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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazil
Considers Logging National Forests
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
11/2/97
OVERVIEW,
SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
The
Environment News Service provides a good overview of current
threats
to the Brazilian Amazon, including disclosing that forest
burning
has increased dramatically (28%) in the past year. The author
discusses
the Congressional Committee that is investigating the
presence
of foreign logging companies in the Amazon.
The Brazilian
government
is considering opening National Forests to logging,
disregarding
the severe forest ecosystem that has resulted in the
United
States and elsewhere from such logging.
"Sustainable
industrial
logging" is to be pursued, despite the fact that it has
never
been proven that rigorous environmental sustainability is
possible
when logging rainforests.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil Considers Logging National Forests
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright c 1997 ENS, Inc., contact for
reprint permission
Date: October 29, 1997
Byline: By Beto Borges
Forest
burning in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 28% between
1996
and 1997 according to INPE, the government's National Institute
for
Spatial Research. Government officials, however, argue that this
figure
is lower than 1995. What they do not say is that the satellite
used in
1995 to monitor forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon, NOAA 14,
passed
over the region during the day when cattle ranchers and small
farmers
use fire to clear forest lands.
There
is a very significant difference now. The new satellite used to
monitor
forest fires, NOAA 12, covers the region at night, when most
of the
fires started during the day have been extinguished. But even
without
capturing most of the fires burning in the Brazilian rain
forests,
the satellite shows an increase by 28%.
The
interest on the part of Brazilian society about the future of the
Amazon
region also seems to be increasing. I just returned from Brazil
where I
was invited to address a Congressional Committee that is
investigating
the presence of foreign logging companies operating in
the
Brazilian Amazon, especially companies from Southeast Asia that
have
started to log in the region in the past three years.
This
Committee is headed by Congressman Gilney Viana from the state of
Mato
Grosso, a long time advocate for better environmental protection
policies,
who was until recently the head of the Commission on
Environment,
Human Rights, and Minorities at the House of
Representatives.
I was
asked to give a presentation about the systems of logging
concessions
in the national forests of the United States and Canada as
part of
a series of hearings that the Committee has been carrying out
on
logging practices in the Amazon region of Brazil.
Why a
hearing about forest practices in the United States and Canada?
Because
the Brazilian government is trying to allow logging companies
to log
in the Brazilian National Forests. This means that forests all
over
the country, principally in the Amazon region, that have been
closed
to industrial developments such as logging may start supplying
the
ever increasing demand for tropical hardwoods for the Brazilian
and
foreign markets.
The
TapajĒs National Forest in the state of Par , is the first where
logging
concessions are being proposed by IBAMA (The Brazilian
Environmental
Protection Agency).
The
link between the Brazilian plan and forest practices in the United
States
and Canada is that logging in these countries has been taking
place
for many years inside national forests. The results have been
disastrous.
For instance, only 3% of primary forests now remains in
the
United States. In Canada, much of Alberta's Wood Buffalo National
Park
has been clearcut, and clearcuts have left just a few remnants of
the
temperate rainforest giants of British Columbia.
This
first experiment of logging in Brazil's National Forests has
received
a lot of criticism from Brazilian environmentalists. It has
also
been halted by a Federal Court order because the communities who
live in
the TapajĒs National Forest were not consulted as to whether
they
wanted logging to take place in their forest homelands or not.
Now,
IBAMA is trying to bring the communities into the loop and will
try to
approve its plan before the end of the year.
Some
critics suggest that IBAMA's motivation is political. They note
that
Eduardo Martins, the agency's president, has aspirations to
become
the next Minister of Environment and that the "privatization of
Brazilian
national forests," as many like to call it, would position
him
well to be nominated for the Ministry of the Environment in next
year's
presidential elections.
IBAMA's
proposal to log Brazil's National Forests is very
controversial.
The agency wants to put a hypothesis into practice
before
its scientific conclusion. The hypothesis is that the
ecologically
sustainable logging of the rainforest is possible.
But
worse yet is IBAMA's vision for the National Forests. It has
announced
that it will promote "sustainable industrial logging" in the
TapajĒs
National Forest. The world's scientific community has not even
proven
that sustainable logging is possible in small scale, let alone
on an
industrial scale.
Foresters
within IBAMA who wish to remain anonymous are against the
plan on
technical grounds, calling it inadequate. They say likelihood
for
further environmental devastation in the Brazilian Amazon is very
high.
Not
surprisingly, local environmentalists, the media, and some
Congress
officials are very concerned. The National Forum of Brazilian
NGOs
and Social Movements, an organization representing hundreds of
other
groups of environmentalists, scientists, indigenous peoples, and
other
traditional forest peoples, such as the rubber tappers, has
recently
released a lengthy declaration that criticizes the federal
government's
forest policy as largely inadequate.
The
Congressional Committee that is investigating the Asian and other
foreign
logging companies in Brazil has announced that it is getting
close
to its conclusions and the media has been covering the increased
rate of
burning in the Amazon with special interest.
Unfortunately,
business seems to be proceeding as usual for the
federal
government. Despite the seriousness of the forest destruction
in the
Amazon, it is always trying to portray an image of being on
control
of the situation. Antonio Carlos do Prado, a high official
within
the Ministry of Environment told O ESTADO DE SAO PAULO, one of
Brazil's
largest newspapers, that the arrival of Asian logging
companies
from Malaysia and China in the Brazilian Amazon is a
positive
fact and that with their presence it will be easier to
control
logging in the region.
But
many informed Brazilians are asking a very legitimate question.
"What
can guarantee us that these Asian companies that had no respect
for
their own national forests will do any different in Brazil?" World
renowned
scientist and former Secretary of the Environment, Jos
Lutzenberger
is also very concerned about the arrival of the Asian
loggers,
"It will be very difficult to control their insatiable
demand,"
he said recently.
President
Fernando Cardoso has recently stated that there is no major
problem
with burning in the Amazon region of Brazil. However, the New
York
Times editorial of October 20 criticized Cardoso's role in
protecting
the Brazilian Amazon region.
Unfortunately,
the Amazon issue made it only to the margins of the
official
agenda between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Cardoso,
during
President Clinton's recent visit to Brazil. They preferred to
talk
about trade, as if trade had nothing to do with the environment.
While
the presidents argued over Mercosul and the Free Trade Area of
the
Americas (FTAA), the official data on the environment was leaving
through
the back doors of the Palacio do Planalto: increased
deforestation
by 34% between 1991 and 1994, increased burning in the
Amazon
by 30% between 1996 and 1997, and the most alarming of all,
their
Intelligence Agency's reporting that 80% of all logging in
Brazil
is illegal and predatory.
{Brazilian
born Beto Borges is an ecologist and Brazil Program
Director
for Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco, California.
He can
be reached by phone at 415-398-4404 or by email:
brazilpro@ran.org
Rainforest Action Network works to protect the
Earth's
rainforests and supports the rights of their inhabitants
through
education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent
direct
action.}
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