These are the ones who benefit from the economic exploitation of the Amazon

He said that to stop deforestation of the world's largest rainforest – more than 60% of which is in Brazil – we need to "monetise" the Amazon, boosting trade development in new areas. of the jungle.

"We must recognize that there are real subjects in the Amazon," he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

"We have to give them a concrete answer, not just saying that they can not do anything."

This apparent tension between the conservation of the Amazon – considered indispensable for the ecological and climatic balance of the planet – and the economic development of the region, its more than 20 million inhabitants and l & # 39; 39, the whole country, is not new.

But perhaps never in recent times was it so obvious at the time: with a Brazilian president – Jair Bolsonaro – openly favorable to the commercial opening of protected areas, the world observes with horror the fires and increased deforestation of the jungle.

In July alone, more than 1,864 km 2 of forest were deforested, more than triple that of July of the previous year, according to preliminary data from the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) of the Brazil, whose director was sacked. Bolsonaro after the publication of the figures.

And although the fires are seasonal, the experts point to a clear relationship between this year's fires and deforestation.

Suspicions about the intentionality of the fires escalated when it was learned that the federal police and the prosecutor's office had investigated to determine whether on August 10, an alleged coordinated action of the rural producers of Pará to burn the jungle would have been called "Fogo Day". .

The first news on this subject was published on August 5 by the newspaper Folha do Progresso.

"We have to show the president that we want to work and that the only way is to demolish." Making and cleaning our pastures is by fire, "said a local rural leader to the journalist of the newspaper.

The action – which was belied by local leaders – would have been coordinated by WhatsApp between trade unionists, farmers, merchants and grileiros (clusters of land by criminal methods).

Land rights

"The main cause of deforestation is the search for land," Carlos Eduardo Young, a professor at the Economics Institute of the University of Rio de Janeiro, told BBC Mundo.

"The traditional way of obtaining land rights is to occupy it economically, turning it into grazing cattle or crops, burn the forest, put cattle there and sell the land."

Claudia Azevedo-Ramos, a researcher at the Center for Studies on the Upper Amazon of the Federal University of Pará, describes this cycle as a "speculative strategy".

"Capitalized actors buy land from smallholders, increasing their area of ​​production and concentration," he told BBC Mundo.

This policy of exploration and occupation of the Amazon was established by the military government (1964-1985), with its policy "Integrate not to deliver", aimed at protecting the jungle from its internationalization.

The National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) has transferred migrants from different states to the shores of Transamazone and the government has granted tax incentives to major agricultural projects.

These settlements were responsible for 13.5% of total deforestation in the Amazon (including Amazonas, Roraima, Rondônia, Pará, Amapá, Acre, Tocantins, Mato Grosso and part of Maranhao), although , 3% of the region, according to a study presented at the National Congress of Brazil in 2016.

Land policies are an important factor in understanding the economic and criminal dynamics of the Amazon.

In 2017, the government of Michel Temer pbaded a law allowing people who illegally or irregularly occupied land with a maximum area of ​​2,500 hectares until 2011 to obtain a title deed.

Livestock and agricultural production

Indeed, 40% of the Amazon is either private property or an "unspecified" territory, ie, owned by the government, but without established and established use.

And these areas "may potentially be subject to credit," BBC Mundo Britaldo Soares Filho, a professor in the mapping department at the University of Minas Gerais, told BBC.

The remaining 60% is protected land, in the form of "conservation units" or indigenous reserves.

Conservation units can be ecological reserves or strictly protected land for sustainable use, such as community tourism or the production of Amazon nuts or acai, a fruit that has become popular around the world and which is usually produced by family farming.

In fact, acai production in the Brazilian Amazon states increased by 90% between 2009 and 2017 and generated revenues of 545 million reais (130 million US dollars), according to the report of activity 2018 from the Amazon Fund.

The production of Amazon nuts has generated a turnover of 95 million reais ($ 22.7 million) over the same period.

"Amazon nuts and acai are very important products that can be grown in the forest without deforestation," explains Filho.

In some areas, the sustainable exploitation of the forest to obtain timber is also allowed, although illegal logging is a serious problem.

For example, in the state of Pará between 2015 and 2016, 44% of all tropical timber was illegally obtained, and it is the state whose wood production is the highest in the world. Brazilian Amazon.

The ruralist bench

Once deforested, land is usually used for grazing livestock, although it is not the most economically profitable activity.

"The average density [en el Amazonas] That's 0.6 cow per hectare. If you see a typical pasture, you will probably not see any cow, "Toby Gardner, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told BBC News.

"In the Amazon, there are huge farms of more than 100,000 hectares, owned by members of Congress, businessmen, etc. There are then millions of smallholder producers dedicated to subsistence farming, "says Gardner.

Although 80% of the beef produced in Brazil is consumed internally, the country remains the world's largest exporter of this product.

Maps showing the size of fires in the Amazon

In the legal Amazon (which includes parts of the Cerrado or tropical savannah), there are about 86 million head of cattle, of which about 14.6 million are slaughtered each year.

But Brazil is also a big producer of sugar, chicken, coffee and soy, among others.

In the case of soybeans, it is the world's largest producer and 13% of the planted area is in the Amazon.

The cultivation of this legume has resulted in the deforestation of 474 km² of forest between 2008 and 2016-2017, much less than in previous years – according to data from the Ministry of the Environment – through a moratorium in favor of companies have committed themselves. Do not buy soy from merchants who get it from farmers who deforest, use forced labor or threaten native land.

This powerful Brazilian producer attaches great importance to the rural and agricultural business sector in Congress. In addition, his former ally, Bolsonaro, is the president.

"This government is his," said the president last July before the "bench of ruralists".

Ruralists managed to reduce protection in parts of the Amazon in 2012.

The Brazilian Forest Code requires that any property in this region protect 80% of its territory as a legal reserve, but that year this percentage has been reduced to 50% in states that have already protected at least 65% of its territory as storage units. Aboriginal conservation or reserves.

Now these politicians are trying to pbad a law that completely removes the obligation of private property owners to preserve some of their property.

The author of the bill is precisely one of the children of Bolsonaro, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

How much contributes to the Amazon

But economically exploiting the Amazon may not be as profitable from a more general point of view.

"The Amazon rainforest has a tremendous impact on the ecosystem, both inside and outside the Amazon region," said Soares Filho.

"This is a great water pump, the trees transport the water from the soil to the atmosphere.If a large part of the Amazon is deforested, this will have an impact, for example on the profitability of the Mato Grosso soybean plantations. "

Soares Filho and other colleagues published an article in the journal Nature in which they estimated the economic value of a series of ecosystem services provided by the Brazilian Amazon rainforest: food production (nuts and bolts). Amazon), raw materials (rubber and wood), greenhouse gas mitigation (CO2) and climate regulation (estimated losses in soybean, beef and hydropower production due to reduced rainfall ).

According to their calculations, the Amazon contributes to the Brazilian economy to the tune of 8,200 million reais per year (about 1,900 million US dollars), published the website of Mongabay environmental information .

The problem, however, is that of the 284 million hectares of public forests remaining in the Brazilian Amazon, about 60 million are not yet designated, according to data from the Brazilian Forestry Service.

If deforested, this could result in losses of R $ 422 million (US $ 100 million) annually due to the resulting reduction in rainfall.

But the big producers also want large-scale agricultural and mining activities to be carried out on indigenous territories, which Bolsonaro himself has shown favorably.

In the Amazon, 8% of strictly protected areas and 28% of indigenous lands are also areas of registered mining interest, that is to say in which a company has officially declared its interest to carry out mining activities in front of the Ministry. . mines and energy.

There are also at least 453 illegal mines, according to a map presented by the Amazon Network of socio-environmental information georeferenced last December.

At the end of July, dozens of gold miners invaded an isolated indigenous reserve in the Amazon after a local leader was stabbed and the community fled.

It is foreseeable that once the fire goes out, the tension that many perceive between economic development and environmental protection in the Amazon continues.

In many parts of Brazil, people support Bolsonaro's policies and believe the government should promote production in the Amazon.

"We will continue to produce here in the Amazon and feed the world," said Agamenon da Silva Menezes, of the Union of Rural Producers of Novo Progresso, in which the coordinated action of the action allegedly was conducted, said "Fogo Day", something that he denied.

BBC