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Fearnside,
P.M. 2005. Deforestation
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DOI:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00697.x
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Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates and Consequences
Philip M. Fearnside
Philip M. Fearnside
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia
(INPA)
Caixa Postal 478
Manaus 69083-000
Amazonas
E-mail of first author: <pmfearn@inpa.gov.br>
07 Jan. 2005
1 Figure (2 graphs)
Paper submitted: November 16, 2004;
revised manuscript accepted December 18, 2004.
Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates and Consequences
PHILIP M. FEARNSIDE*
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas
da Amazônia (INPA), Caixa Postal 478, Manaus 69083-000, Amazonas, Brazil
FOOTNOTE
*email pmfearn@inpa.gov.br
Paper submitted: November 16, 2004;
revised manuscript accepted December 18, 2004.
Abstract: Brazil’s
Amazon forest remained largely intact until the “modern” era of deforestation
began with the inauguration of the Transamazon Highway in 1970. Amazonian deforestation rates have trended
upward since 1991, with clearing proceeding at a variable but always rapid
pace. Amazonian forests are cut for
various reasons, but cattle ranching predominates. The large and medium-sized ranches account
for about 70% of clearing activity.
Profit from beef cattle is only one of the income sources that make
deforestation profitable. Forest
degradation results from logging, ground fires (facilitated by logging), and
the effects of fragmentation and edge formation. Degradation contributes to forest loss. The impacts of deforestation include loss of
biodiversity, reduced water cycling (and rainfall), and contributions to global
warming. Strategies to slow
deforestation include repression through licensing procedures, monitoring and
fines. The severity of penalties for
deforestation needs to be sufficient to deter illegal clearing but not so great
as to be inapplicable in practice.
Policy reform is also needed to address root causes of deforestation,
including the role of clearing in establishing land claims for both small and
large actors.
Introduction
The
onslaught on the Amazon
began only in the early 1970s. While
enormous tracts are still intact, the rate of forest loss is now dramatic,
especially in the “arc of deforestation” along the southern and eastern
edges. Biodiversity loss and climatic impacts are major concerns,
and the vastness of the forests remaining means that the potential impacts of
continued clearing are far more serious than those, already severe, resulting
from their loss to date.
Combating deforestation in Brazil is a priority for government action and international assistance. Monitoring and repression is currently the principal strategy. Effective inspection and the levying of fines for those lacking the necessary permits of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment (IBAMA), however, must be accompanied by an understanding of the social, economic and political aspects necessary to address the problem and the motives through changes in policy.
Extent and
Rate of Deforestation
LANDSAT data interpreted at Brazil’s National Institute
for Space Research (INPE) (Fig. 1) indicate that, by 2003, forest cleared in
Brazilian Amazonia had reached 648.5 × 10³ km² (16.2% of the 4 × 106 km² originally forested
portion of Brazil's 5 × 106 km² Legal Amazon Region), including approximately 100 × 10³ km²
of "old" (pre-1970) deforestation in Pará and Maranhão (Brazil, INPE
2004). Both the current rate and the
cumulative extent of deforestation represent vast areas. The original extent of Brazil’s Amazon forest
was approximately the area of Western Europe.
The rate is often discussed in Brazil in terms of “Belgiums”—annual loss
approaching the country’s area (30.5 × 10³ km²)—while the cumulative amount is
compared to France (547.0 × 103 km2). Almost five centuries of European presence
before 1970 deforested an area only slightly larger than Portugal. Current values for deforestation can be
obtained from INPE's web site: http://www.inpe.br. Note, however, that the official explanations
as to why deforestation rates
fluctuate (decrees affecting incentives and programs for inspection and levying
fines) are unlikely to be correct, as will be explained below. In addition, a variety of technical questions
remain open regarding the numbers themselves (Fearnside & Barbosa 2004).
Causes of Deforestation
In Brazilian
Amazonia, the relative weight of small farmers versus large landholders changes
continually with economic and demographic pressures. Large landholders are most sensitive to
economic changes such as interest rates and other financial returns, government
subsidies for agricultural credit, the rate of inflation, and land prices. Tax incentives were a strong driver of
deforestation in the 1970s and 1980s, and although a decree in June 1991
suspended new incentives, the old ones continue, contrary to the
popular impression fostered by statements by government officials that all had
been ended. Other incentives, such as
government-subsidized credit at rates well below inflation, became much scarcer
after 1984.
Hyperinflation
dominated the economy for decades preceding Brazil's "Plano Real"
reform (July 1994). Land was at a
premium, and prices reached levels way higher than could be justified as an
input to agricultural and ranching production.
Deforestation enabled claims to land, and cutting for cattle pasture was
the cheapest and most effective in this sense, although the extent to which
this activity was merely land speculation has been a matter of debate (Hecht et
al. 1988; Faminow 1998; Fearnside 1987, 2002a).
Tax incentives and subsidized credit for large cattle ranches were important drivers of deforestation in the 1970s (e.g., Mahar 1979), but have played a lesser role since 1984. Land speculation was also important until around 1987, but there was a subsequent increase in the role of pasture profit from beef production (Mattos & Uhl 1994; Margulis 2003).
Brazil's
economic recession best explains the decline in deforestation rates from 1987
through 1991. Ranchers were unable to
expand their clearings as quickly, and the government lacked funds for road
construction and settlement projects.
The impact of repressive measures (helicopter patrols, confiscation of
chainsaws, fines, etc.) was probably minor.
Policy changes on fiscal incentives were also quite ineffectual. The decree suspending incentives (No. 153)
was dated 25 June 1991—subsequent to most of the observed decline in the rate
(Fig. 1). Even for the last year (1991)
the effect would have been minimal, as the average date for the LANDSAT images
for the 1991 data set was August. At the
low point in 1991 many ranchers were unable to use their funds for investment
in clearing because then-president Fernando Collor de Melo had seized bank
accounts in March of 1990, with funds subsequently released in small installments
over a period of years.
The 1995 peak is probably a reflection of
economic recovery under the Plano Real.
The reforms increased the availability of capital, and municipal
elections in 1994 also resulted in an increase in agricultural credit which, in
providing cash to landholders, is much more effective in spurring deforestation
than economic changes that affect the value of less liquid assets such as land.
The subsequent fall in
deforestation rates in 1996 and 1997 is a logical consequence of the Plano Real
having sharply cut the rate of inflation.
Land values peaked in 1995 and fell by about 50% by the end of
1997. Falling land values make land
speculation unattractive. Deforestation
rates then climbed to a level of 17-18 × 10³ km² per year, which remained
constant for the next four years, followed by a jump in 2002 to a new plateau
at 23 × 10³ km² per year (Fig. 1).
The association of major
swings in deforestation rate with macroeconomic factors such as money
availability and inflation rate is one indication that much of the clearing is
done by those who invest in medium to large cattle ranches, rather than by
small farmers using family labor. The
predominant role of larger landholder ranches is evidenced by the location of
clearings: Mato Grosso alone accounted for 26% of the 11.1 × 10³ km² total in
1991. Mato Grosso has the highest percentage of its privately held land in
ranches of 1000 ha or more: 84% at the time of the 1985 agricultural
census. By contrast, Rondônia – famous
for its deforestation by small farmers – accounted for only 10% of the 1991
total, and Acre 3%. The rise to a rate
of 23 × 10³ km²/year in 2002, even with a lackluster domestic economy, can be
partly attributed to an increasing globalization of the forces of deforestation,
with a sharp growth in the international market for soybeans and especially for
beef, the latter previously restricted to the domestic market because of
foot-and-mouth disease (Alencar et al. 2004; Kaimowitz et al. 2004).
Understanding who is to blame for deforestation is vital for any
program attempting to reduce it. Surveys
carried out in 1998 by the Institute for Environmental Research in Amazonia
(IPAM) in 202 properties in the "arc of deforestation" from Paragominas
to Rio Branco indicated only 25% of the clearing in properties of 100 ha or
less (Nepstad et al. 1999a). The social
cost of substantially reducing deforestation rates would therefore be much less
than is implied by frequent pronouncements that blame "poverty" for
environmental problems in the region. Thus, strategies such as those that promote agroforestry
among small farmers are likely to be ineffectual when cattle ranchers with
large estates are the principal villains. Money from drugs, corruption and many other illegal sources can also
be laundered by investing in questionably profitable ventures, such as gold
mining dredges and failing cattle ranches.
The rapidly increasing drug traffic in Amazonia is likely to exacerbate
this trend.
The advance of soybean
plantations in Amazonia currently poses the greatest threat with its stimulus
for massive government investment in infrastructure such as waterways, railways
and highways. Infrastructure development
unleashes an insidious chain of investment and profiteering that can be
expected to destroy more forest than the plantations as such (Fearnside
2001a). Logging roads, especially for
mahogany extraction, precede and accompany highways, opening up frontiers for
investing timber profits in soybean plantations and cattle ranches. Timber extraction increases the flammability
of the forest, leading to understorey fires that set in motion a vicious cycle
of tree mortality, increasing fuel loads, and re-entry of fire, until the
forest is completely destroyed. From a
stage of “cryptic”, undetected
deforestation this process leads to damage that will eventually be recognized
on LANDSAT imagery as deforestation (Cochrane et al. 1999; Nepstad et al.
1999b).
Transportation infrastructure is a determining factor accelerating migration to remote
areas and increasing the clearing of already-established
properties. The Avança Brasil program, a development package for the period
2000–2007, included US$20 billion in infrastructure in the Amazon region
(Laurance et al. 2001; Fearnside 2002b; Nepstad et al. 2001), mostly driven by
the perceived need to transport soybeans.
Particularly damaging are the BR-163 (Santarém-Cuiabá) and BR-319
(Manaus–Porto Velho) highways, which can access large blocks of little disturbed
forest. Its successor, the “Pluriannual
Plan” (PPA) for the 2004-2007 period, is virtually
identical to Avança Brasil.
The Role of Forest Degradation in Forest Loss
Logging
Logging
greatly increases the susceptibility of forest to fire. Once fire enters it
kills trees and increases fuel loads and understorey drying, raising the risk
of more-damaging future fires and the complete degradation of the forest. The impact of the selective logging of
low-density, commercially valuable species is often underestimated.
The logging process results in the damage of almost twice the volume of
the trees being harvested (Veríssimo et al. 1992). Because many smaller trees are killed, the
effect on individuals is even greater: one study near Paragominas, Pará counted
27 trees killed or severely damaged by collateral effectsfor every tree
harvested (Veríssimo et al. 1992). Gaps
in the canopy allow sun and wind to reach the forest floor, resulting in drier
microclimates. The number of rainless
days needed for the understorey to reach flammable condition is much less for a
forest that has been logged than for one that has not (Nepstad et al.
2004).
Fire
In
Amazonian forests, fires spread as a slowly moving line of flame in the
understorey. The bases of many trees are
burned as the fire lingers. Amazonian
forest trees are not fire-adapted, and mortality from a first burn provides the
fuel and dryness needed to make the second and subsequent fires much more
damaging. The temperatures reached and
the height of flames in the second fire are significantly greater than in the
first, thereby killing many additional trees (Cochrane 2003). After several fires the area is cleared to
the point where it appears as deforestation in LANDSAT imagery (Cochrane et al.
1999; Nepstad et al. 1999b).
During
the 1997-1998 El Niño event, the “Great Roraima Fire” burned 11,394-13,928 km²
of intact primary forest (Barbosa & Fearnside 1999), and fires in the “arc
of deforestation” were estimated to have totalled a further 15 × 10³ km²
(Cochrane 2003; Nepstad et al. 1999b).
Substantial burning also occurred in logging areas near Tailândia,
southern Pará, while additional areas of standing forest burned in the state of
Amazonas. In southern Pará, the damage
from El Niño events is magnified by the combination of the dry season being
longer than in other parts of Amazonia, the concentration of logging activity
there, and the concentration of deforestation and associated burning for
agriculture and ranching in this major part of the
“arc of fire.”
Impacts of Deforestation
Loss of productivity
Soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and soil compaction are among the most obvious impacts of deforestation. Agricultural productivity declines as soil quality degrades, although a lower plateau of productivity can be maintained by systems such as shifting cultivation. Continuous inputs of lime, manure, and nutrients can counter degradation, but economic and physical resource limitations render this unviable for large areas distant from urban markets (Fearnside 1997a). Deforestation removes options for sustainable forest management for both timber and, presently little-valued, genetic and pharmacological resources.
Changes in hydrological
regime
Watershed functions are lost when forest
is converted to uses such as pasture.
Precipitation in deforested areas quickly runs off, creating flash
floods followed by periods of greatly reduced or no stream flow. Regular flooding patterns are important for
natural ecosystem functioning in and near the river as well as for floodplain
agriculture.
The
percentage of water recycled within the Amazon Basin is now believed to be
20-30% (Lean
et al. 1996), rather than the traditional figure of 50% (Salati & Vose
1984). Although indicating that the hydrological
impact of deforestation would be less than otherwise thought, in reality the
opposite is true. That almost exactly
50% of the rain falling in the basin flows out through the Amazon River implies that the other 50% has been recycled, assuming that water
vapor stays within the basin. In fact, some
water vapor escapes to the Pacific, especially in the northwest corner of the
basin in Colombia. More importantly, a
substantial amount is transported to south and south-central Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
and Argentina, and some continues across the Atlantic to southern Africa. This gives Amazonian deforestation a level of
impact to date little appreciated at the policy level (Fearnside 2004). Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were subject to
repeated blackouts and electricity rationing in 2001, as a result of low water
levels in hydroelectric reservoirs in the non-Amazonian portion of the
country. Water
is supplied to central-south Brazil by air currents (low-level jets) coming
from Bolivia and from the western part of Brazilian Amazonia (western Rondônia,
Acre and western Amazonas). Water vapor
supply to the central-south has different magnitudes and differing importance
depending on the season. During the
dry-to-wet transition period (September-October) in southwest Amazonia, water
vapor supply is particularly important to avoid a lengthening of the dry season
in São Paulo, critical as Brazil’s most productive agricultural region. Hydroelectric generation capacity, on the
other hand, is particularly dependent on rain in the austral summer (December),
corresponding to the rainy season in southwest Amazonia when the difference
between the hydrological behavior of forested and deforested areas is
least. According to preliminary
estimates by Pedro Silva Dias of the University of São Paulo, roughly 70% of
the rainfall in the state of São Paulo comes from Amazonian water vapor during
this period.
In addition to maintenance of
basin-wide precipitation and long-range water transport, deforestation also
produces meso-scale effects. Recent
observations of a slight (approximately 5%) increase in rainfall in the heavily
deforested Ji-Paraná area of Rondônia, together with satellite observations
showing cloud formation occurring preferentially over clearings as small as 5
km in diameter, corroborate preliminary theoretical results on meso-scale
effects of deforestation. The potential
of deforestation to increase local precipitation by providing convective
updrafts of air that trigger cloud formation might mislead the unwary to
conclude that deforestation is not so bad.
It could provide a deceptive temporary improvement as deforestation
advances, only to be followed by a precipitous decline in rainfall as
deforestation passes a threshold. In
addition, the increase of rainfall over a clearing means that rain has been, in
effect “stolen” from somewhere else.
This includes both the distant destinations of water vapor transport and
the nearby forest edges. Forest edges
would suffer because the convection cells formed over clearings will not only
take wet air aloft to provoke rain, but will also create a down draft over the
nearby forest, bringing dry air down that will inhibit rainfall and dry the
forest near the edge of the clearing (perhaps in a band about 20-km wide,
provided prevailing winds are not blowing).
This drying from edges adds an additional feedback reinforcing the
degradation of forest edges
through fire and water stress.
Biodiversity loss
Biodiversity
maintenance is a function to which many attribute value beyond the commercial
sale of products (Fearnside 1999). The
loss of major portions of Brazil’s tropical forests is impoverishing, above
all, the earth’s biodiversity (Capobianco et al. 2001). The biodiversity impact of continued
deforestation is much greater in areas with little remaining forest and high
levels of endemism, such as the Atlantic Forest. If Amazonian deforestation is allowed to
continue to near complete destruction, the same levels of risk to biodiversity
would also apply there.
Net Emissions of Greenhouse Gases
Forest fires emit
greenhouse gases. The “Great Roraima
Fire” during the 1997-1998 El Niño event released 17.9-18.3 × 106 t CO2-equivalent C through
combustion, of which 67% (12.0-12.3 × 106 t CO2-equivalent
C) was from fires in primary forest (Barbosa & Fearnside 1999). CO2 carbon equivalent
converts the various greenhouse gases to CO2-equivalent C
considering the global warming potential of each gas over a 100-year time
horizon using the conversions adopted under the Kyoto Protocol. Clearing
at the rate prevailing in 2003 implies approximately 429 × 106 tons
of CO2-equivalent carbon emission, while for the 1988-1994 period
(the base period used by Brazil for its initial greenhouse gas inventory under
the climate convention) released 275 × 106 tons including all
components (updated from Fearnside [2000a], including corrections in Fearnside
& Laurance [2004] and Nogueira et al. [in press]), or 252 × 106
tons if only the emissions and wood density considered in the National
Inventory are used. This figure is
slightly more than double the official value of 116.9 × 106 tons
(Brazil, MCT 2004, p.149). The difference is explained by a series of omitted
components in the official estimate (including roots and necromass) and by a
high estimate for carbon uptake by secondary forests that does not reflect the
slow rate at which these grow in degraded Amazonian pastures.
What most distinguishes the global
warming implications of Amazonian deforestation from those of other tropical
forests is the huge potential for future emissions. In 1990, net committed emissions from
Brazilian deforestation represented 5% of the global total from all sources,
including both land-use change and fossil fuels, at that time (Fearnside 1997b),
while the carbon stock in biomass in Brazilian Amazonia represented 38% of the
tropical total (Fearnside 2000b, p.129).
“Net committed emissions” refers to the net result of emissions and
uptakes as an area of forest is replaced by a patchwork of other land uses (in
the proportions that would be reached at equilibrium if current land-use
patterns continue).
Strategies to Slow Deforestation
Repression
In Brazil, deforestation
control is mainly by repression through clearing licenses, inspections and fines. Campaigns are often announced simultaneously
with the annual conclusions of INPE’s monitoring program. The first major effort to repress
deforestation was in 1989 under the “Our Nature” (Nossa Natureza) program.
Since then a series of crackdowns has been unsuccessful. Clearing rates in the region seem to rise and
fall independent of these
programs. Repression, while undoubtedly
necessary, needs to be rethought, and underlying causes addressed.
A strong indication that Brazil is
capable of controlling deforestation was provided by the dramatic drop in the
number of fires on 1 July 2000, when a prohibition on burning came into
effect. Imagery from the AVHRR sensor
interpreted at INPE indicates that this drop was more than 80%. Deforestation also fell because of a
deforestation and licensing program that was active in Mato Grosso over the
1999-2001 period, despite subsequent changes in the state government having
halted the program as an effective impediment to deforestation (Fearnside
2003a; Fearnside & Barbosa 2003).
The
reduction of burning in Mato Grosso was achieved by a combination of
measures. A system of permits was
instituted by the state’s environment agency (FEMA) that included a printout of
a satellite image showing the property boundaries and the existing
deforestation. Fines were issued with a
satellite image printed on them, thus discouraging argument and attempts to
misrepresent the area actually cleared.
Portions of Mato Grosso with the greatest decreases in burning were
those subjected to special community training and education programs in fire
management by the Amazonian Working Group (GTA) and the Friends of the Earth –
Brazilian Amazonia, with support from FEMA and from the Prevention and Control Programme for Forest and Savannah Fires in the
Legal Amazon (PROARCO)
of the Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest (PP-G7). Plans have been announced to extend the
system to select municipalities in Pará and Rondônia.
Policy Reform on Taxes,
Credit and Subsidies
A major problem
in controlling deforestation is that much of what needs to be done is outside
of the purview of agencies such as IBAMA that are charged with environmental
issues. Authority to change tax laws and
credit policies rest with other government agencies, as do resettlement
policies and road-building and development priorities. Tax subsidies for cattle ranches approved by
the Superintendency for Development of Amazonia (SUDAM) were an important force
motivating deforestation in the 1970s and 1980s; the ending of approval of new
subsidized projects in June 1991 did not revoke the projects for which tax
subsidies had already been granted.
SUDAM-approved projects not only gave tax-exemption on income they
generated, but also allowed the owners to invest in their ranches part of the
tax they owed on earnings from operations elsewhere. The exclusion of ranches in 1991 did not
affect other damaging activities, such as sawmills and pig-iron smelters fueled
by charcoal. The remaining tax subsidies
need to be removed.
Another
motive for deforestation, more prominent in the 1970s and 1980s than now, is
land speculation. The capital gain from
selling a property after holding it for a few years was a major source of
profit for ranchers as long as land values increased faster than
inflation. While average land values are
no longer increasing at the rates prior to the abrupt slowing of inflation with
the 1994 Real Plan, individual properties can still produce speculative profits,
particularly when near a newly-built or improved road. Heavy taxes should be applied to take the
profit out of land speculation, both to remove the remaining speculative force
in areas favored by infrastructure and to provide protection should there someday
be a return to the astronomical inflation rates prevailing in Brazil for most
of the past century.
Tax
evasion can be a significant source of investment funds in Amazonian
ranches. Some of the ranchers who
deforest the most are medical doctors and other professionals from urban areas. People in such professions often have large
incomes that they fail to declare.
Investing their money in the stock market or urban real estate they are
likely draw the attention of tax authorities, but most of the investment in
Amazonian ranches is of types for which authorities have little basis for
evaluation. Even if the soil and
rainfall regimes are unfavorable for pasture, resulting in some loss on the
investment, money from beef sales from an Amazonian ranch will be “clean.” The
government must invest in law-enforcement and in tightening the tracking of
financial movements to eliminate this important driver of deforestation.
Deforestation
also receives a strong impetus from subsidized agricultural credit. The government subsidy goes beyond low
interest rates and generous grace periods.
There are also frequent “amnesties”, either forgiving debts or
converting them to virtually token payments over long periods at low
interest. Amnesties are granted when
production is reduced by droughts or other “acts of God.” While usually viewed as “one-time”
interventions, in fact they are a regular feature and represent a large
additional subsidy to deforestation.
A
variety of other subsidies also increase the profitability of agriculture and
ranching. These include price supports
for many agricultural products, with government guarantees of the price paid to
the farmer irrespective of how distant from markets the farm may be. Many special programs supply inputs such as
fertilizer or lime to specific crops, and the vast network of transportation
infrastructure, at government expense.
Land-Tenure and Settlement
Policy Reform
The nature of settlements
established by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA)
has changed markedly over the years. In
the 1970s and 1980s most were placed in areas chosen by INCRA. Since the mid-1990s INCRA has claimed that
new settlements are only sited in areas already deforested so as to minimize
their impact on deforestation. Despite
numerous official statements that such a policy was in effect, however, new
settlements continued to be placed in forested areas, such as the 1996 Rio
Acarí and Rio Juma settlements in the state of Amazonas. More recently, INCRA has essentially ceded
its role of determining settlement sites to squatter organizations such as the
Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST); squatters invade either public land or
the “legal reserves” (areas required to be kept forested) of large ranches, and
INCRA subsequently “legalizes” the settlements when they are faits accomplis and compensates the
ranchers for the lost land. Because compensation has generally been
higher than the market price for land, some ranchers quietly encourage
squatters. Bankrupt ranches undergoing
foreclosure by the Banco do Brasil have been particularly prone to invasion – a
situation that both assures squatters a resistance-free invasion and solves the
financial problem of the Banco do Brasil when the compensation is paid by INCRA. The areas chosen by squatters for invasion
are invariably under primary tropical forest rather than pasture, agriculture
or secondary forest. The timber provides
capital for the squatters and the soils are considerably better than could be
expected in a degraded cattle pasture.
The de facto shift of INCRA
activity to following in the path of initiatives by landless peasant
organizations creates an additional barrier to effective control of this form
of deforestation (Fearnside 2001b).
Although small farmers account for only about 30% of deforestation (Fearnside 1993a), its intensity (the impact per km² of land) within the area they occupy is greater than for the medium and large ranchers holding 89% of the Legal Amazon's private land. Deforestation intensity declines with increasing property size. Deforestation would, therefore, increase if forest areas held by large ranches were redistributed into small holdings. This emphasizes the importance of using already cleared areas for agrarian reform, rather than following the politically easier path of distributing areas still in forest. Large as the area already cleared is, it falls far short of the potential demand for settlement. Indeed, the Legal Amazon as a whole falls short of this demand. Recognizing the existence of carrying capacity limits, and then maintaining population levels within these, is fundamental to any long-term plan for the sustainable occupation of Amazonia (Fearnside 1997c). Deforestation for cattle pasture is considered to be an "improvement" (benfeitoria) for the purpose of establishing and maintaining land title. As long as this situation remains, one can expect landholders will clearcut their forest despite prohibitions. A change in land-titling procedures to cease recognizing pasture as an improvement has yet to take place.
Agrarian
reform is needed both in Amazonia and in the source
areas of migrants outside of the region in order to stem the flow of people to
new areas in search of land. The
availability of alternative employment both in rural and in urban areas is also
related to these population flows. At
the same time, an “industry of settlement” has grown up where people who
are granted land in one settlement area sell their claims (often informally if
definitive land title has not yet been granted) and move on to try to obtain a
parcel of land in a new settlement.
INCRA’s often-unsuccessful efforts to detect and disqualify those who
have received land before only result in the creation of a permanently landless
class that also contributes to deforestation.
The goal of provision of employment opportunities for all Brazilians
will have to be met in ways that are less environmentally destructive than
granting plots in Amazonian settlement areas (Fearnside 2001b).
Environmental Services
Economic activities in
Amazonia almost exclusively involve material commodities—timber, minerals, the
products of agriculture and ranching, and non-timber products such as natural
rubber and Brazil nuts. The potential is
much greater, in terms of both monetary value and sustainability, for pursuing
a radically different strategy for long-term support: finding ways to tap the
environmental services of the forest as a means of both sustaining the human
population and maintaining the forest (Fearnside 1997d, 2003b).
At least
three classes of environmental services are provided by Amazonian forests:
biodiversity maintenance, carbon storage, and water cycling. The magnitude and value of these services are
poorly quantified, and the diplomatic and other steps through which they might
be compensated are also in their infancy—facts which
do not diminish their importance nor the pressing need to focus effort on
providing both the information and the political will required to integrate
them into the economy in such a way that maintains rather than destroys the
forest. The role of tropical forests in
averting global warming is much closer to serving as a basis for international
financial flows than are other environmental services such as biodiversity
maintenance. This is because the United
Nations Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) has advanced further than the
Convention on Biodiversity, even though both were signed simultaneously at the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992. The UN-FCCC has been
supplemented with the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Investment
interest in carbon with a view to short-term returns is likely to be limited,
given the fact that the agreement over the Kyoto Protocol reached in Bonn in
July 2001 excludes credit for forest maintenance in the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) during the Protocol’s first commitment period (2008–2012).
Should this be allowed in future commitment periods, Brazil could
potentially gain substantially from CDM projects to reduce deforestation. A proposal is also under discussion for the
creation of a means whereby deforestation avoided now could generate credits
after 2012 (Santilli et al. 2003). The
political struggles underlying this Bonn decision on the first commitment
period can be expected to shift in the future because the “assigned amount”
(national emissions quota) of each party is renegotiated for each successive
commitment period, thereby removing the advantage to key actors (especially in
Europe) of forcing parties (specifically the United States) to satisfy the
commitments they made in Kyoto almost entirely through relatively expensive
domestic measures (Fearnside 2001c). The
negotiations since the 1997 Kyoto conference have been unique because
industrialized countries had agreed to specific
assigned amounts (quotas) for the first commitment period before the rules were
defined on such questions as inclusion of avoided deforestation in the
CDM. For future commitment periods,
inclusion of avoided deforestation would help induce countries to agree to
larger commitments than they would accept in the absence of such a provision,
and would therefore have a net benefit for climate.
Although
not currently favored by Brazil’s Ministry of External Affairs, the country
always has the option of accepting national limits on emissions that would
allow it to earn much more by emissions trading under Article 17 of the
Protocol, rather than through the CDM of Article 12 (Fearnside 2001d). Emissions trading has substantially larger
potential for carbon credit because the Kyoto Protocol does not require that
the reductions be causally linked to a specific project. It is also not required that the changes be
“additional” to what would have occurred in a
no-project scenario, the baseline for calculation being the country’s first
national inventory (i.e., emissions in 1988–1994 in the case of Brazil).
Regardless of the future of
decisions on the CDM under the Kyoto Protocol, global warming represents a
long-term problem that is likely to gain urgency in the international policy
arena as impacts become increasingly apparent to the public and to political
leaders. Sooner or later the major role
played by tropical deforestation will be recognized, and appropriate measures, Brazilian and international, taken to finance combating deforestation, and to
provide the basis for an alternative to destructive development.
One of the greatest
impediments to effective action is fatalism.
Many believe that the forest will
be cut down no matter what, and consequently argue that we should worry about
other problems. Fatalism acts as a deterrent to taking action
that involves commitment of substantial financial resources and the acceptance
of perceived or real political risks. Many of the key
determinants of the future path of development are in the hands of decision
makers who need to make their decisions based on the responsibility that this
entails. While the future depends on human decisions, limits also exist. We cannot go on destroying forests without
dire and long-lasting consequences.
Acknowledgments
The
author’s work is supported by the Conselho Nacional
de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq: Proc.
470765/01-1) and the Instituto
Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA: PPI 1 3620). I thank A. B. Rylands, G. B da Fonseca,
K. Brandon and an anonymous reviewer for comments.
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Figure Legend
Figure 1. Cumulative deforested area and
annual deforestation rate in Brazilian Amazonia. Data from Brazil, INPE (2004)
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(pre-1970) deforestation.
