Dispatch from the Amazon

The United Nations reported yesterday that the world is turning to dust. Every year an area the size of Rhode Island becomes a desert wasteland. According to the new report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, one-third of the Earth’s surface is at risk, driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in vast swaths of Africa, China, South America, even Europe.

Reporting from the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago in Brazil, GNN contributor Thomas Kohnstamm writes that the Amazon rainforest is increasingly in danger, despite campaign promises from the country’s leftist president that he would protect the environment:

Last year 9,169 square miles of the Amazon Forest disappeared – the second-greatest amount on record. For some perspective, that is an area approximately the same size as the state of New Hampshire.

This news is doubly-upsetting as environmentalists had placed their hopes in the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected president some 16 months ago. Lula, a former shoeshine boy and metal worker, is Brazil’s first working class president and his Environment Minister Marina Silva is a former maid and protégé of slain rubber tapper/environmental activist Chico Mendes.

It was hoped that they would be an honest, more humble alternative to the traditional fat cats who were so fast to sell Brazil’s natural resources for a quick profit. However, little has changed.

Lula and his administration have largely failed, thus far, for two simple reasons.

First, the administration has little sway over congress, provincial governments and local bureaucracy. A presidential decree may be stonewalled at every turn. The election of one outsider and his cabinet can hardly change an entire entrenched (and corrupt) political culture.

Secondly, Lula has been hit with the harsh reality of keeping the Brazilian economy buoyant. With a burgeoning population of over 182 million people, 22 percent of which live below the poverty line, Brazil is in a desperate situation. The administration is stuck between the interests of the environment, Amazonian communities and national development plans, such as the US$6.6 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric project, which will flood around 150 square miles of one of the Amazon’s most diverse ecosystems.

Rather than getting into the complicated business of trying to strike a balance between conservation and development needs, Lula has simply tried to do a better job of enforcing the environmental laws already on the books.

There have been some successes: in late 2003 and early 2004, the government made several seizures of illegally harvested timber. In September 2003, 17 people were arrested for cutting 25,000 acres of Amazonian hardwoods.

After more than a decade of construction, the SIVAM (Integrated Service for Amazonian Vigilance) radar surveillance system is becoming operational and has good potential for monitoring illegal deforestation and mining. Although it was sold to the public as an environmental tool, this network (built by good old American military contractor Raytheon) seems to be more of an instrument for the War on Drugs and Brazilian border defense.

Regardless of law enforcement, soy crops, cattle ranching and legal logging continue to fell many more trees than any poachers. A long-term solution must consider a more sustainable and conservation-minded path for Brazil’s national economic development – and only with significant support from the international community will that be possible.

There are already a few bright spots, including sustainable forestry and sustainable tourism projects. The Fernando de Noronha archipelago, some 325 miles off the coast of Recife in the Atlantic Ocean, receives 60,000 ecotourists per year who readily pay a steep “preservation tax” to enjoy the pristine, natural sights. The islands are so well regulated that visitors are even forbidden from swimming at certain beaches while wearing sunscreen. However, Fernando de Noronha has unrivaled natural beauty, making it a major tourist draw and a bit of an unique example.

If Lula can hold on to power long enough to draw more support into the government and gain more support from the world community, he can start to make some of the important structural changes necessary to rechart the course away from the impending destruction of the rainforest. Prospects are dim, but not hopeless.

GNN contributor Thomas Kohnstamm is currently writing the “Lonely Planet” guide for Brazil. He has a MA in Latin American Studies from Stanford with a focus in integrated conservation and development in the Amazon. He has worked and studied extensively in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon.

Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...