The conservation of the Amazônia becomes a more important topic each day on the discussions on the climatic change and global warming, due to its relevance as a vanquisher of carbon and as a repository of biodiversity and a natural regulator of vapors in the atmosphere and the climate. It is unquestionable that we need to conserve, being that the days of discordance between radical environmentalists and developers of short vision are a thing of the past. Both have changed: environmentalists, in their majority, have started to recognize and to take in to consideration the socio-economic imperative; governments and developers understand the necessity of cooperation in environmental subjects with implications that are as much global as local. Strengthening both views are the economic damages of 2005, a year of simultaneous dry rivers in Amazônia and terrible hurricanes (including Katrina) in the Caribbean and United States.
In this new understanding of economical-environmental damages, it is amazing how we all are not (and by all I refer to the 25 million Brazilian Amazônians) pledged in the preservation of Amazônia. However, the greater part of these 25 million, still adopt the older equation: the fallen forests carry more value than the uncut. Cattle herding, wood harvesting and agriculture are more lucrative activities than the sustainable extraction of chestnut, oils and essences.
Traditionally, legal wood harvesting is something bureaucratically excessive for small proprietors and excessively risky for large companies, the land is cheap and abundant which promotes the continuous use of new areas, and the monitoring and application of laws are excessively weak to keep the formality valuable. In recent years, the main change to this equation comes from Brazilian institutions that have improved on monitoring and application of laws, what has thus increased the cost of informality,without, however, interfering with the attractiveness of formality. This change in the equation has had the beneficial effect of reducing deforestation. However, as a collateral effect, the productivity level has dropped in many poor areas and, traditionally, more informal, where small entrepreneurs and independent workers are not willing to or cannot adhere to the formal economy. Such is the case when we see the presence of the Federal Police being retaliated against during the Fire Arc operation.
The federal government has dealt with part of the problem by means of social programs as the Bolsa Família, but the most important action, to make the region economically viable, still crawls. The national vision that Amazônia is only an environmental issue in the same way that the northeast is only a social issue contributes with nothing. We are not only an environmental issue and therefore the discussion of our future cannot be only an environmental quarrel. It is also social, economic and political. The solution must be environmentally right, socially just, economically viable, and politically balanced, which has already been said by Prof. Samuel Benchimol.
Some state governments have developed other innovative solutions in search of this viability. In Amazonas, the state policies have sought to supply incentives to change the economic equation by means of:
Setting minimum prices for products of sustainable forms, as oils, essences and latex, so that these can be front-runners in the battle against deforestation; Establishment of the Bolsa Floresta, a program of transference of income for families who inhabit the forest, that demands the compromise for non-deforestation, verified by satellite; Dramatical increase of the investment in science and technology, intended for the development of sustainable technologies that can eventually reveal the forest as more economically valuable in its natural state; Technical support for small proprietors and courses on forestry, forest handling and fisheries, so that we may make use of the best practical strategies of increasing productivity in a sustainable form; Licensing of Deeds of Property of the land so that those in possession may start to be proprietors and can begin to count on the benefits of having an asset of value in the market and financially recognize their obligations and duties; Licensing of Preferential Financing through the agency of state promotion for small scale projects in sustainable sectors such as fisheries, forest handling, production of honey, etc.
The monitoring and the application of the laws are also being improved, but in order to complement the mentioned initiatives.
All these efforts have a clear objective: to re-equalize the valuation of standing forests for those that live in it. From an economic point of view, our objective is to include the externalities in the equation.
It is important, however, to remember that, even though it provides local benefits, the most significant benefits may be observed in other places, by means of the prevention of the climatic changes around of the globe, the change of regional rain averages, and the loss of biodiversity in the world. For example, the energy that is supplied to the southeast of Brazil is, to a large extent, generated by a hydroelectric plant that uses rain waters generated and recycled in Amazônia. Deforestation reduces the rain recycling and can have a harmful impact on the generation of national energy. One arrives, in this way, at the topic of the valuation of the given environmental services to the world (including Brazil) by the Amazonian forest.
Currently, the State of Amazonas and the Brazilian government finance its policies of preservation by means of proper budgets. The budget of Amazonas of approximately R.000 per inhabitant per year is not enough to cover the costs of health, education and provision of other governmental services for our population; even less, to finance the rebalancing of the equation. This is a special state, in which a domestic flight can take up to two hours and cost more than R.000.
The possibility of valuation of environmental services provided by the forest is the biggest economic opportunity of Amazônia today. In the past we had rubber, in the future we will probably have the technology to use the natural laboratory to our advantage, on the extent of which is unimaginable today; presently, for the region as a whole, environmental services can be the solution. Amazônia small rivers give the environmental services of maintenance of the climate and water cycle, prevention of global heating, and conservation of biodiversity, amongst others. With only one pertinent difference: without compensation.
Taking a step in this direction, Amazonas in conjunction with the Foundation for Sustainable Amazonas celebrated a partnership with the chain of hotels Marriott to preserve an area of 5 thousand km ², seeking the improvement of the living conditions for the local population (approximately one thousand inhabitants) and having as a counterpart the conservation of the area and subsequent provision of environmental services. This reserve, located on the River Juma, is situated in the arc of the deforestation, in such a way that, in a “normal” scenario, would be deforested in the next years.
This project is based on an initial donation on the part of the chain of hotels and, subsequently, the contributions of guests who opt on paying an additional small amount to contribute to the reserve. The project destines itself to implement improvements in monitoring and the Bolsa Floresta program, lead by the Foundation for Sustainable Amazonas, presided over by former-Minister Furlan and former-Secretary of the Environment of Amazonas Virgílio Viana. With respect to monitoring, the main actions include the use of satellite in conjunction with the presence of well equipped points of monitoring by land. The Bolsa Floresta program, aside from a payment of R monthly to the families who do not participate in deforestation, also disperses payments of approximately R0 per year for families of the small communities. This additional expense must be spent through a communitarian organization (R per family), sustainable economic activities (R0 per family) and social improvements (R0 per family, aiming at education, health, transport and communication).
Two factors of the project are in disagreement with the rolls of policies of development previously attempted in the country.
The financing does not come from the public budget and yes, in this case, from the donation and income obtained by the Foundation. The communities decide on how to better use the resources, and not bureaucrats separated by thousands of kilometers of distance.
The project is seeking to be compensated with VREs (voluntary reductions of carbon emissions) following CCB methodology (the main standard for forest carbon projects), due to the estimated reduction in deforestation. The CCB methodology is emerging as the standard means of evaluation of REDD projects (Reduction of Emissions based on Deforestation and Degradation), which is of extreme relevance for the Amazonian region.
Amongst the many positive factors in this example, it is of great importance the advent of the economic initiative swaying in favor of the standing forest. Thus begins the change in the economic equation “the standing forest vs. the fallen forest.” Only this re-balancing can permit the creation of a sustainable economy on Amazônia of which we will be proud of.
With partners such as Marriott and Bradesco, the State of Amazonas will be able to reach a scenario in which the deforestation, already at a low level (of about 750 km ² or 0.05% of the state per year), will be reduced to zero. The necessity of the magnifying of these efforts is evident, leaving doubts only as to how to complete the task.
Although the hope and expectation exists that more responsible citizens and companies will voluntarily extend their contributions to similar projects (in case you are one of them, visit the site www.fas-amazonas.org), almost a thousand similar projects would be necessary to cover all of Amazônia. The accurate solution to protect all of the 4,3 million km ² of Brazilian Amazônia can occur by a new international regimen of valuation and payment for environmental services. Today, this regimen is contemplated to assume the gap following the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol that will end in 2012; Amazonas proposes that we receive credits from carbon (for the storage of carbon) or credits for any other environmental processes (to a large extent covered in CCB methodology) in exchange for the conservation. Knowing that the benefits will be enjoyed by all, nothing more just than sharing the costs with all.
Let us remember the rules of social justice, political balance, economic viability and environmental adequacy (Prof. Benchimol). The conservation of the forest ceases to be a sign of absence of men and economic inactivity to become a sign of humanity and regional strength.
As a forester in Haiti and Brazil, Michael Jenkins saw the effects of extreme degradation of natural ecosystems on poor people and understood that traditional philanthropy alone was insufficient to solve the problem. At the MacArthur Foundation, he reoriented the sustainable forestry program to take a whole-systems approach that outlined the forest “value chain” and identified strategies to build financial and community sustainability within the system. He founded Forest Trends in 1998 to highlight the market value of natural ecosystems to promote their conservation. Forest Trends is widely credited for advancing the concept and practical application of “payments for ecosystem services,” an innovation that is gaining widespread momentum as a powerful conservation tool for forests and ecosystems.
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