| “The best thing would be to designate
commercial and ecological areas and see which ones should be protected and at what
cost.” |
The preservation of forest
areas can only be funded through regulated and sustainable use of the rest of the
Amazonian jungle
 At stake are not just the millions of square
kilometres of jungle or the 14,000 million cubic metres of timber growing in the
region, or even the fact that it is a biological reserve that contains a third of
the world’s plant and animal species. Behind the dispute that has set off so many
debates in parliament over much of the past year are advocates of two very different
models of development.
Rural landowners naturally want to continue chopping down trees to clear land for
cattle or agriculture. Environmental organizations want to protect specific areas
of tropical forest as agents of climate regulation, a source of future medicines,
a place for scientific research and home to many indigenous tribes, while leaving
the logging industry to use the rest of the jungle in a sustainable fashion.
The economic feasibility of the landowners’ stance has already been challenged by
the facts, while the ecologists’ plans are only feasible if accompanied by a myriad
of other measures. Ecotourism is one possible source of revenue, as is use of the
jungle’s pharmaceutical or biotechnological resources.
But the region’s main income would still come from logging. There has been significant
progress in this activity, such as the planting of a million hectares of trees for
timber in the past seven years. A score of Amazonian sawmills have pledged to rotate
their use of forest areas and allow the forests to regenerate. One such company,
Mil Madeireiras, was awarded a quality certificate by the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC), the chief monitor of sustainable forestry development, after dividing 55,000
hectares into 30 lots with a rotation system to ensure that each lot was only touched
every 30 years. The firm also has a 25,000 hectare reserve which it preserves permanently.
Another 17 companies are willing to follow the example of Mil Madeireiras and hope
to get certificates from the FSC. Among them is Cikel, the region’s biggest sawmill.
But “certified” companies such as these are still rare among hundreds of semi-legal
competitors. Most of the 1,600 sawmills
in the Brazilian Amazonia are small or medium-sized outfits that account for 70 percent
of total production. “Illegal
timber will always be cheaper,” says Adalberto Veríssimo, a biologist with
the Institute of People and the Environment in Amazonia. He is counting on two government
measures to speed up regulation of logging.
The first is the National Forestry Programme being drawn up by the Environment Ministry
to encourage new tree plantations and protect existing ones. The other is to make
companies bid for logging permits. Veríssimo says the government will have
more control over felling if it is done on publicly owned land.
Apart from logging, the possibility of planting new areas that will act as carbon
sinks (in an effort to limit climate change in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol),
has sparked the interest of several of the region’s landowners. A pilot project is
under way on the island of Bananal, in the far south of the region, sponsored by
a foundation linked to the U.S. electricity multinational American Electric System.
This aims to preserve 200,000 hectares, as well as plant 240,000 saplings and recover
800 hectares each year.
Biotechnology is the region’s third big investment opportunity. In the coming year,
a centre for research into the Amazon region’s resources will open in Manaus. This
is urgently needed because foreign laboratories are already developing thousands
of drugs based on the traditional knowledge of Amazonian tribes. One of the best
examples is a cure for high blood pressure, Capoten, made by scientists (at the pharmaceutical
company Bristol-Meyers Squibb) from the venom of the jararacá snake.
A couple of years ago the government asked a group of scientists to focus their work
on Amazonia. One of the group’s main conclusions was that the region could support
all kinds of activity, from agriculture and logging to extracting natural resources.
Even the much-criticized pasture lands were said to be tolerable. According to Roberto
Kishinami, head of Greenpeace-Brazil, “the best thing would be to designate commercial
and ecological areas and see which ones should be protected and at what cost.” Two
of Brazil’s Amazonian states, Rondonia and Tocantins, are moving in exactly this
direction.
Early next year, when the Brazilian parliament takes up the amendments to the forestry
regulations again, the country might clearly identify what kind of activities should
be allowed in Amazonia. The parliamentary debates will coincide with publication
of the annual deforestation figures by the National Institute for Space Research,
INPE—figures that will tell whether ecologists or rural landowners have won the war
of percentages.
But another problem will remain: how to make the transition from a world of symbolic
victories and defeats, of laws which are not obeyed, to one where the government
manages to convert symbols into reality.
Sources: Ministry of Development,
Trade and Industry; National Institute of Amazonian Research and the Bank of Amazonia;
Greenpeace.
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