1. INTRODUCTION
Land-tenure
issues affect virtually every decision in Brazilian Amazonia, from the investments
of labor and capital by landholders of all sizes to the migration of
populations, the formation and action of social movements and the launching of
government and international programs.
Deforestation and logging are direct outcomes of these decisions. Changes in land-tenure procedures will be
central to all efforts to redirect development to paths that are more
sustainable, socially beneficial and environmentally sound than the present
ones. The current pattern of land
occupation unfolds as an environmental symptom of the absence of rule-of-law,
including woefully inadequate property law and a system of financing that is
characterized by routine fraud.
Alston
et al. (2000) have recently provided a game-theoretic conceptual
framework for interpreting the frequency of land conflicts in Pará in terms of
the interests of landholders and of the landless migrants who invade their
holdings. Deforestation is in the
interests of both groups of actors as a means of increasing the probability of
an outcome favorable to the group in question and as a factor reducing the
probability of violent conflicts.
Ironically, Alston et al. (2000) find that the resettlement
efforts of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA)
serve to increase the probability of violent conflicts. The same logic would apply to other means by
which INCRA efforts induce the two sides to increase the effort they devote to
securing land claims, including speeding deforestation activity.
As
in any part of the Earth, the number of people who can be supported in rural
areas of Amazonia is limited by such factors as the area available for
settlement, the average per-hectare level of agricultural productivity that can
be sustained, the level of consumption of the population and limitations on
environmental impacts such as deforestation
(Fearnside, 1986a). In Amazonia, the total area that can be
cleared is constrained by potentially grave impacts of large-scale
deforestation, while the area on which agriculture or ranching can be
intensified is limited by physical resources such as phosphates (Fearnside,
1997a,b).
The
uneven distribution of land tenure in Brazilian Amazonia represents a severe
limitation on the area allocated for family agriculture because most of the
private land is currently held by large landholders; of the total area of
private land (including forests) in the Amazonian states, 62% was in holdings
1000 ha or larger as of the last full agricultural census in 1986 (Brazil,
IBGE, 1989). Of the 4 million km2
portion of Brazilian Amazonia that was originally forested (an area the size of
Western
Europe), the area deforested by 1998 totaled 551,782 km2 (Brazil, INPE, 2000), an area
larger than France. At least 80% of this is now under cattle
pasture or under secondary forest in pastures that have been degraded and
abandoned (Fearnside, 1996). Much of the
pasture area is in the hands of large landholders. Redistributing pasture now held in large
ranches to the region’s landless population and converting these areas to
family agriculture would represent a significant advance in reducing the
extreme social inequalities that predominate today.
Despite
Amazonia’s vast size, Brazil’s landless population of
4.8 million families (Langevin and Rosset, 2000) is too large to be supported
by distributing land in Amazonia (Fearnside, 1985). Solutions must be found outside of Amazonia to support the landless
populations in the non-Amazonian states.
The continuing migration of this population to Amazonia renders inviable
any plan to support the region’s present rural population through “agrarian
reform,” which, as the term is used in Brazil, includes both redistributing
large private landholdings and distributing forest areas still in the public
domain. Nowhere is this more evident
than in southern Pará. The problems of southern Pará are likely to spread to
increasingly broader sections of Amazonia, making the lessons that can be learned in
this area valuable inputs to decisions throughout the Amazon region. The
present paper reviews the current land-tenure situation in southern Pará and
attempts to identify policy changes that would reduce its environmental impact.
2. LAND-TENURE ISSUES
(a) Legal
status of land
The
majority of the land in Brazil’s 5 million km2
Legal Amazon region (Fig. 1) has, until quite recently, been in the public
domain, either under the federal or state governments. Land is incorporated into private properties
by a variety of mechanisms. Legally,
public land can pass to large private owners through occasional offers of land
for sale through sealed tenders (licitações), while small plots of land
called “lots” (lotes) are sold to colonists in government-sponsored
settlement areas. The areas of lots
distributed to settler families decreased from 100 ha in the 1970s to 50 ha in
the 1980s. The land was sold under
favorable terms with five-year grace periods and 6% annual interest—far below
the rate of inflation at the time. In
practice, opportunities have usually been rare and are now nonexistent for
obtaining public land through these legally correct avenues: while large areas
of public land were distributed in this way in the 1970s, such distributions
have not occurred since 1987. Instead, a
long tradition dating from colonial times has carried out most transfers to
private ownership through illegal invasions, both by large and small actors,
the role of the government being a later “regularization” (regularização)
or “legalization” (legalização) of the land holdings that exist on the
ground (e.g., Rosenn, 1971).
[Figure
1 here]
Agrarian
reform is now predominantly done through redistribution of large private
holdings rather than public lands. The
legal procedure for this redistribution has, until now, been one of expropriation
and indemnification (compensation) of the landowners, as specified by Brazil’s Land Statute (Law 4330 of
30 Nov. 1964). Since 1985,
indemnification has been paid in Agrarian Debt Bonds (TDAs) rather than cash,
thus allowing more rapid expropriations.
The TDAs mature at varying times depending on the size of the area
expropriated, most commonly in 20 years.
Land is distributed to settlers by INCRA. Expropriation and distribution of land
proceeded very slowly until after 1994, when the pace quickened markedly as a
direct result of land occupation by various grassroots organizations,
especially the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST). In the five years from 1995 to 1999, 372,866
families were settled in Brazil, more than the 218,000
families settled in the preceding 30 years since the 1964 Land Statute
(Schwartzman, 2000).
Since
1997 a system of “market-driven” agrarian reform has been under testing in five
states in semi-arid Northeast Brazil in the “Land Certificate” (Cédula da Terra)
program financed by the World Bank. Land
is bought by cash payments to landowners at market prices and financed with
loans to the settlers with three-year grace periods and 18% annual interest. The program is resisted by the MST, which
sees it (probably correctly) as an effort to undercut its role in initiating
land reform; the program is also criticized for the unfavorable terms of the
loans, which are unlikely to be payable from agricultural production in the
lots (Schwartzman, 2000). This program
is being extended to the rest of the country as the World Bank’s US$2 billion
six-year “Land Bank” (Banco da Terra) project. As of July 2000, the expropriation and
indemnification model still predominated in
the eastern Amazonian state of Pará.
Before
road transport reached areas in the interior of Amazonia in the early 1970s,
large tracts of land were granted as long-term concessions (aforamentos)
for harvesting products such as rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) or Brazil
nuts (Bertholletia excelsa). Land has often been captured by “land grabbers” (grileiros) who use
forged deeds, often in combination with bribery, threats and violence, to
obtain areas illicitly. In Brazil as a
whole today, 75% of the properties with over 10,000 ha (latifúndios) have invalid titles, according to the Minister of
Land-Tenure Policy (de Souza, 2000). A
substantial part of the land in Pará is registered in the name of “ghosts” (fantasmas), or
fictitious people (Pinto, 1999). These
irregularities are facilitated by Brazil’s Byzantine system of
land-title registration, with a multitude of different registry offices (cartórios)
where documents may be filed and a variety of types of documents dating from
different historical periods. Land
claims frequently overlap and, until Brazil’s planned national land
registry (cadastro) is implemented, most land documents do not have
georeferenced information on property boundaries.
In
July 2000 the Ministry of Land-Tenure Development cancelled the registrations
of 1899 large holdings (77% of the total number) as part of an effort to check
the documentation of large landholdings throughout the country (Brazil, MDF, 2000). In Pará, 344 registries were cancelled, or
88% of the latifúndios in the state.
Landholdings with cancelled registries cannot be sold, subdivided,
rented or mortgaged unless and until a valid title is presented to INCRA. The prevalence of irregular titles means that
the land-tenure situation in the area could change radically if land that is now
in the hands of “land grabbers” is actually expropriated.
In
South and Southeast Pará, hereafter referred to simply as “southern Pará”
(Fig. 1), the initiative for settling small farmers comes primarily from a
variety of social movements that organize landless migrants. While the MST is the largest of these
movements at a national scale and is the one that exerts the most political
pressure on the federal government, in southern Pará the Federation of Workers
in Agriculture (FETAGRI) is the largest.
Social movements establish camps (acampamentos), either in
private land or on roadsides in front of properties that the movements wish to
press the government to expropriate. If
the government accedes to these demands, then the camps are either transformed
into INCRA settlements (assentamentos) or the people are offered plots
of land in settlements elsewhere in the area.
As
of July 2000, INCRA had 276 settlements in southern Pará, containing 46,000
legally recognized families (plus a substantial floating population). An additional 5000 families were waiting in
29 camps. The camps established by
social movements receive a food dole (cesta básica) from INCRA provided
they do not enter private land. Entry of
migrants into private land, referred to as “invasion” by the government and as
“occupation” by the migrants, is still common, despite INCRA’s policy beginning
in 1999 of not inspecting and expropriating properties that have been
invaded. Attention is currently focused
on Fazenda Cabaceiras (35 km south of Marabá); the MST has been camped in this
ranch since April 1999 (the occupiers temporarily withdrew to the roadside in
July 2000 to allow the INCRA inspection that is required for a decision on
expropriation).
Vast
areas of pasture dominate land use in the area, stretching beyond the range of
sight from the major roads. Most of the
land is held in large cattle ranches, often with absentee owners. At least nine large ranches (each with approximately
10,000 ha) are held by the Mutran family, which obtained 99-year concessions
for Brazil nut exploitation before the area was accessible to road transport
(e.g., Bunker, 1985; de Almeida, 1995; Emmi, 1988). The legal status of these concessions is a
key point to be settled in the current land disputes: the MST claims that the
concessions only allow harvest of Brazil nuts, not deforestation or
logging. These concessions are handled
by the state-level Institute for Lands of Pará (ITERPA), rather than by the
federal agency (INCRA). Likely legal
complications include the possibility of ranchers claiming that concession
terms had been violated “in good faith” (de boa fé) and the great
difficulty of removing anyone, large or small, who has occupied land unopposed
for over one year, according to Brazilian law.
The existence of pasture serves as the ranchers’ proof that the land is
“occupied.” Pasture also counts as an
“improvement” (benfeitoria) on the land that must be compensated if the
land is expropriated, thus imposing practical limits on the amount of pasture
land that the government can afford to expropriate.
The
MST claims that pasture is not “productive land” (classification as
“unproductive” allows expropriation).
The MST argues that pasture does not fulfill the “social function of the
land” required by Brazil’s 1988 constitution
(Article 184). MST’s interpretation
of “social function” is that the land
must produce both food and employment.
While the extensive pasture systems that predominate in the ranches
provide both beef and jobs, the amounts of each produced per hectare are
miniscule (Hecht, 1993). INCRA
classifies productivity based on a point system that includes points for
pasture based on the density of cattle stocked and the economic return of the
operation. In the case of the Fazenda
Cabaceiras, an INCRA team with two MST observers began inspecting the ranch in
July 2000 to decide its classification as “productive” or “unproductive.”
(b) Land
conflicts
Southern Pará is a 40-municipality region covering 49 million
hectares, and is periodically proposed as a separate “state of Carajás” with
its capital at Marabá. This area is
infamous as the part of Amazonia where land-tenure issues are most explosive,
and has had a continuing series of violent
land conflicts between small farmers and large landholders since the early
1970s (e.g., Foweraker, 1981; Schmink, 1982). It was here that 19 members of the MST were
shot by federal police in April 1996 in the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, an
event that resulted in abrupt changes in public policies in the area. Colonization during the 1970s followed the
heavily subsidized Integrated Colonization Project (PIC) model of the Transamazon Highway (Smith, 1982). In the 1980s, the flux of migrants increased
dramatically, and the response here was replacement of INCRA in the area in
1980 by the Executive Group for Lands of the Araguaia and Tocantins (GETAT), a
military agency that carried out summary expropriations of private land that
was “unimproved” (i.e., forested) and rapid distribution of the land as lots in
settlement areas with minimal infrastructure.
The land bordering the Carajás mining area was of highest priority
(e.g., Fearnside, 1986b).
GETAT
was abolished in 1987, after which an 11-year hiatus ensued during which
agrarian reform remained at a standstill until INCRA reinitiated activities in
the area in November 1996 in the aftermath of the Eldorado dos Carajás
massacre. In the meantime, the
unemployed urban and rural populations had swollen tremendously with the exhaustion
of the Serra Pelada gold mine at the end of the 1980s and major layoffs by the
company running the Carajás iron mine (Companhia Vale do Rio Doce: CVRD),
privatized in 1997. Inadequacies in the
resettlement of the 23,871 people displaced by the Tucuruí Dam in 1984
contribute to the backlog of social problems (Fearnside, 1999a). For example, in the Rio Moju resettlement
area, 60% of the families who were moved from the reservoir area sold or
abandoned their lots in the first six years of settlement (Magalhães, 1994, p.
454).
Conflicts
between ranchers and squatters have long been common, but now conflicts are
arising between squatters and settled colonists who have lots of 20-25 ha in
INCRA settlement areas such as the Progresso area established in 1987. Areas such as these contain significant
floating populations, composed both of individual migrants who have not joined
organized squatter movements, including migrants who have received lots from
INCRA previously and are disqualified from being settled again.
(c) Failure
and turnover of settlers
The
difficulty of implanting and maintaining sustainable production systems in
Amazonian settlement areas is apparent.
Among other deficiencies, settlers often have little knowledge of how to
manage a farm, including both basic administrative skills and knowledge of the
special problems of Amazonian agriculture.
In some cases, such as the Palmares-I and -II projects, settlers were
brought from shantytowns on the outskirts of Marabá. Urban slum dwellers make notoriously poor
farmers, a profession that requires at least as much specialized knowledge as
urban jobs (Moran, 1981). It should be
emphasized that lack of success of many migrants in government settlement
projects is not the result of any inherent defect in the people who are
settled, as sometimes is claimed by officials (see de Almeida, 1994). Failure often results from lack of timely and
appropriate material support, as well as from a combination of information and
attitudes that need to be acquired.
Lot turnover is a perennial problem inhibiting a reduction in
deforestation rates. When lots are
abandoned or sold, the former owners move on to deforest elsewhere. If abandoned, the lot left behind remains
unchanged for a period of time but may be invaded by landless migrants. If the lot is purchased by a second wave of
settlers, it is likely to be consolidated with neighboring lots to form a small
ranch. The bank debts, including those
from the National Program for Family Agriculture (PRONAF), are tied to the lots
rather than to the persons who received the loans. This serves as a strong stimulus to
abandoning lots once the financing funds are received. It also makes it difficult for others to buy
abandoned lots, since the purchaser would have to inherit the former owner’s
debts. Because those abandoning the lots
are often absconding with the loan money, the subsequent purchaser would be
taking on the debt without a corresponding level of improvements on the lot
from investment of the financing funds.
The result is that banks are left with an inventory of lots, which are
then exposed to subsequent invasions by the floating population.
Agricultural
extension (including educational services) is essential to implanting
sustainable systems. EMATER, the federal
agency for agricultural extension has, in recent years, limited its activities
to serving as an intermediary for agricultural credit rather than acting as an
extension agency. In 1997 INCRA
established an independent extension program called the “Lumiar Project,”
which, until it was abolished in June 2000 due to legal difficulties, paid
agricultural extension agents to attend settlers in 29 of the 276 settlement
projects (11%) in southern Pará. The
agents were thinly spread in the favored projects; for example, in the
Palmares-II project, three agents covered 517 families in a 15,000-ha
area. Financing through PRONAF grants up
to R$9500 (US$5135) per family for projects appropriate to the land they have,
such as milk cows for those with pasture and irrigated cupuassu (Theobroma
grandiflorum) and coconut seedlings for those with forest. The association that organizes the colonists
in a given settlement area can deduct 2% of the PRONAF funds for the purpose of
contracting a private firm to provide extension services. The colonist associations have often not been
wise in their choice of extension firms.
For example, the Progresso settlement area chose a firm (AGROPAN)
without qualified extension agents; the money was paid and the firm effectively
disappeared.
Chronic
problems include corruption in government agencies and sometimes also among
association officers, who have on a number of occasions absconded with funds
obtained for their associations through PRONAF financing (e.g., the Progresso
settlement area). Untenable financial decisions
also abound. An example is provided by
the MST-led association at the Palmares-II settlement area, which jumped at the
opportunity of generous financing offered in the wake of the Eldorado dos
Carajás massacre to obtain a mechanized manioc flour mill, a chicken-feed mill,
a milk-cooling facility, a chicken slaughterhouse, as well as a pool of trucks
and tractors. With the exception of the
vehicles and occasional use of the chicken-feed mill, all of these facilities
stand idle. The 10-year financing has a
two-year grace period, which expires in 2001 before any significant
agricultural production is expected.
It
is important to understand that agriculture in Brazil receives government
subsidies of many types, including frequent “amnesties” (anistías) in
which unpaid debts are forgiven. This
applies both to large ranchers and agribusinesses and to small farmers. The situation in the US during the “dust bowl” of
the 1930s, when bank foreclosures expelled thousands of small farmers from
their land, would be politically inconceivable in contemporary Brazil. Instead, the normal course of events is for
extensions of loan periods to be granted when crop yields are poor, often
ending in a default (calote).
The
experiences of the Progresso and Palmares-II settlements indicate that material
support by itself is not sufficient to overcome the barriers to establishing
successful agriculture. The success of
both individual colonists and of colonist associations depends heavily on
individual initiative. An example is
provided by the CORRENTAO cooperative in Nova Ipixuna, where material support
and local leadership coincided in setting up a processing plant for cupuassu,
assai (Euterpe oleracea) and other nontimber products extracted from the
forest. While limited resources for
material support can always most effectively be used by selecting only those
projects with strong leadership, this does not solve the problem of what to do
with the rest of the settlements. Means
of actively fostering initiative are needed.
(d) Industry
of expropriation
Generous
compensation of ranchers for expropriated land has made some ranchers who are
in economic difficulty eager to have their land taken for agrarian reform. INCRA frequently pays more per hectare as compensation
for the “improvements” (mostly pasture) on the land than the expropriated
ranches would fetch on the open market (corruption is often alleged in the
process of setting values for compensation).
In some cases, favorable terms have led to a form of collusion between
squatters’ organizations, ranchers and Brazil’s federal bank, the Banco
do Brasil. A rancher with heavy
debts can invite a squatters’ organization to invade the property (or,
alternatively, to establish a roadside camp in front of the property without
invading it). When INCRA expropriates
the property, the compensation allows payment of the bank debt, which is
advantageous to the bank because of the high probability of the rancher
defaulting on the loan had the invasion and expropriation not occurred. The squatters are benefited by obtaining land
with little risk of violent resistance.
In environmental terms, this situation results in further deforestation,
since invasion virtually always occurs in the forested portion of the properties. Invasion of indebted properties is apparently
common in Mato Grosso, but in the Marabá area, INCRA estimates that it
represents only about 10% of cases.
Compensation
for expropriated land is largely paid in the form of TDAs, which can be used at
face value to pay debts owed to the Banco do Brasil. On the open market, these bonds have
traditionally been sold for only a fraction of their face value, and are often
referred to as “rotten bonds” (títulos podres). Since 1996, however, the federal government
has been privatizing a series of large state-run enterprises, and the (usually
multinational) consortia that purchase these can pay for them using TDAs at
face value. The result is that the
secondary market for TDAs has bid their value to unprecedentedly high
levels. This makes it especially
attractive for ranchers to have their land expropriated at the present time,
thus contributing to the motivation for collusion between landless migrant
organizations and the owners of the ranches they choose to occupy. This leads to more rapid deforestation.
(e) Industry
of invasion
A
frequent accusation by INCRA is the existence of an “industry of invasion” in
which migrants receive land from INCRA, sell it, and get land again in other
INCRA settlements. Often they register
the second lot in the name of a spouse or child. At least in theory, INCRA disqualifies those
who are detected in this process (a rare occurrence in practice). INCRA officials are emphatic that in some of
the camps, particularly those organized by the Movement for Struggle for the
Land (MLT), most of the migrants are subsidized by urban patrons such as
shopkeepers in neighboring towns like Curionópolis and Parauapebas, and that
the migrants will pass the land to their patrons once they receive it from
INCRA. Part of the problem of reselling
lots might be solved by applying heavy taxes to land sales, possibly in
conjunction with increasing the bureaucratic barriers to transferring land
titles. Lack of an adequate nationwide
registry of settled migrants impedes effective measures to halt the “industry
of invasion.”
More
effective identification of those who have had lots before is only part of the
problem. While it would relieve the
government of the endless expense of repeatedly resettling the same people, the
problem does not end there. A floating
population of landless migrants who are ineligible for settlement already
exists and is part of the growing level of conflict between already settled smallholders
and individual squatters. This floating population will grow substantially if
an improved registry system begins to function.
It is also worth noting that the underlying assumption that any person
has the right to one opportunity to be settled in an INCRA project is itself
open to question. If, for example, the
proposal of some actors (such as FETAGRI) for an ecological-economic zoning in
this part of Pará is adopted, this implies a limit to the amount of land that
will be assigned to agrarian reform, and therefore to the number of families
that can be settled in the area. The
message for the migrants who arrive after the areas zoned for settlement have
been distributed as lots would therefore be that they have no right to receive
an INCRA lot in the region.
(f) Escalating
demands
One
of the hallmarks of the MST is the central role of ideology, other political
goals being important to the movement beyond gaining land and assistance for
the migrants themselves (Silveira, 2000).
The MST is divided between groups demanding additional expropriations
for new settlements and those representing migrants who have already obtained
land and now want financing, agricultural extension and other government
benefits (e.g., Figueiredo, 2000). Once
land is granted, settlers often shift their demands to financing, roads and
technical assistance. This transition
can lead either to an evolution of demands or to splitting into groups with
different emphases; for example the Palmares project split into the less-ideological
Palmares-I and the more-ideological Palmares-II settlements. Different organizations cover a spectrum of
different orientations. For example,
FETAGRI focuses on the needs of sustaining agriculture for those who have
already been granted a plot of land.
In
the case of MST settlements and camps, the families are expected to provide a
subsidy to invasions in private ranches (such as Fazenda Cabaceiras). This is done by sharing the monthly food
allotment given by INCRA until the first PRONAF financing arrives (these
sources of government support are, of course, not available to occupants on
private land). Later, the farmers in
established settlements are expected to share part of the production from their
lots. This poses an obvious problem for
a settlement such as Palmares-II, which does not have nearly enough
agricultural production to pay for the financing already granted. On the other hand, MST’s system of financing
its activities adds an important element of independence to the initial stages
of its land-occupation initiatives. In
later stages the demand for sources of government support increases, as is also
often the case with non-MST settlements.
Dependence
on government assistance tends to become an endless spiral of escalating
demands from which the settlers must sooner or later be weaned. An example is provided by the former Fazenda
Bamerindus, where those settlers in the Progresso settlement area who received
20-ha lots with cacao are now clamoring for money to pay others to prune the
cacao trees for them (personal observation).
For settlers in most areas, receiving a lot with healthy cacao trees
already producing would be a dream rather than a reason for complaints.
(g) Migration
flows
New
migrants arrive in the region in a continuous flow, especially those from the
state of Maranhão who arrive on the Carajás railway. Maranhão is a state known for its extreme
poverty, rapid population growth and highly skewed land-tenure
distribution. Migrants are expelled from
Maranhão by a development pattern that continues to increase the concentration
of wealth in the hands of a small elite while impoverishing the majority of the
population. According to INCRA, an
average of 100 families arrive per week on the train. INCRA officials are emphatic that municipal
governments in Maranhão regularly pay the trainfare to export population.
The
most basic barrier to solution of land-tenure problems in southern Pará is the
continued flow of migrants. The great
majority come from Maranhão, although some come from other source areas. If the flow of population from Maranhão is to
be stopped by means of efforts to improve the organization of settlements in
the Marabá area and by closing of the frontier through zoning coupled with
enforcement of restrictions on settling in forest areas, then the conditions
faced by migrants who arrive on the train would have to be substantially worse
than they are at present in order to stem the influx. Since migrants currently face dramatic
hardships, including a substantial risk of being killed in violent conflicts
with landholders, this option for discouraging potential migration is
unacceptable.
The
continual arrival of landless population, particularly from Maranhão, is an
aspect of the situation that is qualitatively different from the already great
backlog of unsettled migrants in southern Pará.
Migration to the area is an aspect of the situation for which a solution
must be found if the spiral of social and environmental degradation in the
region is to be contained. Provision of
passenger service plays a public-relations role for CVRD, which is
understandably eager to show that the company provides social benefits to the
region rather than merely removing iron ore from the Carajás mine, the world’s
largest high-grade iron-ore deposit. The
environmental cost of facilitating population movement to rainforest areas is,
of course, not emphasized in company advertising.
The
Carajás railway, completed in 1984, was financed by the World Bank, the European Economic Community and the Japanese Import-Export
Bank. At the time it was considered a
“model of environmental progress” (Goodland, 1985). However, only direct impacts were evaluated
in the World Bank’s environmental assessment, and the area of influence
considered was confined to a 100-km strip along the railway plus the mine and
port areas (Fearnside, 1989). . The
Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest (PPG-7) now provides a
framework through which efforts to contain environmental destruction in this
part of Amazonia might be funded by the same sources that originally financed
the railway (Brazil, MMA, 2000).
3. LAND TENURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
(a)
Deforestation
For
many years ranchers have considered themselves to be “obliged” to clear forest
to guarantee their tenure because, despite prohibitions of deforestation, any
landowner who did not clear would, in practice, lose the land either to
expropriation or to invasion.
Land-tenure problems are leading to environmental destruction through
both direct and indirect effects, speeding deforestation by both large and
small landholders. It should be
emphasized that the bulk of deforestation is done by large and medium ranches
(Fearnside, 1993, 1997c). LANDSAT
satellite imagery for 1998 indicates that slightly over half of the clearing
done over the 1997-1998 period in Brazilian Amazonia was in the form of
continuous patches at least 100 ha in area (Brazil, INPE, 2000), a scale of
activity that exceeds by at least a factor of 20 what a small farmer can clear
in a single year using family labor.
The
current invasion of large ranches by organized landless peasants occurs almost
exclusively in the forested portions of the properties (e.g., Fazenda
Cabaceiras). This is undoubtedly partly
due to the greater likelihood of ranchers reacting with armed resistance if the
pasture areas of the properties are invaded.
Another important factor is the difficulty of planting annual crops such
as rice and maize in pasture areas because of the compacted soil, the thick mat
of pasture grass roots, and the propensity of the grass to resprout as a weed
after crops are planted. Converting
pasture to crops is a task that, using manual tools, would be daunting to even
the strongest migrants.
Maintaining
productivity as pasture also faces impediments, either for small settlers or
for large ranchers. Pasture degrades
after about ten years, but can be “recuperated” if the logs and stumps are
mechanically removed and the land is plowed, fertilized, limed and replanted
(Faminow, 1998; Mattos and Uhl, 1994).
These operations cost approximately R$1500 (US$811) per hectare, much
more than the average cost of R$350/ha (US$180/ha) to buy pasture land or
R$80/ha (US$43/ha) for forest land. This
discourages intensification of pasture as long as land is available for
purchase.
The
settlement process leads to clearing of additional forest even for the portion
of the population that is settled in already cleared areas. For example, in the Palmares-I settlement
area (begun in 1993), colonists who received pasture land plant annual crops in
the lots of their neighbors who received land still under forest. The settlements lead inexorably to a
landscape dominated by pasture that, except for the greater density of houses,
has the same general aspect as the vast areas of pasture in the neighboring
large landholdings. The Boca do Cardoso
settlement area, begun by GETAT in 1986 in an area of continuous forest
dominated by Brazil nut trees, provides a sad example. The impermanence of the colonist population
is as apparent today as it has been since the 1970s in the PICs along the Transamazon Highway (Highway BR-230), where
almost all of the original colonists have sold out and gone away. In Boca do Cardoso, one of the second wave of
lot owners has bought 11 lots, which he manages as a small cattle ranch
(personal observation). The pattern of
lot turnover and consolidation repeats the experience of the Transamazon Highway (Fearnside, 1986a).
The
process of establishing settlement areas leads to infrastructure investments that
induce further deforestation. INCRA
wants to build 25,000 km of access roads for the 276 currently existing
settlements (however, as of July 2000 the agency only had funds for 1200 km). While road access is essential for viable
commercial agriculture, it is also well known as a key factor in accelerating
deforestation (Fearnside, 1987).
INCRA
has not been initiating new settlements in forested areas in Amazonia since 1996. In November 1999 this practice was formalized
by an operating directive (INCRA/ IBAMA Portaria 88/98), requiring only
non-forested areas to be selected for new INCRA settlements. While this has frequently been cited by
government officials as indicating that new settlements do not cause deforestation,
this conclusion could not be further from the truth. In reality, virtually all new settlement
areas have continued to be established in forested land, even though it is true
that INCRA does not itself select these locations. This is because INCRA, in practice, no longer
selects the sites for new settlement areas at all. Rather, the MST or other squatters’
organizations select the locations by choosing the ranches to be invaded, and
INCRA’s role is confined to subsequent “legalization” of these faits
accomplis. In addition, previously
established settlements in forest areas are frequently expanded.
(b) Logging
The
role of logging may contribute to the selection of forested areas for invasion,
since squatters often sell logs. The
Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources
(IBAMA), which is responsible for regulating logging, is only sporadically
present. Intense logging in the forested
portions of settlement areas (such as the Progresso settlement area) is evident;
settlers may receive a small payment for allowing the logging, although some
undoubtedly takes place as simple theft.
Loggers cut the Brazilnut trees for which the region is famous as the
“Brazil nut polygon” (polígono dos castanhais). This species is legally protected by Brazil’s forestry code (Law 4771
of 15 September 1965). Isolated trees
have therefore been left standing in pastures, where the trees often die when
pastures are burned to control invading woody vegetation. In 1995 a loophole was opened in the
protection of Brazil nut trees, allowing trees to be cut that are already dead
or dying (desvitalizados) (IBAMA Portaria 048/95 of 10 July 1995). This loophole expires at the end of the year
2000, but may be renewed. Rampant
cutting of live Brazil nut trees is everywhere apparent (personal
observation). The absence of IBAMA
enforcement of logging regulations strikes at the basis for sustainable forest
management: protection from unfair competition from unsustainable logging.
Entry
of migrants into private land can stimulate logging in the remainder of the
forest reserve by the landowner or by loggers who pay the owner a fee for the
timber they remove (e.g., Fazenda Cabaceiras).
Timber sale can also provide a form of collusion between the migrants
and the landowners. Because current
regulations effectively permit 3 ha of deforestation per year per family (MMA
Instrução Normativa 07/99 of 17 April 1999), with the right to sell 15 m3
of logs per hectare cleared, this provides the main mechanism for legal
delivery of logs to sawmills and for obtaining documents that give the
appearance of legality to deliveries from forbidden sources. In contrast, obtaining approval of a forestry
management plan from IBAMA requires at least two years and considerable
expense. For ranch owners who have
already cleared the legally permitted percentage of their properties, which is
the usual case in the Marabá area, the investment of time and money needed to
obtain approval of a forest management plan effectively closes the opportunity
for the ranch owners to harvest timber legally from the forested portion
(“legal reserve”) of their land. The net
result is a spur to deforestation by migrants.
(c)
Environmental services
Groups
on all sides are learning to use an ecological discourse, from the MST to the
large landholders represented by the Union of Rural Producers of Marabá
(PRORURAL). It is still sometimes
unclear whether this discourse is a first step to more environmentally sound
development or a means of neutralizing the influence of environmental concerns
as an impediment to further destruction.
Most
promising is a proposal by FETAGRI called PROAMBIENTE (pro-environment),
which calls for granting a percentage of agricultural loan amounts from the Banco
da Amazônia (BASA) as a subsidy to cover the incremental costs of
sustainable and reduced-impact practices.
FETAGRI argues for the subsidy on the basis of the environmental
services of the forests left uncut (e.g., Fearnside, 1997d). Much remains to be defined, such as how to
monitor the improved practices, how to attribute avoided deforestation and how
to deal with cases of non-compliance. A
source of funds for a subsidy of this kind would also have to be found, such as
international negotiations related to carbon benefits (Fearnside, 1999b).
4. NEEDED MEASURES
National
policies are needed to fortify family agriculture, redirecting government
priorities from soybeans and other land uses adapted to large landholders. Reclaiming of pasture land for agriculture, sometimes
denominated “recuperation of degraded lands,” is an essential activity if the
large ranches are to be redistributed to small farmers without spurring further
deforestation.
Major
progress in stabilizing the colonist population is vital to all other goals of
development, including limiting environmental destruction. Among other measures, this will require
substantial investment in education and health (including family planning). Consideration should be given to the
possibility of environmental services as a source of support, as through the
PROAMBIENTE proposal.
Effective
restrictions are needed on selling of lots and on subsequently receiving lots
under the agrarian reform program. This
will require a national registry of settled migrants. Changing the terms of financing to tie loans
to individuals rather than to plots of land would help reduce colonist
turnover. Establishing the rule of law
is a prerequisite for other policy tools, such as ecological-economic zoning,
which can not be expected to contain environmental destruction unleashed by
theft, fraud and corruption.
The
severe land-tenure and environmental problems caused by the continuing flux of
migrants to the Marabá area are likely to be repeated as transport improves to
neighboring frontiers. Paving the Transamazon Highway from Marabá to Altamira, and then westward to
Rurópolis (expected under the 2000-2003 Pluriannual Plan, also known as “Avança
Brasil”), is likely to funnel this flux into these areas, where larger
areas of uncut forest remain. This
underlines the need to take action to diminish the flow of people to Marabá,
particularly from Maranhão.
Slowing
the flow of population from Maranhão requires, at a minimum, an end to some
municipal governments in Maranhão paying the fare for migrantsand removing any
subsidy by CVRD in providing passenger service on the railway. Terminating
passenger servicemay eventually need to be considered . Increased efforts are also needed to achieve
agrarian reform and viable family agriculture production within Maranhão. No program to deal with land-tenure and
environmental problems in southern Pará can expect to be successful without
ending the export of population from source areas. Facing the problem of migration is a
prerequisite for successful amelioration of social and environmental problems
in Amazonia by establishing the rule of
law, redistributing pasture areas in large landholdings and implanting
sustainable forms of family agriculture in their place. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
BASA:
Banco da Amazônia, S.A. (Bank of Amazonia, Inc.)
CNA:
Confederação Nacional de Agricultura (National Confederation of
Agriculture)
CORRENTAO: Cooperativa dos Trabalhadores
Agro-Extrativistas de Nova Ipixuna (Cooperative of Agro-extractivist Workers of
Nova Ipixuna)
CVRD: Companhia
Vale do Rio Doce (Rio Doce Valley Company)
EMATER: Empresa de Assistência Técnica e
Extensão Rural (Enterprise for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension)
EMBRAPA: Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa
Agropecuária (Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural and Cattle-Ranching
Research)
FETAGRI: Federação dos Trabalhadores na
Agricultura (Federation of Workers in Agriculture)
GETAT: Grupo Executivo das Terras do
Araguaia-Tocantins (Executive Group for Lands of the Araguaia and
Tocantins)
IBAMA: Instituto
Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Brazilian
Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources)
ITERPA: Instituto das Terras do Pará
(Institute for Lands of Pará)
INCRA: Instituto Nacional de Colonização e
Reforma Agrária (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform)
MLT: Movimento de Luta pela Terra (Movement for Struggle for the Land)
MMA: Ministério do Meio Ambiente e da Amazônia
Legal (Ministry of the Environment and of the Legal Amazon)
MST: Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem
Terra (Landless Rural Workers’ Movement)
PPG-7: Programa
Piloto para Conservação das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil (Pilot Program to
Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest)
PRONAF: Programa Nacional de Agricultura
Familiar (National Program for Family Agriculture)
PRORURAL: Sindicato dos Produtores Rurais de
Marabá (Union of Rural Producers of
Marabá)
PIC: Projeto Integrado de Colonização
(Integrated Colonization Project)
TDA: Títulos da Dívida Agrária (Agrarian Debt
Bonds)
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