto protocol after 2012 may help strengthen the environmental and social roles of protected areas. The National System of Conservation Units (SNUC), however, is far from consolidated and a number of major implementation and governance challenges still have to be addressed. Designation of an area as protected and the demarcation of the boundaries is a rather complicated process, as land titles may be unclear and, in the case of public land, three different government tiers may be the owner of it: lands may be in federal, state or municipal hands. Moreover, the discussion about the nature of the protection itself – will it be a full protected area or a sustainable use area – complicates things even more.
Federal policy towards the northern region.
For a long time, the northern region has served for the federal government as an area to be colonized for security, economic and social reasons. More than 30 years, successive Brazilian governments engaged in programmes aimed at opening up the Amazon region for settlement and development. Policies implemented by military governments from the mid‐1960s through the 1970s and 1980s were clearly developmentalist in nature with strong geopolitical overtones. In addition, the region was rather unknown and therefore the idea existed that there were hardly any people.
Developmentalist policies included the construction of thousands of kilometers of roads linking the previously inaccessible Amazon region with traditional population centers in the northeast and south. Attempts were made to settle migrants in planned towns along these new roads. The government also offered generous tax and credit incentives to entrepreneurs willing to invest in the region. Although these
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policies served to attract settlers and investment capital to the region, resulting land‐use patterns were often chaotic and inconsistent with the concept of sustainable development. Starting in the late 1980s, the Brazilian government, along with certain donors and NGOs, proposed territorial planning to bring order and rationality to land use in the Amazon region (Mahar, 2000).
New approaches
30 years later Brazil’s focus on development policies is more on energy producing, mining, agro‐business and (high‐tech) industrialization, with the concomitant need for infrastructure. The perennial discussions about the logistic needs of the Polo Industrial de Manaus and how to fulfill them are an example of this.
Backed up by the international infrastructure programme of the Initiative of Integration of Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA), the Brazilian government designed the Programme of Growth Enhancing (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento ‐ PAC), which is entering now its second phase after 2011. This programme entails a budget of 212 billion Brazilian reais (about 116 billion US dollars) for the northern region until 2020.
Map 1. PAC plans for the northern region to 2020.
Note: Caption text in the upper‐left corner translates as: ‘Legal Amazonia 2020. With 212 billion in investments, region exits isolation and turns into a protagonist of development of the country.’
This will have a significant impact as an alerting article in the Folha de São Paulo last October had the headline: ‘Amazônia vira motor de desenvolvimento’ (Amazonia becomes the motor for development) on the frontpage and ‘Saída pelo Norte vira
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nova opção ao Porto de Santos’ (Exit through the North becomes new option for the Santos harbour1) (Folha de São Paulo, 16‐10‐11: pp. 1, B1 and C15) See map 1.
Implication is that part of the economic activities will be redirected from the industrial region in the south‐east to the north, as this region is more favourable located to export lanes to the northern hemisphere. Also, the (future) existence of huge hydroelectric power stations may attract more industrial activities to the North.
System of Protected Areas
These developments will impact on the Amazon forest. However, in general, development initiatives are being pledged to be sustainable, which usually means that only some – insufficient – compensating measures are taken for the environment. And although sustainability has become a container concept that one may be sceptical about, there are governance entities or people that are serious about it, supported by science results, domestic NGOs and international pressure.
It is important to look at the possibilities for a counterbalance to these economic developments and assess what the framework of conservation governance can mean, in particular the National System of Conservation Units. As Hall (2011) noted, protected areas play a vital role in reducing forest loss. After the developmentalist government policy of settlements of the past decades, not only the focus of development policy changed, but also the focus on the function of the Amazon forest has evolved rapidly. Viana explains the old development model by the existing paradigm, mainstream until 2002, the so‐called ‘mato paradigm’ (with the connotation of forest being weed). Not so much a formal policy, it has taken the form of a deep assumption that forests are inherently bad – a symbol of under‐development – and should thus be mined for their resources, for example timber or game, and substituted by more ‘productive’ land uses, such as agriculture and cattle farming (Viana 2010).
Protected areas or conservation units are the backbone of Brazilian environmental governance of the Amazon forest, originally created by the Plano do Sistema de Unidades de Conservação do Brasil (Plan for the System of Conservation Units of Brazil), officially published in 1979. The plan entailed specified goals for nature conservation and proposed new categories for the governance of natural resources, which had not been included in the legislation of the time, the Código Florestal Brasileiro (Brazilian Forest Code) of 1965 and the Fauna Protection Law of 1967. Various legal entities were installed to accompany this process, such as the Special
1 Santos is the harbour of São Paulo, the industrial heartland of Brazil.
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Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA)2, in charge of policy and management, and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA), the body that controls the use of the country’s natural resources.
In 1982, after alterations, the law was published under its current name: Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação da Natureza. The most important aspect of this law is that it fulfilled the need for a legal backing of conservation governance with clearly defined concepts and the legal mechanisms to establish and categorize the conservation units. In 2002 part of the programme was redefined into Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) programme. In the course of time, the law has undergone continuing modifications, sometimes after years of deliberation in the face of persistent differences among the various interested parties.
At the time of writing, new changes of the current Código Florestal have been in the parliamentary process of approval, which will have serious consequences for the governance of the Amazon forest, notably for the conservation units. Due to considerable differences in opinion, it spurs heated debates between ‘ruralistas’3 and environmentalists or conservationists, and the voting about the law has been postponed several times.
Governance instruments
Protected Areas or Conservation Units are governance instruments for safeguarding the integrity of ecosystems and the associated environmental services, such as soil conservation and watershed protection, nutrient recycling, and climate regulation. Moreover, Protected Areas ensure the right of permanence and the culture of traditional populations and indigenous peoples living there (Veríssimo, A. et al., 2010).4 They can be classified according to their federation status (federal, state, or municipal) and with regards to the degree of permitted intervention (full protection or sustainable use). By 2010, the federal Conservation Units totalled 610,510 km2, while the state areas occupied 563,748 km2. With regards to the level of intervention the Sustainable Use Conservation Units – where economic activities under the management regime and resident communities are permitted – corresponded to 62.2 per cent of the areas occupied by Conservation Units (federal and state), while those under Full Protection totalled 37.8 per cent 2 SEMA was established in 1972, when Brazil participated in the UN Conference for the Human Environment, held in Sweden. After this meeting, the government was pressured to integrate environmental management work.
3 Ruralistas or ruralist proponents, also named in Congress Bancada da Motoserra (the Chainsaw Faction), are people defending the right to use the forest for agricultural activities.
4 In December 2010, the Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon covered about 2,197,485 km2 or 43.9% of the region, or 25.8% of Brazilian territory. Of this Conservation Units account for about 22.2% of Amazon territory while the approved, declared, and identified Indigenous Lands covered 21.7%.
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Figure 1. Cumulative Area of State and Federal Protected Areas in Brazil (1970‐2006).
Source: Barreto, P. and M.D. Childress 2010: 169, Figure 6.8.
Map 2. Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon in December 2010.
Source: Veríssimo et al. 2010: 15, Figure 1.
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The creation of Conservation Units occurred most intensely from 2003 to 2006, when 487,118 km2 of these areas were established. In the case of the Indigenous Lands, there were two periods with a number of greater approval: 1990‐94, with 85 new units covering 316,186 km2, and 1995‐98, also with 85 new units, which totaled 314,061 km2,. See Figure 1 and Map 2. Despite notable advances in the creation of protected areas, there are still many challenges to guaranteeing their consolidation and effective socio‐environmental protection.
Next to the planning of Conservation Units, the management of CU’s is of critical importance, not the least in order to get entrance to the REDD+ mechanism with an approved management plan. In case of Conservation Units, half do not possess approved management plans and 45 per cent do not have a management council. Moreover the number of public staff in these Protected Areas is only 1 person for every 1,872 km2 (Veríssimo et al., 2010).
In terms of governance, the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon) and the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) have listed the following priority actions to be performed so as to consolidate protected areas (Veríssimo et al. 2010):
Curbing irregular uses and occupations, as well as deforestation and forest degradation;
Amplifying the sources of financing and assuring mechanisms for the effective transfer of financial resources;
Guaranteeing legal protection;
Enhancing public management, allocating more qualified personnel to the field, elaborating the pertinent management instruments and undertaking their implementation in a participatory manner;
Amplifying and strengthening management councils in the Conservation Units and guaranteeing the participation of the population in the Indigenous Lands;
Assuming the challenge of consolidating land management plans for the protected areas, which also should include an environmental agenda for Indigenous Lands
Concluding the process for recognizing Indigenous Lands.
Federal and state agencies responsible for managing protected areas face enormous challenges for the effective protection and sustainable use of these areas. Implementation of protected areas requires the following steps (1) the preparation of management plans, (2) the establishment of advisory councils who are respon‐sible for reviewing management plans and for their implementation, (3) the
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installation of basic infrastructure and allocation of public officers, (4) enforcement against illegal activities (e.g., deforestation and illegal logging) within protected areas, and (5) short‐ and long‐term financial support mechanisms. Within the impressive size and scope of the protected area system, these specific implementation goals have been hard to reach.
Note, in this respect, that until recently most protected areas were rather far from the impact of economic activities and passive protection was sufficient. At present, 84 per cent of protected areas are within the reach of economic activities and face increasing pressure due to the growth of infrastructure (e.g., roads, electrical grid) and the rise of commodity prices (timber, minerals, meat, and soybeans) (Barreto and Childress 2010).
Economic pressure remains
Protected areas are not immune to the impact of economic pressure. From 1998 to 2009 deforestation in these areas reached over 12,000 km2. Moreover, a vast network of illegal roads is advancing into some protected areas, particularly in the Sustainable Use Conservation Units, where there are a 18 km of roads for every 1,000 km2 under protection. A large portion of these roads is associated with illegal logging. For the deforestation data in the different categories of preserved areas see Figure 2, where the slope of the lines is important as the starting point is built on previous deforestation of the area. (Veríssimo et al. 2010).
Mahar (2000), Gutberlet (2002) and Fearnside (2003) show that a planning from above in the process of demarcating protected areas can be an important factor in these deforestation processes – for instance planned units may appear to be too far away from markets, in combination with unclear land titles. But next to this, strong political forces may be in play.
Figure 2. Accumulated deforestation in the Protected Areas in the Brazilian Amazon up to 2009.
Source: Veríssimo et al.: 62, figure 11.
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As Mahar (2000) points out, the process of demarcation of preserved areas, as a way of territorial planning, by its very nature, tends to divide societies into ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Success in implementing a prescriptive plan depends on the incentives the land users have to adjust to or confront the newly installed situation. Therefore, a participative method is essential, and it is important to identify beforehand the various groups that have a stake in zoning – including non‐local groups – and to evaluate the strength of their incentives to oppose various restrictions on land use. Gutberlet puts this in even stronger terms. She stresses the need for a participative method of creating conservation areas in order to alter the powers and institutions that be and the development model that is pursued. The only way to transform the economy into a sustainable one is to listen to the people on the ground and to researchers who have been for so long engaged in sustainable activities and to take needs or their suggestions seriously (Gutberlet 2002).
In the area of planning infrastructure van Dijck (2012) notes that the participatory approach may involve both provision of information on the plans and the collection of information from the population to improve these plans. By informing the local population about land‐use plans, a participatory approach may contribute to transparency and reduce uncertainty and misconceptions. By doing so, it may enhance efficiency and speed up implementation. At the same time, organizing series of meetings with stakeholders in the impact area may be time‐consuming and costly (van Dijck, 2012).
The participatory approach may facilitate inclusion of local knowledge of flora and fauna, biodiversity hotspots, the functioning of eco‐systems, on dependence of local communities on eco‐systems, and on local and regional agro‐forestry potentials that may be activated by the construction of a road, or alternatively, may be endangered by it. The role of interviews and discussions with the local population and its representatives may be particularly significant when assessing perceived potentials and risks, and formulating a plan of action in support of positive income potentials and to mitigate negative environmental and other welfare‐reducing impacts (van Dijck, 2012).
Party politics
Party politics is a pervading consideration in decisions to establish conservation units. Particularly at state level, environmental authorities may act directly to generate political support for the governors who appoint them, while politicians from opposition parties are likely to take opposing stands on conservation issues. But also the different government tiers may not have the same policy base. Federal, state and municipal governments frequently have conflicting priorities for the creation of conservation units as they have different constituencies.
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Tensions between different levels of government, different groups of NGOs, and between the public versus private sectors are often manifest. Disparate interests help explain the plethora of programmes and types of conservation units in Amazonia. According to Fearnside ‘On virtually every issue there exists a full complement of interest groups ready to do battle on behalf of their particular interest. Each group of organizations makes its case by appealing to a greater good such as biodiversity conservation or poverty alleviation.’ (Fearnside 2003: 757)
In the current policy, the representatives of the state governments should be heard when federal conservation conservation units are created within a state, and federal environmental authorities should be heard when state units are created. Ignoring this policy can have disastrous results. For example, in 2002 the governor of Pará announced that he would not allow any further federal conservation unit to be created in the state, following a mobilization by the mayors of municipalities where 2.3 million ha of conservation units were to be created by IBAMA on land that had been confiscated from grileiros (land swindlers).
In states such as Pará, the state governments are anxious to involve the municipal governments and avoid unwanted conservation units. This tendency is reinforced by legislation limiting the fraction of state‐government budgets that can be used for payroll expenses, thus motivating the states to pass as many functions as possible (such as guarding reserves) to the municipal governments. Compared to state governments, municipal governments are normally closer to their constituency and hence more subject to local pressures from sawmill owners and other interest groups, often making these governments less likely to put a priority on conservation over short‐term gain (Fearnside, 2003: 758).
International influence
Although international pressure by NGOs, nations, or international bodies with their recurrent conferences, are often stimulating for initiatives about conservation, opponents are eager to criticize this support by spinning complot theories. They diffuse the widespread belief in Brazil that the world is engaged in a permanent conspiracy to attack Brazilian sovereignty over Amazonia. In a sociological survey, conducted in the wake of the Rio Summit in 1992, 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement ‘I am afraid Amazonia will be internationalized’ and 75 per cent agreed that ‘Foreigners are trying to take over Amazonia’ (Barbosa, 1996). This result created a permanent temptation for any politician to denounce real or imagined threats to sovereignty. A notorious example of successfully applying this tactic as a basis of political support is Gilberto Mestrinho. As governor of Amazonas he even threatened to order the Military Police to machine‐gun teams from the
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National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) if they attempted to demarcate indigenous lands in his state. As senator, he declared in the senate plenary that the initiative of the ecological corridors project would put Amazonas in a plaster cast. ‘Why do they do this? Emptying [Amazonia] makes it easier to dominate [the region]. . . .[It is] used as a strategy for the future invasion of our sovereignty.’ (Adolfo, 1999 apud cit. in Fearnside 2003).
The Zona Franca Verde.
In 2003, the newly elected government of the State of Amazonas implemented major institutional and political reforms. Their centrepiece was a sustainable development programme, named ‘Programa Zona Franca Verde’ (ZFV, or Green Free Trade Zone Programme). This programme became one of the most important policies of Governor Eduardo Braga. Conceptually, ZFV is in line with international ideas of conservation, such as ‘Our Common Future’ (Brundtland Commission, 1987), Agenda 21 (Rio 1992 Conference) and the UN Millennium Development Goals. It was adjusted to fit the socioeconomic and environmental requirements of the Amazonas’ environment: the large area of forest, relatively little forest degradation, a natural system of river‐based transportation, and the Manaus Free Trade Zone policies. Moreover, the Programme could build on past experience of initiatives in neighbouring states in forest management, fisheries management and agroforestry. (Viana 2010).
The ZFV Programme was conceived as a coordinating instrument of cross‐sectoral policies aimed at promoting sustainable development. Its name was an attempt to convey the concept of sustainability in popular terms to the Amazon population. The name Zona Franca or Free Trade Zone was partly chosen because of the resource linkage with the Free Trade Zone of Manaus. But also, for the majority of people in Amazonas, the phrase ‘free trade zone’ has come to mean economic development and jobs (as in the Manaus industrial complex). ‘Green’ is associated with natural resources: forests, rivers and lakes. ‘Green Free Trade Zone’ thus means, in simple terms, economic development and job creation on the basis of sustainable management and protection. Communicating this simple message was an essential component of the strategy to gain political support for policy change. In practice, in contrast to the Zona Franca de Manaus with its tax exemptions, there were few tax‐free elements granted to the programme. A noteworthy case is the tax‐free policy for all non‐timber forest products of Amazonas, implemented in 2005 (Viana 2010).
The basic mission of the ZFV Programme is to put a new forest paradigm into practice. Policies aimed at reducing deforestation should place less emphasis on command and control or policing, and more on financially rewarding those who
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keep their forests standing. The objective was to add tangible value to forest products and environmental services, so that forest management became more economically attractive than agriculture or cattle ranching.
From an institutional point of view, there were four initial challenges: first, to create an institution capable of designing consistent cross‐sectoral policies for sustainable development (SDS); second, to reform IPAAM so that greater emphasis was given to forestry and fisheries; third, to create an institution to promote sustainable land uses (AFLORAM, which later became ADS); and fourth, to create a land tenure agency to secure rights for those forest dwellers and riverine populations that either lack or have fragile documentation of their land rights (ITEAM – Amazonas Land Tenure Institute). Improving the agencies was simply not enough; there was a need to create a new institutional culture beyond command and control – the core business of IPAAM. SDS focused on policy design, AFLORAM/IDAM on forestry extension and ITEAM on land tenure.
The driver of the ZFV Programme was the newly created state entity, the Secretariat for Environment and Sustainable Development (SDS), which came to work in close cooperation with the Secretariat of Agricultural Production (SEPROR) in 2005. The SDS was established as an umbrella institution, with an assignment to coordinate the design and implementation of the state’s policy for environment and sustainable development, which activities had been dispersed within the policy of regular entities. Prior to that, the Amazonas State had only the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute (IPAAM) as a separate agency, focused on the environmental licensing of the high‐tech industries in Manaus, with only a handful of staff to deal with the ‘green’ agenda of forestry, agriculture and fisheries.
The Bolsa Floresta Programme
The ZFV was designed as a programme to generate employment and income by sustainable use of forests, rivers, and lakes and is partly financed by the ZFM. One of the innovations of the programme is the creation of the Bolsa Floresta or Forest Conservation Allowance programme, to facilitate remuneration of environmental services in selected conservation units. The Programme is administrated by the public‐private non‐governmental organization Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS) and is already and expectedly financed by payments for reduction of carbon emissions. According to the programme, communities commit to zero deforestation in primary forest areas and the FAS commits to implementing the four components of the Bolsa Floresta programme: (1) incentives and investments in infrastructure for small‐scale sustainable production; (2) investments in health, education, transport and communication; (3) strengthening of social institutions; and (4)
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participation of families in deforestation reduction activities and providing them with a supplementary income. The programme covers more than 10 million hectares and more than 7,800 families (Viana 2008).
The REDD+ mechanism
Spanning an area of more than 500 million hectares, the Amazon region offers compelling examples of the governance challenges involved in dealing with climate change, land use, and land tenure issues on a large scale. The region harbours about one‐third of the world’s remaining tropical forests. Deforestation, as a major phenomenon, accounts for more than 50 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions (Barreto and Childress 2010).
The region may benefit from the Bali Action Plan (UN 2007), signed by more than 180 nations in December 2007, which calls for ‘policy approaches and positive incentives’ for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries This could involve compensating farmers who forgo deforestation (avoided deforestation) or who invest in reforestation or conservation plans in the framework of the SNUC. Plans for such a scheme are under development through the creation of the Amazon Fund5 (2008), which will be assisted by a substantial grant from the government of Norway of 1 billion US dollars over a period of 10 years.
CGEE et al. argue that Brazil is a country well‐fitted to take part in the REDD+ scheme, as there are many plans and institutions in place designed to counter deforestation and the emission of greenhouse gases. With the approval of a Federal Law in 2009, which set up the National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC), and with the experiences derived from the Amazon Fund, Brazil came in the vanguard and ensured its eligibility in a future REDD mechanism. In addition, the states of Brazilian Amazonia are launching their own plans for controlling deforestation, while some (Pará, Mato Grosso, Acre, and Amazonas) have even established quantitative targets for deforestation reduction and state REDD plans. This context confers on Brazil the ability to negotiate within the UNFCCC, including the establishment of more ambitious obligatory targets in a post‐2012 international agreement, and to construct its own national REDD strategy. In additon, there are numerous REDD pilot projects scattered throughout Brazil. These efforts suggest that the mechanism of REDD can be supportive of the conservation of standing forests and the valorization of its multiple co‐beneficiaries.
5 The Amazon Fund is aimed at raising donations for non‐reimbursable investments in efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, as well as to promote the preservation and sustainable use of forests in the Amazon Biome, under the terms of Decree N.º 6,527, dated August 1, 2008.
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The progress achieved over the last two decades has enabled Brazil to become the first developing country to formalize carbon emission reduction targets. The ZFV appears to be at the forefront. Its Juma project already participates in the REDD mechanism (zie Box taken from Viana 2010, p. 41) and on 19 April 2012, the Juma project received an Eco‐Index Award from the Rainforest Alliance in the category ‘Best Learned Lessons 2012’ with the argumentation ‘Valuable advice, solutions and formulas for success from conservation colleagues’.
For international companies, dealing with carbon credits appears to be attractive. An article in the Manaus daily Amazonas em Tempo ‘Estrangeiros negociam carbono com indígenas’ (‘Foreigners negociate carbon with indigenous people’) mentions that more than 30 indigenous groups have been approached by foreign companies interested in exploring carbon‐credit contracts. One deal has already been
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concluded for 30 years with the indigenous group Mundurucu in Jacareacanga in the state of Pará. The group received 120 million US$ for an area of 2,38 million hectares. However, the regulating body of FUNAI (National Indian Foundation) said that no contract has judicial validity as Brazil not yet has established the legal framework for the REDD system of carbon credits and that the case was sent to the Attorney General. At the same time, FUNAI urges local people, in order to guarantee that there will not be an infringement of their rights, to ask FUNAI for legal assistance (Amazonas em Tempo on 16 March 2012).
The end of deforestation
According to Nepstad et al. (The End of Deforestation, 2009) Brazil has two major opportunities to end the clearing of its Amazon forest and to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. The first is its formal announcement within United Nations climate treaty negotiations in 2008 of an Amazon deforestation reduction target, which prompted Norway to commit $1 billion if it sustains progress toward this target. The second is a widespread marketplace transition within the beef and soy industries, the main drivers of deforestation, to exclude Amazon deforesters from their supply chains. According to their analysis, these recent developments finally make feasible the end of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which could result in a 2 to 5% reduction in global carbon emissions. Estimations are that $7 to $18 billion beyond Brazil’s current budget may be needed to stop the clearing and this amount of money could be provided by the REDD mechanism for compensating deforestation reduction that is under negotiation within the UN climate treaty, or by payments for tropical forest carbon credits under a U.S. cap‐and‐trade system6.
Policy and reality
In his article Brazil’s environmental policies for the Amazon: Lessons from the last 20 years, Fearnside (2009) starts with a pessimistic quotation, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, referring to the developmentalist projects of the 1970s en 1980s, such as the Transamazon Highway, the Polonoroeste programme, and a series of large dams.
Although nowadays an environmental impact study and report, a so‐called Eia‐Rima, have to be done as well as economic viability studies that calculate the costs and benefits in terms of money, not much, according to Fearnside, has changed. The current phenomenon of developing major projects are reportedly setting in motion 6 In an emissions trading or cap‐and‐trade scheme, a limit on access to a resource (the cap) is defined and then allocated among users in the form of permits. Compliance is established by comparing actual emissions with permits surrendered including any permits traded within the cap.
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chains of events with enormous environmental and human consequences and are still decided by few high officials before any environ‐ mental or economic viability study is done. The damming of the Xingu River at Belo Monte is a striking example.
In the past, the World Bank and Inter‐American Development Bank were involved in large‐scale development plans and cooperated directly with the Brazilian government. After many protests of the negative consequences of these development plans, the World Bank retracted gradually, and together with the Brazilian government – especially the Ministry of the Environment – was co‐administrator of the PPG7 Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest (1992‐2008)7. The PPG7 sponsored a wide variety of initiatives throughout Brazilian Amazonia for financing small‐scale sustainable development projects run by grassroots NGOs, environmental management support for selected areas in Amazonian states, forestry management, várzea (floodplain) management, ecological‐economic zoning by state‐level agencies, demarcation of indigenous land, fire prevention and control, support for science and technology related to Amazonia, and protected area planning and creation in ‘ecological corridors.’ These
Figure 3. Deforestation under three scenarios.
Note: The first scenario simulates deforestation from 2005 into the future under business‐as‐usual conditions that assume economic trends and governance levels through 2003. The intermediate curve is the current deforestation reduction target of the Brazilian government, and the lower curve ends deforestation in 2020.
Source: Nepstad et al., 2009
7 PPG7: The Pilot Program was proposed in a meeting of the G‐7, group of seven top industrialized countries in Houston, Texas, in 1990. It was appoved by the G‐7 and by the European Commission in Decembre 1991. In 1992, during the UN Conference for the Environment and Development, in Rio‐92, the programme was officialy launched in Brazil.
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projects had varying degrees of success, the most notable contributions to the environment being demarcating indigenous lands and stimulating the formation of grassroots NGOs in order to qualify for funding demonstration projects (Fearnside 2009).
However, despite these green initiatives, in practice, much of the policy with environmental impact in Amazonia is not made by the Ministry of the Environment but by the ministries that build major public works such as highways and dams. The Ministry of Mines and Energy, which is responsible for hydroelectric dams, is therefore a major actor. Its subsidiary, Eletrobrás, is one of the few government agencies that engages in long‐range planning. Unfortunately, this planning is almost entirely devoted to maximizing generating capacity to accompany an expected exponential increase in demand, which is often erroneously portrayed as ‘need’ for electricity. Virtually never is there any questioning of what the electricity is to be used for. The exponential projections of demand are not only incorporating all of the inefficiency and waste in current energy use, but also ratify plans for a vast expansion of electro‐intensive export industries, especially primary aluminum (Fearnside 2009).
The position of the ZFV
The future of the policy reality in Brazil, with many developments in the area of conservation governance as well as large‐scale economic progress, is hard to predict. The recent voting on the Código Florestal is a clear example of how political forces can change prospects of conservation governance profoundly. The Manaus daily A Crítica ‘Código florestal: o início do fim das florestas’ (Forest Code, the beginning of the end of the forests) wrote on 25 April 2012 ‘Today the Chamber of Representatives showed what they want: the end of the forests in Brazil’. The latest alterations of the Forest Code mean total amnesty without restriction for illegal deforestation perpetrators and a very flexible status of the Conservation Units. Although President Dilma Rousseff is in the position to veto the outcome of this voting – a promise she made in her election campaign – many doubt that this will happen. A lot of lobbying has been done making an appeal to her responsibility and to convince her (and the public) of the desastrous consequences of this new Forest Code (a case in point is the open letter in the Annex).
Hence, a closer look at the Zona Franca project may yield some clues how to lock in sustainable projects and what the lessons learned are in ‘bridging environment and development, theory and practice’ (Viana 2010). In particular, it is interesting to see the broad ZFV vision of the necessities to influence popular ideas, media, poltical entities and to raise awareness by starting education projects. But also the
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programme is aware of an important starting point of making the people have an interest in the programme. The Bolsa Floresta is a clear case.
There appears broad recognition of the results and success of the ZFV. Amongst the most important indicators of this success was a study by the United Nations Commission for Economic Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL, 2007), which carried out an independent assessment of the work by the ZFV. Seeking lessons from public policy innovations, the Cepal report praised the organizational proposals aimed to strengthen the presence of public authorities in the promotion of sustainable development in areas far from the capital, as well as the aim to encourage civil society participation in the sustainable use of natural resources. To accomplish these objectives, consolidation between the State Environmental Council and the Municipal Environmental Secretariats – created in numerous prefectures – will be fundamental (CEPAL, p. 34).
In the words of Virgílio Viana, the project coordinator of the ZFV, it becomes clear how much needs to be done to strengthen the foundations for sustainable development, (2010, p. 11):
“It is a difficult task to postulate lessons learned when interventions take place in a complicated context. Successes of sustainable development policies depend on their effectiveness and efficiency in dealing with multiple local factors and circumstances. Policy design requires a blend of scientific understanding of the factors driving economic and social behaviour, and a political understanding of the context in which policies are implemented. Moving from an appropriate policy design to the progressive accumulation of small achievements is the art of policy implementation.”
Hence, the nine lessons learned by the ZFV‐project, must entail an enormous amount of policy instruments and activities.
Lesson 1. Change the ‘natural resource liquidation’ paradigm of development by making forests worth more standing than cut. Instruments have been tax incentives for forest products and technical assistance to forestry.
Lesson 2 Create political support for sustainability and the environment by focusing on jobs, income, votes and other mainstream incentives. Instruments have been improving jobs, fisheries management and timber management.
Lesson 3 Place environmental and sustainability concerns at the centre of policy design and implementation. Instruments: expanding environment institutions to become sustainable development catalysts, such as SDS and ADS.
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Lesson 4 Pay people for environmental services rendered. Instrument Bolsa Floresta: an innovative solution to fight deforestation and poverty.
Lesson 5 Invest in good communications – especially relations with the media: helping journalists to bridge to politicians, the public and the forests. Instruments have been workshops with journalists and field trips.
Lesson 6 Provide simple and attractive green solutions: engaging the public in identifying and developing solutions that most help them and the forests.
Lesson 7. Think in solutions, not in problems.
Lesson 8. Make bureaucracy work for the people. Reduce bureaucracy and increase legality of forest management.
Lesson 9. Invest in partnerships for policy implementation, such as a partnership with the National Council of Rubber Tappers.
From Amazonas to Brazil – a National Project for the Amazon
The ZFV has the ambition to be able to extend relevant Amazonas innovations to other states, and to ensure that appropriate federal policies are supportive of further progress in Amazonas. However, key questions about the development model of Amazonia are not yet answered. There is not yet a ‘National Project for the Amazon’, a macro development strategy, or a ‘vision’ for the future of the Amazon. Different stakeholders have different values and interests and therefore differing opinions about the fate of the Amazon forests. All of their world views are, to a large extent, legitimate as long as there is no unified policy.
But it is time that a such a policy is built on important utilitarian justifications for Amazon conservation: (i) the potential for sustainable production of timber and non‐timber forest products based on the Amazon’s rich biodiversity; (ii) the role of the Amazon in regional and global climate regulation, especially carbon storage and sequestration, maintaining water vapour circulation processes and rainfall regimes; (iii) the value of ethno‐ecological knowledge among traditional and indigenous peoples; (iv) the conservation of biodiversity of global value; and (v) the potential for all of these attributes to contribute to the eradication of poverty among Amazon peoples (Viana 2010).
Building a policy consensus is no simple task as there are conflicts of interest. It is more easily achieved when stakeholders are presented with solid facts and figures on approaches that work well. It appears also easier when the views and ideas of all key stakeholders are explored, from environmentalists and Indians to cattle ranchers and mining companies.
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Final Reflections
In this paper, we found mixed results in evaluating the prospects for environmental governance. Measures to protect the Amazon rainforest through the system of conservation units, have produced a rather elaborated framework of environmental governance instruments. The implementation, however, of these instruments has been far from consolidated. And there are a lot of economic developments at stake that may harm the rainforest.
Assessing the odds of deforestation, there are opposite points to be considered. The economic pressure to open up parts of the Amazon forest will only rise, and the plans of PAC II and IIRSA may entail serious threats. The flourishing of the city of Manaus and its Zona Franca with the Polo industrial, together with global economic developments, may have opened eyes of policy makers for the strategic advantages of the northern region. However, the idea of adding sustainability to development plans seems to have taken root as well, in particular through the impact of local droughts and floods. Succesful results by international climate change conferences are of eminent importance to support environmental governance initiatives, in particular in relation to the REDD+ mechanism.
This paper tried to show how complicated it is to design and implement conservation policies in a territory of 4,2 million km2 ‐ an area the size of the European Union ‐ that had no tradition of land‐use planning. Valorization of the forest will be essential to support conservation policy, and the slogan: Make the forest more worth standing than cut is trying to raise awareness for this. Tourism, Environmental Services and the REDD+ system are examples. However, the recent amendments of the Código Florestal give rise to pessimism. Hopefully, the Rio+20 climate conference, to be held in Rio do Janeiro in June 2012, may give a (short‐lasting?) boost to conservation initiatives. The ZFV, initiated in a propitious political climate, seem to have the potential to weather the dangers of conservation backlashes, as they seem to have locked in a broad agenda to alter the developmental model. The question is whether the Zona Franca Verde can meet the prospect’s needs of an evolution as a region‐wide development model.
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REFERENCES
A Crítica, ‘Código florestal: o início do fim das florestas’, Manaus, 25‐04‐12 (internet version).
Amazonas Em Tempo, ‘Superintendente do Ibama Mário Lúcio: “Ibama teve poder reducido”, Manaus, 1‐04‐12, p. A‐7.
Amazonas Em Tempo, Estrangeiros negociam carbono com indígenas’, Manaus, 16‐03‐12, p. C‐2.
Barbosa, L., ‘The People of the Forest against International Capitalism: Systemic and Anti‐Systemic Forces in the Battle for the Preservation of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest’, Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 39, No. 2, Special Issue Environmental Conflict (Summer, 1996).
Barreto, P. and M.D. Childress, ‘Land Tenure and Climate Change Mitigation in the Brazilian Amazon’, Par. 6.2. in: Deininger, K., et al., Innovations in Land Rights Recognition, Administration, and Governance, The World Bank, GLTN , FIG , and FAO, 2010.
Baud, M., Castro, F. de, Hogenboom, B., ‘Environmental Governance in Latin America: Towards an Integrative Research Agenda’, Explorations, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, nr. 90, April 2011, pp. 79‐88.
CEPAL, Análise Ambiental e de Sustentabilidade do Estado do Amazonas, Estado do Amazonas, SDS, GTZ, Our World, United Nations, June 2007.
CEPAL, Evolução das Políticas de Desenvolvimento Sustentável no Estado do Amazonas 20062009. Avanços em direção às recomendações realizadas por
ocasião da Análise Ambiental e de Sustentabilidade do Estado do Amazonas, estado do Amazonas, SDS, GTZ, Our World, United Nations, March 2010.
CGEE, IPAM, SAE, REDD no Brasil, um enfoque amazônico – Fundamentos, critérios e estruturas institucionais para um regime nacional de Redução de Emissões por
Desmatamento e Degradação Florestal, REDD, Brasilia, D.F., 2011.
Dijck, P. van, The impact of the IIRSA road infrastructure programme on Amazonia, Routledge, forthcoming.
Dijck, P. van, Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAS) as an Instrument for Participation and Knowledge Building In Environmental Management, Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), Amsterdam, 2012, Prepared for delivery at the 2012 LASA Congress, San Francisco.
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Fearnside, P.M., ‘Conservation Policy in Brazilian Amazonia: Understanding the Dilemmas’, World Development, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 757–779, 2003.
Fearnside, P.M., ‘The theoretical battlefield: accounting for the carbon benefits of maintaining Brazil’s Amazon forest’, Perspective, Carbon Management, April 2012, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 145‐158.
Fearnside, P.M., Brazil’s environmental policies for the Amazon: Lessons from the last 20 years, Contribution for the panel on “Models of Development: An Analysis of the Last 20 Years of Public Policies for the Amazon Region” in the conference on “Environmental Policy, Social Movements, and Science for the Brazilian Amazon,” University of Chicago. 5‐6 November 2009.
Folha de São Paulo, ‘Amazônia vira motor de desenvolvimento’, São Paulo, 16‐10‐11: frontpage.
Folha de São Paulo, ‘Saída pelo Norte vira nova opção ao Porto de Santos’, 16‐10‐11: B‐1.
Gutberlet, J., ‘Zoneamento da Amazônia ‐ uma visão crítica’, Estudos Avançados 16 (46), University of São Paulo, June, 2002.
Hall, A., Getting REDD‐Y, Conservation and Climate Change in Latin America, Latin American Research Review, Volume 46, Special Issue 'Contemporary Issues on Ecology, Society and Culture in Latin America', pp. 184‐210.
Mahar, D.J., ‘Agro‐Ecological Zoning in Rondônia, Brazil: What are the Lessons?’ in: Hall, A. (ed), Amazonia at the crossroads : the challenge of sustainable development, ILAS, London, 2000.
Nepstad, D. et al., ‘The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon’, Science, Volume 326, Number 5958 (2009 12 04): pp.1350‐1351.
O Globo G1, Rede Amazônica, Extrativista do AM ameaçada de morte por conflitos agrários é executada, 04/04/2012, accessed at http://g1.globo.com/amazonas/noticia/2012/04/extrativista‐do‐am‐ameacada‐de‐morte‐por‐conflitos‐agrarios‐e‐executada.html
State Government of Amazonas, Amazonas Sustainable Development Program, Green Free Trade Zone, Manaus, 2005
Veríssimo, A., et al., Áreas Protegidas na Amazônia Brasileira Avanços e Desafios, Imazon and Instituto Socioambiental, Belém and São Paulo, March 2010.
Viana, V. M., ‘Bolsa Floresta (Forest Conservation Allowance): an innovative mechanism to promote health in traditional communities in the Amazon’, Estudos Avançados, 22(64), University of São Paulo, December, 2008.
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Viana, V. M., Seeing REDD in Amazon. London, IIED. Available at www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/17053IIED.pdf, 2009.
Viana, V., Sustainable Development in Practice: Lessons Learned from Amazonas, Environmental Governance No. 3. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, 2010.
Wallis, M., Impact of an urban frontier in the Amazon: The case of the Polo Industrial of Manaus, Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), Amsterdam, 2010, Prepared for delivery at the 2010 LASA Congress, Toronto.
WWF et al., Retrocessos do Governo Dilma na Agenda Socioambiental, Public Letter, 6 March, 2012, signed by twelve organizations ‘concerned about the preservation of the socio‐environmental equilibrium in the country and supporting non‐destructive development’, in preparation of the RIO+20 Conference in Rio dew Janeiro in June 2012
http://ipam.org.br/biblioteca/livro/Retrocessos‐do‐governo‐Dilma‐na‐Agenda‐Socioambiental/645.
English version: Public Letter ‐‐ Dilma Government Backsliding on SocioEnvironmental Issues:
http://www.socioambiental.org/banco_imagens/pdfs/Letter__Setbacks_Dilma_government_6_mar2012_ingles.pdf
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ANNEX PUBLIC LETTER DILMA GOVERNMENT BACKSLIDING ON SOCIO‐ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
MARCH 6, 2012
The first year of President Dilma Rosseff’s government was marked by the most intense backtracking on socio‐environmental issues since the end of the military dictatorship, totally reversing the former tendency to an ever improving sustainable development agenda that governments had been implementing since 1988 and that had its high point when the Lula government succeeded in curbing the rate of deforestation in the Amazon. The progress achieved over the last two decades has enabled Brazil to become the first developing country to formalise carbon emission reduction targets and that has strongly contributed to establishing Brazil’s position as an international leader in the socio‐ environmental sphere. Flying in the face of the historical tendency, various specific cases illustrate the current moves to reverse it and dismantle all the hard‐won gains. Attempts to emasculate the current legislation, like the negotiations to rush through Congress a Forest Law reform bill utterly unworthy of the name, and the recently approved Complementary Law 140 regulating Article 23 of the Federal Constitution are the most serious examples. The list is long and includes the interruption of the process for creating protected areas, which occurred as soon as the present administration took office and actually reached the point of reducing the areas of several existing protected areas by means of a Presidential Decree, defying the legislation in force and infringing on Brazil’s international commitments. Another significant area of government neglect is the freezing of processes for the formal recognition of indigenous and quilombola lands while at the same time environmental licensing for huge public works with obvious social and environmental problems are issued at top speed. Those processes contrast strongly with the promises made by the President herself during the presidential election campaign in 2010, to block any part of the new Forest Law that would lead to reductions in Areas of Permanent Protection or Legal Reserve areas or any proposals for granting amnesty to those that carried out illegal deforestation. The proposal that is before the Congress for final voting in the next few days includes all those points and it has the support of the parliamentary block of the government’s political allies. The frontal attacks on socio‐environmental achievements have created a favourable climate for other proposals to alter legislation in force, such as the draft Constitutional Amendment proposal designed to make the creation of new protected areas and the recognition of indigenous lands more difficult; the draft bill that proposes to weaken the effects of the Atlantic Forest legislation currently in force; innumerable individual projects to diminish the size of already established protected areas; a proposal for a Legislative Decree that would
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permit sugar cane plantations in the Amazon and the Pantanal; and the discussion on the possibilities of mining operations in indigenous areas. For all those reasons, the signatories to this document, social organisations in favour of non destructive development and anxious to maintain the country’s socio‐environmental equilibrium, wish to warn public opinion that Brazil is now living through an unprecedented reactionary process in the socio‐environmental sphere that will make it impossible for the country to make any further progress towards development with sustainability and will seriously jeopardise the quality of life of present and future generations. FOREST LAW – The paradigmatic point of this erosion and degradation of the socio‐ environmental agenda in Brazil is the voting about to take place on the Forest Law Reform Bill, which entirely disfigures the existing legislation protecting forests and concedes a broad amnesty for all acts of illegal deforestation carried out prior to July 2008 thereby institutionalising impunity and consequently stimulating new waves of deforestation. It also provides for reductions in the areas of Areas under Permanent Protection throughout the country. The version that will come up for voting in the next few days affronts the conclusions of the relevant technical studies conducted by Brazil’s top scientists who have expressed their shock at the total disregard for the warnings they issued about gross errors and obvious improprieties of the proposals embedded in the versions of the bill prepared by the Federal Senate and the House of Representatives. There have been similar efforts to reduce the protection afforded to forests and the environment as a whole on previous occasions, during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration and the two terms of office of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, but most of them were eventually blocked by the executive branch in response to a strong reaction against them from society at large. Today, however, the Executive branch is inert and insensitive to public opinion, starting with the Ministry of the Environment, which has not only interrupted the cycle of National Conferences on the Environment but shown passivity and connivance with the ongoing process of dismantling the legislation governing its own area of activity and authority. The current administration has let its parliamentary support group do just as it wished and only intervened in the process when it was too late and even then in a haphazard manner. Sectors of the government have intervened sometimes, discretely sometimes more overtly, to support proposals that seek to reduce the forests, contrary to the worldwide tendency to endeavour to increase forest coverage to face up to oncoming climate change. REDUCTION OF PROTECTED AREAS – During its first year the Dilma government has failed to create one single new protected area and in unprecedented gesture has issued Presidential Provisional Act nº 558 which excludes 86 thousand hectares from seven different federal protected areas in the Amazon region in order to accommodate the site installations and reservoirs of four great dams being constructed on the Tapajos and Madeira rivers. In addition to the fact that the obligatory technical studies and public debates have not been carried out in the case of the Tapajos hydroelectric dams, the Federal Constitution stipulates that alteration or suppression of Protected Areas can only be done under the terms of a regular law and that has led the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic to impetrate an action of unconstitutionality against the
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Provisional Measure issued by the presidency. REDUCTION OF IBAMA’S SURVEILLANCE AND INSPECTION POWERS – This Federal Government was voted in with the biggest political support base of all time in the Congress so that it should be easy for it to move ahead with the necessary reforms to enhance democracy and political governance, and to make the economy agile and sustainable but, in fact, it seems to be at the mercy of highly reactionary groups entrenched in the National Congress. What could have induced it to sanction Complementary Act 140, which effectively stripped Ibama and Conama of their powers thereby emasculating bodies that played such an important role in curbing Amazon deforestation and constructing environmental policy over recent years. RAMMING LICENSING PROCESSES THROUGH – Government has not merely been negligent in failing to resist the attacks on the forests, it has actually been rough riding over the environmental licensing legislation, which is designed to regulate and organise the expansion of big infrastructure projects in Brazil. Unlike the way the licensing for the BR 163 Federal Highway was done, when government involved society in the elaboration of a sustainable Development Plan for the region affected by the work, the licensing process for the Belo Monte Hydroelectric project has become notorious for the total disregard for: the legal regulations; the environmental conditioning factors; and the obligation to consult the indigenous populations affected by the works. This new modus operandi is becoming an increasingly common practice and constitutes a threat to the Amazon region insofar as the government intends to install 60 large‐scale hydroelectric plants and 170 smaller ones there. That huge set of large and medium‐sized hydroelectric dams will not only lead to deforestation stemming from migration to the regions of the works and real estate and land speculation; but will also alter the hydrological regime in the region’s rivers and have irreversible impacts on the lives of indigenous peoples and local communities. CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA AT A HALT – In the period from 2005 to 2010 Brazil took decisive steps towards pushing forward the agenda for addressing climate change in the national and international spheres. In 2009, those efforts culminated in the praiseworthy definition of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that were incorporated to National Climate Change Policy Law and led the turnaround in the positions adopted by the emerging economies. The subsequent regulation of the Law in 2010 to make it operational determined that Plans for emission reductions should be constructed sector by sector in 2011. What actually happened, however, was that in 2011 there was a strong retraction of the climate change agenda and not one single sector plan was constructed during the first year of office of the Dilma administration and neither were any of the respective public consultations made. MOBILITY PROGRAMME ON GO SLOW – Even in those areas that the government considers top priority, like the public works involving the implantation of infrastructure, the socio‐environmental agenda is unfolding very slowly. The Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) launched in 2009 associated
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to the upcoming Football World Cup foresees expenditure of 11.8 billion reals on improving urban mobility but up to now a mere 10% has been actually carried out and it is already common knowledge that the metro systems will not be operational in time for the Cup. At the beginning of this government the Mobility PAC was launched but, up to now, no single project has been selected and not one contract has been signed to make use of the allocated funds. SANITATION ON GO SLOW – Investments in sanitation are also unfolding much slower than the intense election campaign advertising would have us believe. Of an initially budgeted 3.5 billion reals, the government has only effectively invested 1.9 billion, 21% less than in 2010. The liberation of funds on the part of the Federal Savings Bank has also been highly unsatisfactory (R$ 2.3 billion up until November, only 25% of the contracted amount). Basic sanitation is a fundamental factor in the strategy to reduce pollution of our water resources but the figures in Brazil are actually shameful: only 44.5% of the Brazilian population is connected to a sewage collecting network and of all the sewage collected in that way, only 38% is treated (which means that 80% of all sewage produced in Brazil is discharged into the natural environment untreated). LAND TENURE REGULARISATION ON GO SLOW AND INCREASE IN RURAL VIOLENCE – It is not just in the creation of new protected areas, and indigenous and quilombola lands that the hegemony of the most backward reactionary sectors makes its presence felt. The first year of the Dilma administration has been marked by the worst performance in the creation of new agrarian reform settlements since 1995. The disbursement of funds to finance actions for the re‐structuring of production in existing settlements was also the lowest for the last decade; 65.6 million reals. The processes for granting definitive tenure titles for indigenous and quilombola lands are also dragging out; in 2011 only one quilombola area was granted definitive tenure and three indigenous areas were ratified. Those backsliding tendencies coincide with a notable increase in violence in the rural areas. According to a survey made by the Missionary Indigenist Council (Cimi), 38 Indians were assassinated in the first nine months of last year; 27 in Mato Grosso do Sul, the scene of tense disputes for territorial rights. Added to those figures are the eight deaths of family agriculture smallholders and extractive agriculturalists in disputes for land with ‘grileiros’ illegally occupying lands and obtaining false tenure registration, especially in Brazil’s northern region. INERTIA OF THE ENVIRONMENT MINISTER – In the midst of all these multiple attacks on the authority and structure of her portfolio, the Minister of the Environment, in a way that is entirely unprecedented, has remained unacceptably subservient in acceding to the damage being done to the authority and functions of her institution, such as the emasculation of the Environment Council –CONAMA and reduction of Ibama’s powers to control environmental licensing, inspection and surveillance. The Minister gave her blessing to all the affronts to good sense and scientific arguments embedded in the texts of the Forest Law Reform Bill by accepting the argument that the texts did not contain clauses granting amnesty, when in fact they make clear provision for a
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general, and unrestricted pardon for the great majority of those that undertook illegal deforestation. Faced with these serious negative processes the social organizations that are signatories to this document call on the President to keep her election campaign promises by taking up, once more, the implementation of a sustainability agenda in Brazil. Only a firm action of that kind can avoid the harm that will result for Brazilian society if it finds itself in the embarrassing position of being both host and villain on the occasion of the up coming Rio + 20 event in June this year. Instituto Socioambiental ‐ ISA Instituto Democracia e Sustentabilidade Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia Rios Internacionais – Brasil Rede de ONGs da Mata Atlântica (RMA) Grupo de Trabalho Amazônico (Rede GTA) Associação de Preservação do Meio Ambiente e da Vida (Apremavi) Associação Alternativa Terra Azul WWF ‐Brasil Instituto Vitae Civilis