NOTE ON THIS BLOG

After a long gap between posts, this blog is continuing on the previous domain of www.timhirsch.org, which now includes a more wide-ranging website about my professional activities.

Tim Hirsch.

Forest codes and conspiracies

Anyone who follows Brazilian public discussion over a long period will be familiar with the Amazon conspiracy theory. To outsiders it seems bizarre enough to be laughed off. However, its persistence and resonance with a large section of public opinion (and political elites) makes it no laughing matter for those Brazilians earnestly trying to move the country to a new mindset regarding this environmental superpower's unrivalled biological riches. Now a version of the conspiracy - promoted, puzzlingly, by a Communist congressional deputy - is being used to justify a proposed loosening of Brazil's environmental legislation that could, if passed, jeopardise recent advances in the slowing of deforestation and restoration of ultra-diverse ecosystems.

The theory, touted in various forms over many decades, goes roughly like this. International concern and pressure regarding the destruction of the Amazon (and, for that matter, the rights of indigenous groups) is nothing more than a self-interested plot by, principally, Anglo-saxon rich nations aimed at depriving Brazil of its sovereignty over the Amazon territories, preventing the country from developing and getting their greedy hands on the mineral wealth of the region.

Joined together in the service of this well-organised conspiracy (on which books have been written) are alleged to be forces as diverse as international environmental organisations like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, the World Trade Organisation, the British Royal Family and the US federal government. It survives even ham-fisted frauds like the myth of a school geography textbook in the United States showing the Brazilian Amazon as a UN-administered international protectorate - the text accompanying the map circulated via email was quite evidently not written by a native English speaker.

Stoked in particular by military figures including senior serving officers, the conspiracy is regularly resuscitated on the internet, newspaper columns and on TV discussion programmes. I am personally often asked about it by well-educated Brazilians, even those inclined towards green views, and it is periodically fuelled by ill-considered if well-meaning comments from European or US politicians describing the Amazon as "belonging to the world" or some-such phrase.

Now, the spectre of international plots to hold back Brazil's development is being raised to support an attempt in Congress to flexibilise the country's Forest Code - introduced in 1965, ironically just one year after the US-backed military coup that kept Brazil's generals in power until the 1980s.

The code, regarded by its supporters as among the most advanced environmental legislation in the world, imposes well-defined restrictions on the rights of landowners to develop crops and other activities on their property. One element, Areas of Permanent Preservation (APP), defines types of landscape on which native vegetation must be maintained: for example riverbanks, freshwater springs, steep slopes and the tops of hills. In addition, the Legal Reserve (Reserva Legal or RL)is a fixed percentage of the area of a property (excluding the APP) that must be preserved. This is set at 80% in the Amazon forest area, 35% in the transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado savanna, and 20% in other ecological regions.

The problem, as a trip to any part of rural Brazil (or even a look on Google Earth) will confirm, is that the Forest Code is largely a fiction. This photo I took of bananas marching up steep slopes to the top of the foothills of one of the most important remnants of the Atlantic Forest, the Jureia-Itatins reserve in São Paulo state, is a typical example of how the code is widely flouted with impunity.

Which begs the question of why the ruralistas, as supporters of the powerful agricultural lobby in Congress are known, should now be going to such efforts to weaken an unenforced law. The reason is that executive regulation that would give state agencies the power to punish those breaking the Forest Code will finally come into force next year, after repeatedly receding into the future.

Under the proposals now before Congress, there would effectively be an amnesty for landowners who breached the forest code before 2008. Each of Brazil's 27 state governments would be given flexibility to vary by 50% the minimum margin of forest cover required along riverbanks - which supporters of the code fear would result in an inevitable "race to the bottom" by authorities keen to please their local farming interests. And the requirement for the Legal Reserve would be removed from smaller landowners, which in the case of the Amazon means farms up to 600 hectares (about 1500 acres).

The case for the changes was put to a special commission of the lower house of Congress by its relator, or rapporteur, deputy Aldo Rebelo, of the Brazilian Communist Party, and it is available in full (Portuguese only) on his blog.

The thrust of the 36-page report is that the current code puts some 90% of Brazilian agricultural producers into a position of illegality, and that entire sectors such as wine-growing in the Southern states would be unviable if it were to be strictly enforced, as vines are largely grown on the steep slopes of the region. Moreover, it imposes an unfair disadvantage on Brazilian farmers compared to overseas competitors, where no such code exists to protect forests. All reasonable-sounding stuff, although the claims can be and are disputed by those who support the code, while admitting that some refinements could and should be made.

But what jumps out of the Rebelo report is an extraordinary, rambling diatribe against those who wish to impede "progress" by limiting deforestation, ranging over Malthus, Marx and the director of Avatar, James Cameron. The alleged role of international NGOs in promoting the interests of Brazil's Northern competitors is put explicitly and graphically.

"Looking at the efforts of some foreign non-governmental organisations to oppose the expansion of our agricultural frontier, one must ask oneself ... are they here for our good or our goods?" asks Rebelo.

And after lambasting what he calls the "anthropophobia" of the rainforest campaigners, Rebelo continues:

"Embarrassed by the evidence of their petty ambitions, the rich nations use the long arm of their NGOs, who disembark in Brazil as bearers of good news in defence of nature, but cannot hide the cause they are really espousing: the interests of the nations where they have their headquarters, and from where they receive their abundant funding.

"The pretence of foreign 'indigenist' and environmentalist NGOs at protecting the [Amazon] territory and inhabitants makes a mockery of the Brazilian state and people."

The allegation of connivance between foreign governments and NGOs is made more explicit in the case of the Netherlands, which briefly took control of the North-East Brazilian sugar plantations in the 17th century, and also happens to be the world headquarters of Greenpeace:

"Shorn of its former military and commercial power, today Holland satisfies itself with hosting and financing its paramilitary arms, the inevitable NGOs, which try to fulfil the role of its old armies and trading companies." Entertaining stuff, but remember this is an official document of the Brazilian Congress.

What Rebelo is suggesting, and the same has been claimed by agricultural spokespeople on television and in the press, is that the campaign to maintain and enforce a strong Forest Code in Brazil is being masterminded and controlled by foreign agricultural lobbies, principally in the United States, to stifle competition from Brazilian products such as soya, ethanol and bananas. The idea of activists from Greenpeace and the corn barons of the Midwest holding secret meetings to plot against Brazilian farmers may seem a little fanciful, but this does not deter the conspiracy theorists or the widespread belief in their message.

All of which naturally infuriates the home-grown Brazilian environmental movement that is trying to mobilise public opinion in support of the existing Forest Code, and its effective implementation. In campaign called Exterminadores do Futuro, the name given to the Schwarzenegger Terminator movies in Brazil, the group SOS Mata Atlântica (Save the Atlantic Forest) portrays the ruralistas as chainsaw-wielding vandals intent on destroying what is left of Brazil´s extraordinary biodiversity.

The fear of these groups is that if the Forest Code is weakened, it could reverse recent gains such as the sharp fall in the rate of Amazon deforestation, and serious attempts to restore the Atlantic Forest, a global biodiversity hotspot which has already lost some 93% of its original extent.

The vote on Rebelo's proposed changes was originally scheduled for today, Tuesday 15th June, when Brazil's eyes would have been on matters a little further afield - like its first match in South Africa, against North Korea. Now it has been delayed until next week. Watch this space.


Copyright Tim Hirsch, 2010. All rights Reserved.

Beef roasting the earth

Beef production accounts for around half of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study by leading scientists.

The report, to be launched at the Copenhagen climate conference Saturday, estimates that annual emissions linked to Brazilian cattle rearing varied between at least 813 million and 1.09 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year between 2003 and 2008.

The biggest contribution came from deforestation to create cattle pasture, with a significant portion (over a quarter in 2008) resulting from enteric fermentation, the emission of methane and nitrous oxide from the digestive processes of livestock.

Although Brazil’s cattle herd of more than 190 million has often been linked to environmental impacts, especially in the Amazon, this is the first time its emissions have been systematically calculated and linked to the latest inventory of the country’s climate footprint.

The scientists, from two Brazilian federal universities, the national space research institute (INPE) and Friends of the Earth, believe the actual emissions from beef production are higher than those presented in the study. This is because it did not take account of soil carbon emissions from degraded cattle pasture, the production of cattle feed, or transport of cattle and beef – which together could add significantly to the total.

The biggest single source of emissions from cattle production arose from deforestation in the Amazon, around three-quarters of which can be attributed to demand for pasture, according to the study. Beef-related emissions from clearing of the Amazon varied between 718mt CO2e in 2003, a peak year for deforestation, and 442mt CO2e in 2008.

Significant emissions from creation of new pasture were also identified in the Brazilian savanna region, known as the Cerrado. The report estimated that conversion of this ecosystem to beef production resulted in an average of 136.5 mtCO2e per year between 2003-2008, more than half of the emissions linked to Cerrado deforestation.

Enteric fermentation from cattle across the whole of Brazil was estimated at 234 mtCO2e for 2008.

The latest estimate of Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions, from preliminary figures for the ministry of science and technology’s second inventory for the UN climate convention, is approximately 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent for 2005.

With nearly half of that attributed to a single sector, the study argues that efficiencies in beef production represent the most important opportunity for mitigating Brazil’s climate impacts.

“This does not imply a cut in current production, and may even be compatible with a moderate increase,” said INPE’s Carlos Nobre, one of Brazil’s leading climatologists and a co-ordinator of the study.

Among the measures recommended by the study to reduce beef-related emissions are:
· Integration of livestock and crop production to reduce the need for conversion of more forests or savannas for pasture.
· Investment in recuperation of degraded pasture land, to increase productivity of cattle ranching
· Elimination of the use of fire in pasture management
· Changes in cattle diet, including feed supplements and different grazing crops, to reduce methane emissions
· A reduction in the current impunity perceived to exist for cattle ranchers who break the law by expanding their pastures into public forest lands, stimulating uncontrolled land speculation in the Amazon.
· The use of mechanisms such as REDD Plus to catalyse good practice and encourage low-carbon forms of beef production

According to Roberto Smeraldi of Friends of the Earth, another co-ordinator of the study, a drastic fall in the carbon intensity of the Brazilian beef industry is required if it is to be economically sustainable.

“Based on the study, we established that the cost of carbon emissions per unit of production was greater than the wholesale price,” Smeraldi said.

An edited version of this article was published by Point Carbon news.

Brazil's complex climate conundrum

The role of Brazil in global climate change is as full of contradictions as the much-misunderstood country itself.

On the one hand, it will be among the small group of developing countries to enter December's UN climate talks in Copenhagen with a quantified target for cutting emissions. Although, as foreign minister Celso Amorim put it in an interview I reported on a couple of weeks ago, for "theological" reasons it will probably not be called a target.

On the other hand, as reported in the last post of this blog, Brazil's fossil fuel emissions are rising fast. Having been almost totally dependent on (extremely controversial) large hydro-electric dams for electricity, the energy ministry is backing a plan to build dozens of new coal and fuel-oil power stations, desperate to avoid a repeat of the energy rationing imposed a few years back to prevent blackouts.

Even more significant in the rising trend of energy emissions is the ever-greater volume of traffic choking Brazil's roads and highways. Inter-city passenger rail services are non-existent (although a much-overdue fast rail link between Rio and São Paulo is now in the pipeline), so increased mobility is entirely picked up by road and air transport. Even the exceptionally high use of biofuels cannot prevent this adding significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

Ironically, as Brazil is lauded in international circles for its "leadership position" amongst developing countries on tackling climate change through exploitation of renewable energy, at home the big discussion now is over who will get the royalties for massive oil extraction from the so-called "pre-salt" layer off the country's Atlantic coast.

The reason Brazil is able to walk into the Copenhagen talks with an ambitious climate policy is that it seems finally to have got a handle on Amazon deforestation, until recently judged to be responsible for the bulk of its carbon dioxide emissions. The emissions-reduction "number" it brings to the table is likely to be a refinement of the target it already declared last year in its National Climate Change Plan, to reduce annual deforestation 70% by 2018, compared with the 10-year average from 1997-2006. The Brazilian government calculated that this ambition, if achieved, would prevent carbon emissions equivalent to an entire year's emissions from the European Union.

The most recent figures suggest that Brazil is well on the way to meeting that target, although here too there are contradictions. Certainly, the annual rate of destruction in the Amazon has come down considerably since a peak in 2003-4, when more than 27,000 square kilometres of rainforest were clear-cut. Three successive years of sharp decline were followed by a blip last year, probably linked to high food prices, which saw a 12% rise over the previous year. Even so, the 2007-8 figure of 12,900 square kilometres still represented a drop of one-third over the ten-year average.

Even more significantly for the government's position at Copenhagen, it is likely that just about the time the conference takes place, Brazil will be announcing its lowest Amazon deforestation figure for 20 years. Despite a sharp monthly increase for July, all the indications are that the period August 2008 to August 2009 (the official satellite data use this dry-season period to judge annual change to take advantage of maximum visibility) will reveal deforestation well below 10,000 square kilometres. A large part of this is likely to be due to the economic downturn, as deforestation is closely linked to demand for commodities such as soya and beef; but the government will also be able to claim credit for the impact of policies such as crackdowns on illegal sawmills, confiscation of cattle grazing in protected areas, and cutting off credit to rural landowners breaking environmental rules.

Clearly the real test will come once the global economy bounces back, and only then will it be clear whether deforestation is being effectively reduced. There are other reasons, too, why a simple correlation between annual deforestation and Brazil's carbon emissions may not be valid.

One has been emphasized by the government's own National Space Research Institute (INPE), responsible for compiling and interpreting the satellite data that are the world's window on what is happening in the Amazon. Recently it has started to analyse the images to estimate the area of degraded forest, as well as the clear-cut areas given in the main annual statistics. The first year for which data were available, 2007-8, showed an alarming 60% increase in the area of forest degradation over the previous year, suggesting that the official figures on which the Brazil's record is judged tell only a partial story. Large-scale degradation of rainforest implies a loss of biomass and therefore carbon - apart from the fact that a degraded forest now is more likely to go up in smoke and become cattle pasture next year.

The other question mark over a simple CO2-deforestation link was emphasized in a paper published last week by a team of scientists from Stanford University, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.. It suggests that because the pattern of deforestation has been for clearances to move progressively deeper into the forest from the agricultural frontiers to the East and South, the amount of biomass destroyed by clearance of a single hectare has increased over time. The paper's estimate is that between 2001 and 2007, the amount of above-ground organic matter lost from the clearance of each hectare increased on average from 183 to 201 tonnes of carbon. Since the remaining areas of the Amazon are denser still, even a constant rate of deforestation would lead to a 25% increase in emissions, the study reckoned.

In fact, this conclusion is double-edged as far as climate politics (and economics) is concerned. Even though it may imply the emission reductions in recent years have been over-stated, it also suggests the remaining areas of rainforest are even more valuable to the world in preventing runaway climate change. That could be an important factor in raising the stakes for the world to pay up for reducing deforestation through the so-called REDD mechanisms (reducing emissions through deforestation and degradatation) featuring prominently on the Copenhagen agenda.

Brazil's climate halo challenged

Brazil’s energy, industrial and transport sectors now account for some 30 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions – compared with just 18 per cent in 1994.

The conclusion from preliminary figures in the latest inventory of Brazilian emissions suggests that deforestation and other land-use changes play a much less dominant role than the commonly-quoted 75 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.

A study for Brazil’s environment ministry estimates that CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for transport, industry, electricity and other uses increased from some 225 million tonnes in 1994 to 334 million tonnes in 2007, a rise of 49 per cent.

Part of the rise stems from increased use of fossil fuels in the generation of electricity, which saw emissions from this sector more than double in the 13-year period, although hydro-power continues to contribute the overwhelming proportion of Brazil’s domestic generating capacity.

The greater use of fuels such as gas, coal and oil in power generation led to an increase in the carbon intensity of Brazil’s power sector from 42 tonnes of CO2 per Gigawatt-hour in 1994, to 54 tonnes in 2007.

Transport

The bulk of the increase in fossil fuel emissions came from road transport, despite the increased use of sugarcane-derived ethanol which is now capable of powering some 90 per cent of new cars with “flex-fuel” engines, able to run on any mixture of gasoline and alcohol.

Some 50 million tonnes of additional CO2 emissions are estimated to be emitted each year from Brazil’s roads and highways, with the majority (30m) coming from diesel, and the next biggest portions from gasoline (15m) and natural gas (5m).

Fossil fuel CO2 emissions from industry rose nearly 40 per cent, from 74 million tonnes in 1994 to 103 million tonnes in 2007.

The figures are part of a comprehensive inventory of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions due to be published before the end of the year. It will be the first assessment of the country’s emissions since its official submission to the UN climate change convention in 2004, which was based on 1994 greenhouse gas data.

Deforestation

Although figures for the agricultural sector and deforestation have yet to be published, officials are publicly speculating that each is now reckoned to account for about a third of total emissions.

This suggests that aggressive action on reducing deforestation, although important, will go only part of the way towards curbing the growth in Brazilian emissions.

However, a new study indicates that recent efforts to prevent deforestation in the Amazon are having a globally-significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions.

The study, by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), University of Minas Gerais and the Amazon Research Institute (IPAM), estimates that new protected areas created since 2003 under the Amazon Protected Areas Programme (ARPA) will prevent emissions of more than five billion tonnes of CO2 by 2050.

That adds up to some 16 per cent of current annual global emissions and 70 per cent of the total savings envisaged in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

This article was published at www.pointcarbon.com

Partial veto on Amazon land law

The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has approved a controversial new law that will enable farmers in the Amazon to acquire title over an area of public land larger than France.

But President Lula vetoed two of the most contentious clauses in the bill, which would have allowed absentee landlords and companies to benefit from the transfer.

The measure is designed to end the chaotic state of land ownership in the region, in which hundreds of thousands of farmers do not have legal title to their land, with many claims dating back decades.

Under the “regularization”, title will be granted to occupiers who can show they occupied the land peacefully before the end of 2004. Plots of up to 100 hectares will be handed over for free, those up to 400 hectares will be available at a nominal rate, while those between 400 and 1500 hectares will be transferred at market rates, but with a 20-year payment period.

The legislation, originally proposed by the government, was altered significantly in Brazil’s Congress by deputies linked to the country’s powerful rural lobby. Under pressure from several ministers, Lula agreed to strike out two of those changes: one would have enabled title to have been given to land-holders not resident in the region, and the other would have allowed corporate bodies to benefit from the measure.

However, Lula allowed another of the controversial changes to stand: beneficiaries of the land transfer will be allowed to sell on larger holdings within three years, instead of a ten-year minimum as proposed in the original measure. Environmental groups fear this could heat up land speculation in the region and threaten anti-deforestation measures.

Among the critics of the new land legislation are a group of federal prosecutors in the region, who claim it is unconstitutional. They cite the fact that it could allow the transfer of public land to people who acquired it fraudulently, and that it does not explicitly protect the rights of traditional and indigenous communities.

The legislation gets its approval as the latest satellite data from the Brazilian National Space Research Agency suggests there has been a sharp drop in Amazon deforestation during recent months, although heavy cloud cover has meant that the survey was very incomplete.

Copyright Tim Hirsch 2009. All Rights Reserved.

The great Amazon giveaway

Brazil’s environment minister Carlos Minc is calling on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to veto parts of a new land law which could undermine efforts to conserve the Amazon rainforest.

The measure, originally proposed by the government, would transfer an area of public land larger than France (670,000 square kilometres) into private hands.

The aim is to “regularize” hundreds of thousands of land-holdings in the region whose occupiers have never been granted legal title, with some claims dating back decades. The “land chaos” of the Amazon is widely seen as a barrier to effective enforcement of anti-deforestation measures, and a major cause of violent conflict in the region.

But Minc and others fear that changes made to the law in the Brazilian congress will provide incentives for speculators to occupy new areas of forest in the expectation that title will eventually be recognized.

Environmental groups have warned it is part of a sustained attack on environmental safeguards in Brazil which could jeopardize progress in reducing deforestation. Brazil’s National Climate Change Plan, agreed last December, includes a target to reduce annual forest loss in the Amazon by 70% in the next decade, representing avoided emissions estimated at 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

President Lula presented the “provisional measure” in February as a means of giving security to some 300,000 smaller farmers in the Amazon region. The smallest holdings (up to 100 hectares) would be donated for free; medium-sized units would be transferred for a nominal charge; and larger estates (up to 1,500 hectares) would attract market prices but with a 20-year payment period.

In the version of the law passed last week by Brazil’s senate, critical safeguards in the original measure had been altered by legislators linked to the country’s powerful rural lobby.

For example, a ban on the re-sale of newly-privatized land within 10 years was reduced to a three-year time limit. In addition, corporate and non-resident landholders would be entitled to benefit from the transfer, which was originally restricted to private individuals living in the area.

Non-governmental organizations in Brazil have warned that this would amount to an amnesty for illegal land-grabbers, and would heat up speculation in forest areas earmarked for improved access, such as where highways are being paved.

A joint statement issued by 28 NGOs, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said the measure was among a series of current attempts to dismantle Brazil’s environmental legislation.

“It opens up the possibility of legalizing the situation of a great number of fraudulent land-claimants, incentivising an assault on our public heritage, the concentration of land ownership and the advance of illegal deforestation,” the statement read.

Quoted on the environment ministry website, minister Minc said he would be appealing to president Lula to veto those articles added to the land measure by the Congress, which he said had “disfigured” the original proposal.

“I can’t guarantee that Lula will veto them, but we are going to ask,” said Minc.

Carlos Minc has been involved in an increasingly public battle with government colleagues, notably the agriculture minister Reinhold Stephanes, over other proposed changes to Brazilian environmental legislation. Among the most controversial is a plan to flexibilise Brazil’s 44-year-old Forest Code, which requires landowners to keep a minimum proportion of a property in native vegetation – 80% in the Amazon, and 20% in other areas – and to maintain forest cover along river-banks, hilltops and steep slopes.

Minc recently warned that that attempts to weaken Brazil’s environmental laws would be going against the tide of history and current global trends. He added that if measures such as the land rules increased deforestation, it would mean the end of Brazil’s climate change plan, and of the Amazon Fund set up to attract climate-linked investment in forest protection.

A version of this article was published by Point Carbon