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Private Role in the Amazon Triggers Doubts |
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By Mario Osava*
Thirteen
million hectares of tropical forest in Brazil will be concessioned
to private firms, according to a new law. Analysts fear it could
accelerate the destruction of the Amazon forest.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's decision to authorize
local companies to exploit 13 million hectares in the Amazon over
the next decade keeps controversy simmering. Some experts are saying
that instead of putting the brakes on deforestation, the concessions
could make it worse.
After long and heated debates, the Public Forest Management Law
was signed Mar. 3 by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The initiative
allows concessions to be granted to private companies for three
percent of the Amazon territory, and is an attempt to halt illegal
logging and the continued destruction of the forests.
But Niro Higuchi, an expert with the National Institute of Amazonian
Research (INPA), believes the new legislation could have the opposite
effect.
"The law could aggravate deforestation. Brazil is copying a failed
model, which has already been adopted with negative results in numerous
countries that have lost their forests and remain poor," said the
forestry engineer.
His list of countries that predict "catastrophe" here is long: Nigeria,
Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa;
Indonesia and Malaysia in Asia; and Bolivia, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Surinam and Venezuela in Latin America. All have low rankings on
the UN Human Development Index (HDI), with the exception of Malaysia,
said Higuchi.
But his argument doesn't convince Tasso Rezende de Azevedo, director
of the Environment Ministry's forestry program.
"Linking forestry concessions with poverty is a mistake, given that
Canada is the country that most uses this type of concession, along
with Finland, Norway and Sweden -- all champions in the HDI," said
Azevedo.
There are also good examples of tropical forests, contrary to what
Higuchi says, such as the concessions that raised the HDI in Guatemala
and the forestry reform implemented in the last 15 years by Bolivia,
whose experience helped Brazil to correct problems, Azevedo added.
The failures can be explained, according to the ministry official.
The African countries were still colonies. In Indonesia and Malaysia
there was a great deal of corruption, with dictatorships that handed
out concessions to politicians' relatives, and at the time there
was less knowledge about forest management than there is today.
The conditions in which the measure is applied are very different,
and in Brazil it is aimed at containing illegal logging and saving
the forests. The restrictions that the government has adopted have
already reduced the extraction of Amazon timber in recent years,
said Azevedo.
The new law, supported by numerous environmental organizations,
including the watchdog Greenpeace, grants contracts to private companies
for up to 40 years, with the condition that they carry out sustainable
operations, while maintaining government ownership of the land.
The legislation will promote agricultural regulation of the Amazon,
with a greater local presence of the federal government in controlling
its land and strengthening its agencies, according to the environmentalists.
Many of these groups now consider the legal lumber industry as an
ally interested in intact forests, and distinguish it from the agricultural
industry, which requires cleared land.
In Brazil, 65 percent of forested area is in public hands, but the
proportion reaches 75 percent in the Amazon region.
According to Azevedo, the new law, accused of "privatizing" the
forests, seeks precisely the opposite: to combat de facto privatization
through illegal means. Currently, more than 80 percent of illegal
lumber production comes from public lands.
The fraudulent appropriation of land by big ranchers and companies
"is the driving force behind deforestation," he said.
But Brazil already has many laws on forestry activities, land ownership
and environmental crimes, which have proven ineffective against
deforestation. Higuchi wonders why a new law would be any more successful
in stopping the destruction of the Amazon.
In his opinion, the law is a response to interests in the logging
industry and the export markets, faced with the imminent exhaustion
of the privately owned forests as a source of raw material in Brazil.
Businesses that exploited their own land irrationally will not treat
the publicly owned land any differently, says Higuchi, who argues
that "the only path for saving tropical wood" is to obtain a fair
price that requires reducing the supply, contrary to what the recently
approved concessions will do.
The Public Forest Management Law is one of the 140 actions scheduled
in the Plan for Preventing and Fighting Amazon Deforestation. "No
single measure will be effective," said Azevedo.
The plan combines four lines of action: agricultural and territorial
regulation, fortifying control and inspection to prevent illegal
activities, promotion of sustainable forestry, and creation of environmental
programs.
The legislation calls for three forms of management of forested
public lands: the creation and state management of national forests
as conservation areas, local community participation, and forestry
concessions for companies or institutions based in Brazil.
The concessions will be granted through a bidding process for a
period of up to 40 years, a period justified by tree growth time.
In each concession there are restrictions that allow logging of
a maximum of 70 percent of an area, leaving at least 30 percent
untouchable.
"In another five years, (the concession area) could be expanded,
after evaluating this experience," said Azevedo.
* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent.
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