CLIMATE CHANGE:
Brazil Announces
Voluntary Fund to
Protect Amazon
By Eric Lemus
NUSA DUA, Indonesia,
(IPS) - In the context
of the United Nations
Conference on Climate
Change in Bali,
Indonesia, Brazil has
announced the creation
of a voluntary fund to
protect the Amazon
jungle region, and its
decision to adopt
national targets to curb
deforestation.
The Fund for the
Protection and
Conservation of the
Brazilian Amazon will be
voluntary and will be
launched in the first
half of 2008 with an
initial sum of 150
million dollars, to be
deposited at the
National Development
Bank (BNDES). One
hundred million dollars
will be contributed by
Norway.
The Fund will be
administered by a
consultative council
made up of
representatives of the
federal and state
governments,
non-governmental
organisations (NGOs),
Brazilian and foreign
scientific researchers
and delegates of
companies.
Deforestation and forest
fires are responsible
for nearly 75 percent of
Brazil’s greenhouse gas
emissions.
But over the last three
years, Brazil has
managed to cut the rate
of forest loss by 59
percent. Environment
Minister Marina Silva
told a press conference
at Bali that this is
equivalent to a
reduction of 500 million
tonnes of carbon
dioxide, the main
greenhouse gas
responsible for global
warming.
"We are prepared to set
verifiable domestic
goals to check
deforestation," she
said.
In exchange for
voluntary contributions
to the fund, Brasilia
will hand over
certificates of
greenhouse gas emission
reductions equivalent to
each donation.
Unlike a fund launched
this week by the World
Bank to prevent forest
destruction in
developing countries,
however, the
certificates issued by
the Brazilian government
will not be tradable on
the carbon markets.
Although its scheme
lacks this financial
incentive, Brasilia is
confident its fund will
attract companies
interested in promoting
an
environmentally-friendly
image for themselves by
contributing to the
fight against climate
change.
The minister made her
announcements alongside
the governor of the
western state of Mato
Grosso, Blairo Maggi, a
soybean baron who was
formerly regarded as a
destroyer of forests but
who has now become a
leader in the fight
against deforestation in
the Amazon. Silva said
the slowdown in Amazon
deforestation had been
made possible by the
efforts of Mato Grosso,
which over the last
three years has cut its
rate of forest
destruction by 79
percent.
Maggi participated with
Silva at the launch of
an agreement to create
the State Plan for
Prevention and Control
of Deforestation.
Later, he took part in a
debate with expert
Daniel Nepstad on the
costs and benefits of
halting deforestation.
Nepstad is the author of
a study on "The Amazon’s
Vicious Cycles: Drought
and Fire in the
Greenhouse", published
by the World Wide Fund
for Nature (WWF), and
has spent the last 21
years analysing the
impact of forest fires,
"savannisation" of the
Amazon, public policies,
and future trends in the
region and its
population.
Maggi’s presence here
"is a good beginning,"
Nepstad told IPS.
Two years ago, the
international
environmental watchdog
Greenpeace gave Maggi
the "Golden Chainsaw"
anti-award for the
Brazilian who had
contributed most to
deforesting the Amazon.
Maggi was once the
world’s largest soybean
farmer, and his André
Maggi group produces
five percent of the
annual Brazilian soy
harvest. The clearing of
vast tracts of land for
soy planting is blamed
for massive
deforestation in Brazil,
Argentina and Paraguay.
"That’s why I’m
sceptical, although I
realise that if Maggi
came to Bali, he must be
open to dialogue,"
Juliana Radler, a
journalist for Sumaúma
Documentários, a Rio de
Janeiro NGO that
produces documentaries,
told IPS.
During his presentation,
Maggi said that the next
step was for the federal
government to pay the
states to invest in
forest conservation.
This programme would
benefit farmers and
guarantee conservation
of nature reserves, he
said.
Climate change is like
the Holy Trinity, with
the Father, the Son and
the Holy Ghost, and
carbon dioxide emissions
are like the Holy
Spirit, which is
invisible, but everyone
knows that it exists, he
said humorously.
Professor Yadvinder
Malhi, an expert on
tropical ecosystems at
Oxford University, was
upbeat about Maggi’s
attendance, because, he
said, it’s an
opportunity for him to
understand the
vulnerability of the
Mato Grosso reserve and
its importance to global
equilibrium.
Brazil’s declarations
have raised its profile
in the last stretch of
the 13th Session of the
Conference of the
Parties (COP) to the
U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), which
ends Friday with the
adoption of a timetable
and a range of measures
to abate the pollution
that is overheating the
planet. |
