Policies and Programs

From WolfWikis

The Brazilian Amazon illustrates how governments can be subjected to intense influence from the international community. Demands from that community on the environment have been asserted by some multilateral institutions (World Bank), industrialized countries (United States and Germany), and nongovernmental organizations. ^[1] The United States, for example, did not always want preservation of the Amazon. The Johnson Administration “favored the development of cattle ranching in the Amazon to generate revenue…as well as eliminate world hunger.” ^[2] “The Brazilian government reacted with a defense of Brazilian sovereignty in the Amazon while accepting of the importance of some global environmental standards and international cooperation.” ^[1] The pressure for policies toward the preservation of the Amazon became unavoidable for Brazilian President José Sarney in the mid-1980s. Sarney was slow to instate polices for the preservation because of his defense of Brazilian sovereignty. The Amazonian rainforest, unfortunately, was not just a possession of Brazil - it was shared by seven other South American states. ^[1] This reason became the justification for the international community to intervene on the environmental level. The community wanted Brazil to assume a broader global responsibility.

Contents 1 Brazilian Amazon Polices 2 Nossa Natureza 3 Did the Policies Work? 4 References 5 Charelle's Annotated Bibliography 6 Go Back

Brazilian Amazon Polices

Sarney began to take some responsibility by the middle of his presidency by launching different policies and programs after feeling the heat from the United States and other sectors of the international community. The following are Sarney's policy shifts and programs with hopes to curb deforestation:

• October 1988 – Sarney made his first speech on the environment and establishes six working groups to study the problem.
• 1989 – Phasing out of some of the fiscal subsidies that encouraged deforestation.
• April 1989 – Sarney launched the Nossa Natureza (Our Nature) program as a major response the external pressure. Creation of IBAMA (Brazilian Environment and Renewable Resources Institute) which took charge of: demarcating area suitable for agriculture, mining, and forestry; ensuring environmental impact studies for projects over 100 hectares (247 acres); speeding up the demarcation of Indian lands; establishing a more effective monitoring and fire prevention scheme; and establishing further conservation areas.
• January 1990 – Creation of a system of extractive reserves designed to formalize and protect the sustainable exploitation of forest resources by local groups. ^[3]

Nossa Natureza

The external pressures Sarney faced stemmed at first from United States, France, and the Netherlands. These three countries proposed to Brazil a debt-for-nature swap. ^[1] A portion of Brazil’s foreign debt, which was the highest in the world at the time, would be retorted in exchange for conservation projects – since Brazil had the most extensive rainforest. Sarney ultimately rejected the exchange on the basis it was an “infringement of Brazilian sovereignty.” ^[1] He felt the debt-for-nature swap would create a large reserve to protect the environment, but also an internationalization and exploitation of the minerals and resources of the forest under the pretext of protecting the environment. Sarney instead created the program Nossa Natureza. The plan’s centerpiece proposed a “five-year $100 million program to undertake agro-ecological zoning of the Amazon.” ^[1] The program addressed six basic areas: forest protection; chemical pollution from mining; the structure of the system of environmental protection; environmental education; research; and the division of the Amazon between protection areas, indigenous areas, and extractive areas. ^[1]

Did the Policies Work?

Critics of the policies and programs were skeptical of Sarney’s goal. “Many thought these shifts were half-hearted, continued to reflect the same developmentalist goals and thinking that had characterized earlier policies, and provided for little effective action to slow the pace of deforestation.” ^[3] The state started to lose control of the events taking place in the region because of the momentum of development and the spontaneous colonization in the Amazon. This created a way for powerful groups to resist state authority and use the instruments of state power for their own purposes. ^[3] A positive change to the environmental policies came about in March 1990 with Collor de Mello, successor to José Sarney. His measures included:

• Appointment of José Lutzenberger, Brazil’s leading ecologist, as head of a newly created Secretariat for the Environment
• Appointment of a new director to IBAMA and the promise to improve resource problems, which crippled the organization since its creation
• The creation of the a Research Center for Tropical Forests to study the problem of sustainable development of the Amazon
• The establishment of environmental departments in all major governmental departments ^[3]

Sarney did create a successful environmental agency IBAMA. The agency consisted of a combination of two former agencies, Environment Secretariat (SEMA) and the Forestry Institute (IBDF), along with two smaller units. ^[1] Working on a budget set by the Brazilian government, IBAMA continues to perform raids on illegal clearings of the forest. IBAMA’s presence in a region spreads quickly, so most perpetrators get away. IBAMA’s chief inspector in the state of the Amazona, Adilson Cordeiro, explained a recent cause of deforestation was the increase of population expanding north.^[4] The agency “cannot stop a country growing but we can try to direct its expansion and thereby limit deforestation.” ^[4] Still, the largest perpetrators of deforestation are wealthy farmers and cattle ranchers who illegally occupy federal land and hire farm hands to slash and burn it or illegally clear and sell the land for a quick profit. ^[4] As long as the illegal activity remain so does IBAMA.

Brazil reported to an Australian newspaper in 2005 that deforestation was down to 14,000 square kilometers, half from the previous year. ^[5] The change was due to a change in the environmental policies, which placed tighter controls on illegal logging and economic development projects to preserve the forests. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the rate of deforestation would not increase again. ^[5] If the price of commodities rises, then more farmers are in need of land which leads to more deforestation.

References

Charelle's Annotated Bibliography

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