Sergio Abranches, from Durban

A new, satellite-based survey released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows the changes in the world’s forests. The survey indicates that forest land use declined between 1990 and 2005. The highest rate of forest conversion to other land uses in both periods was in South America, followed by Africa.

The total forest area in 2005 was 3.69 billion hectares, which is 30 percent of the global land area. There was a net reduction in the global forest area between 1990 and 2005 of 72.9 million hectares.

“Just over half the world’s forests are in tropical or subtropical climatic domains”, the report shows. The world’s forests are distributed unevenly with just under half the world’s forests in the tropical domain (44% of total area), about one third in boreal (34%) and smaller amounts in temperate (13%) and subtropical (9%) domains.

“Worldwide, the gross reduction in forest land use caused by deforestation and natural disasters (14.2 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2000 and 15.2 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2005) was partially offset by gains in forest area through afforestation and natural forest expansion (10.1 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2000 and 8.8 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2005). This resulted in net losses of 72.9 million hectares of forests over 15 years between 1990 and 2005.”

The annual net conversion from forest land use to other land uses averaged
4.9 million hectares per year over the 15-year period. The rate of net forest loss increased from 4.1 to 6.4 million hectares per year between 1990 to 2000 and 2000 to 2005, respectively.

There were important regional differences in the rate of change in forest area. The highest rate of forest conversion in both periods was in South America, followed by Africa. Asia was the only region to show net gains in forest area in both periods consistent with the extensive planting that has been reported by several countries to be larger in area than the regional losses in area of natural forests.

Sérgio Abranches

The early-warning satellite system for monitoring deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, DETER, developed by the National Institute for Space Research, INPE, has detected an atypical increase in cleared forest area on March-April this year. It was the largest area cleared in this period since 2008. Compared to 2010 deforestation was 473% greater. Today, INPE has announced that deforestation in May was 146% greater than in May, 2010.

There is a clear trend towards increased land clearing. The chart shows DETER‘s figures for both periods.

Deforestation has been greater in 2011 than in 2009 and 2010. The figure for March-April 2011 is anomalously high because these months close the rainy season. The explanation for this sudden increase in land-clearing even before the dry season begins is the anticipation of the congressional approval of a new Forestry Code.

The bill reduces the mandatory forest reserve in the Amazon from 80% to 50% of the property area, as well as the extension of riparian vegetation to be preserved or restored on both margins of rivers, from 30 to 15 meters. These changes were already approved by the House. If the bill becomes a law, landholders will have to register their properties indicating the areas of mandatory protection. The bill also eliminates fines and administrative and legal proceedings against illegal deforestation until 2008. The likelihood of its approval has triggered “preemptive clearing”, a policy of “fait accomplit”, before the bill is converted into law.

The dry season in the Amazon begins in May. The  risk of intentional wildfires and land clearing is at its highest from May through to September. Fire usually comes after the electric saw and the tractor-pulled chain, two common methods of land-clearing. The most devastating one is the use of large freighter anchor chains connected to two high-power tractors that would pull every tree, and kill every animal on their way. This method easily clears near 100 hectares in a day’s work. (See a video here.) Fire has also been used to clear drier tracts of native forest. Cleaning up the rest becomes an easy task for a tractor shovel.

The chart with aggregate deforestation areas from March to May gives a clearer picture of the present trend towards higher clearing rates.

INPE has indicated that 81% of the deforested area in March-April was in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil’s larger soybean and beef producer. In May, 35% of the cleared area was in Mato Grosso; 25% in Rondonia, where the government is building two large and controversial hydropower dams; 24% in Pará, a large beef and timber producer; 11% in the state of Amazonas; and the remaining in the states of Maranhão, Tocantins and Acre.

The state of Mato Grosso has active lobbies and political networks related to the two major traditional drivers of Amazon and Savannah (Cerrado) deforestation: soybean cultivation and cattle ranching. The pressure from soybean cultures over  the forest has been smaller for the last 5 years due to the “Soy Deforestation Moratorium” signed in 2006 by Brazilian soy industry representatives, trading companies and large producers, after major U.S. and European consumers refused to continue buying soy from illegally cleared land. This movement was triggered by a well orchestrated campaign from Greenpeace’s Brazilian branch.

A story by Bettina Barros (in Portuguese) for Valor Econômico, a Brazilian daily business newspaper, shows that the soy industry is already considering relaxation of the moratorium due to the upcoming change in the forest law. They argue that their agreement cannot ask more from producers than the law. But the fact is that the “Soy Deforestation Moratorium” did ask more than the law from producers before it became clear that the law was about to be changed.

The motive for ending the ban on soy from illegally deforested areas comes from the market. World soybean prices were quite low by the time the “Moratorium” was signed at US$ 5.50/bushel. Now they are as high as US$ 13.60/bushel.

The market has also changed. Most of the demand in the early 2000’s came from the European Union and the United States. Under the pressure of environmentalists, the media, and their consumers U.S. and EU customers have decided not to buy soy coming from deforested land, and to ask for certification of origin. Today most of the demand comes from China. Chinese buyers ask no questions. They are insensitive to what happens in their supply chain to have their food industry adequately fed.

On another recent story (also in Portuguese), Cláudio Ângelo, a senior reporter for the Brazilian daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that land clearing for soybean plantation had increased by 85% in 2011 in comparison to the area cleared in 2010. He also used data from INPE, and mentioned the incentive from high global soy prices. Senator Blairo Maggi (PR-MT), one of the world’s largest soybean producers told him that prices “have never been that high for the last 70 years.”

Sergio Abranches

Local sustainable development 2.0, that’s how we should call what is happening in 80 municipalities of the Brazilian giant state of Pará, in the Amazon region. Pará is 1.8 times the size of Texas. These 80 towns are basically dominated by cattle-ranching and some timber production. Beef, timber, and soybean have been the main culprits for a long history of illegal logging, that has claimed about 20% of the Amazon rainforest, and 27% of Pará’s forest cover.

Until recently, local development in the Amazon has been based on small scale cooperative-based extractive activities for the production of rubber, fruit or fish. Now local development has to address large-scale production, usually for beef, soybean, and wood products exports.

Deforestation has declined sharply over the last five years, from more than 25,000 sq. Km a year to around 7,000 sq. km. Forest degradation, though, has been rampant, especially over the last three years. Degradation has two main sources. One, is selective logging for  timber production. Loggers cut the most valued species and leave those with less or no commercial value. The other is land clearing for pasture or soybean production. Loggers also cut selectively, to hide the process from common satellite detection, until it is too late for authorities to prevent full clearing.

Continue reading…

Sergio Abranches

Manuel is an investment banker from Mozambique. He runs an investment and private equity company with stakes in pratically all sectors of almost all African countries. He moved from Mozambique to Namibia, where he lives. So far all his company’s investment were financed with its own capital. No leveraging. He is in a strategic position that gives him a broader and yet deep view of what is going on in Africa. We’ve met recently at an event on global sustainable logistics and had a long conversation about China’s involvement in the region. He asked me to have our talk off the records, for understandable reasons, that’s why I don’t write his full name. Our chat was in Portuguese our common language.

“Africa is being dominated by China”, he told me. “It is a voracious and predatory investor.” China is primarily interested in mineral resources of all sorts, and this is shortening the view of governments and reducing the prospects for a true development of Africa. Governments like investments in mining very much. They yield high tax and royalties revenues, without any cost or collateral. The companies even build the necessary infrastructure for mineral logistics. It is also a type of activity that induces a lot of corruption. They are “infertile investments” they don’t generate progress. They have no inducement effect, they don’t promote new investment downstream, they are not interested in the diversification of economic activity. After the ore is gone, they leave the holes behind and go after other sources. The power elite is satisfied with its pockets full of money. “No benefits for the people.” Governments are replacing development plans with a policy of mineral licensing.

Another area of strong Chinese interest is timber, says Manuel. Deforestation with Chinese money is rampant. “But, alas, China is an irresistible power in Africa, we need to learn how to deal with China,” he adds. To understand the Chinese, and be able to anticipate its moves, and learn how to deal with it, his group opened offices in Beijing and Shanghai. They’re even investing in China. At the same time they are looking for cooperation with Brazilian and South African corporations. He thinks that development in Africa will have to turn these three powers into positive forces for the region’s progress: China, Brazil and South Africa.

He came to this traditional global event in Brazil to look for scientific expertise in two areas his group is investing heavily in Africa: logistics and energy. He is very interested in wind and PV (photovoltaic) solar power. I can’t understand why Brazil has not become a major player in wind and solar research and development. We are very interested. Africa, like Brazil has a great potential in these two sources of renewable energy. China is becoming a major player. “With the huge potential for wind and solar power generation in Brazil it is a pity, and a great waste of opportunity not to investment to assume a leading role in this market.” I couldn’t agree more.

Manuel is the face of the new Africa trying to emerge from the wreackage of civil wars, bad, tyrannical and corrupt governance that led to an awful degree of social degradation. There are many like him, he tells me. “We are all striving to change Africa and going through hard times still dealing with very corrupt regimes.”

It is clear that to prosper in Africa to have good relations with local governments is a necessary condition. Good relations in many countries still depend on bribe. “Corruption is everywhere. It is a shame, but there is no place in Africa free of corruption.”

Would he not speak portuguese, be called Manuel and be a black man, he could be taken for any contemporary young investment banker from Wall Street or the City, running the world in search of the best profit opportunities. But Manuel is not a regular investment banker, he is different, not only because of his language, his name and the color of his skin. He does run the world, but looking for knowledge, expertise, and technology, and not only for his company. He has an African dream. He wants Africa as a whole to prosper with the assets he brings home. He is always interested and concerned about Africa. Another distinctive trait that differentiates him even from other Africans: he looks at Africa as a whole, beyond borders, and beyond tribal divisions, just Africa.

Perhaps this is the appropriate 21^st century view for his land. An integrated and unified Africa, that takes its diversity into account, and knows that no part will be fully developed if the whole is not equally developed. That there will be no durable and fair progress while corruption and violence dominates Africa. He is not looking for Africa as a single nation, but he dreams of a true African Union.

Sergio Abranches
Logging of large areas in the Amazon region has dropped significantly, from August 2009 to July 2010. Both the Brazilian Space Agency, INPE, and Imazon, a non-governmental think-act tank, have captured this trend on their monitoring through satellite images. Imazon says that this trend holds for both large and medium sized plots with at least 12,5 ha. INPE’s head, Gilberto Camara, alerts that the satellite used, MODIS, can’t see logging in areas smaller than 100 ha.

Gilberto Câmara said that logging is increasing in areas of 25 ha or smaller. He explained on his Twitter that INPE’s system, DETER, captures trends, but cannot detect small logging. He also informed that 80% of current illegal logging activity have less than 100 ha. See below the chart he posted.

Adalberto Veríssimo, senior researcher at Imazon tweeted that, by Amazon standards, logging of areas of 12.5 ha should be considered as medium sized.

There is significant consensus among experts about what is happening, in spite of these diverging views on metrics. First, logging of large areas is plummeting. Second, the pattern of logging is changing: logging is increasing at small and medium sized plots, while large logging is decreasing. Third, deforestation is growing in the Southern part of the Amazonas state, an area where forest protection used to be more effective.

Beto Veríssimo has told me that Imazon has detected logging in areas where the forest is denser. This means that the loss of carbon and quality of forest mass by logged hectare is larger than before. Veríssimo argues that logging in the Amazon has a new pattern besides the shift of scale. The main vectors of this new pattern are the Transamazonica and BR-163 roads, agrarian reform settlements, extensive cattle raising, and land grabbing.

Gilberto Câmara is a bit more cautious and says it is too early to talk about a new pattern, solely on the basis of data generated by the SAD (Imazon) and DETER (INPE) models. He would prefer to say this is a trend already detected by the PRODES model in 2009, INPE’s measurement system based on high-resolution satellite images.

Câmara’s cautiousness is welcome. Brazil is on the last month of electoral campaign, and deforestation data have been presented with a political twist by the ministers of Environment and Science and Technology. Câmara wants to make it clear that these are preliminary data without the necessary reach and precision to support definitive conclusions about deforestation patterns.

Although lacking accuracy these observations show that there are forces in action effective enough to change the dynamics, scale and territorial distribution of logging. Câmara is right, though, to say that only the data generated by the high res PRODES model will provide accurate confirmation of these trends.

The soy moratorium and the refusal of large supermarket chains to buy meat from meatpackers operating in deforestation areas have certainly contributed to the reduction of the scale of logging. These two agreements have neutralized the main traditional vectors of deforestation: soybean plantation and cattle ranching. It is important to notice that both resulted from pressure over large consumers by the social movement, without any supporting government policy. Greenpeace, on both counts, produced information and exerted strong pressure to persuade McDonald’s, in the case of soybean exports, and the major supermarket chains – Walmart, Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar – in the case of beef. The government entered as a partner to the agreements after the deals were closed.

But it is also true that policies against deforestation and repression of logging have also contributed to this change. Beto Veríssimo, who is often consulted by policy-makers and systematically evaluates policies for the Amazon region says that measures against logging, especially those adopted during Marina Silva’s term as Environment Minister, have contributed very much to falling deforestation rates.

Imazon’s report has analyzed the situation of 41 towns listed in the government anti-logging policy as those with the larger areas and rates of deforestation, deserving particular attention from authorities. It shows that there was an average 40% reduction of logging in these “critical towns”.

They were divided into three different groups: the first comprising the towns where logging has decreased; the second encompassing towns where there has still been from low to moderate logging; the third, grouping those where logging has increased. The first group has 24 towns, 57% of the list. Deforestation has decreased on average 64% in this group. Group 2 has 8 towns, 19%, their average deforestation rate was 14%. In Group 3, with 24% of the towns on the list, deforestation has increased by 157% on average.

Falling logging rates are good news, but they do not mean the Amazon is not losing forest cover. On the contrary, the loss of forest cover is still too large for anyone to be comfortable with anti-deforestation policies. The chart below shows that the accumulated deforested area continues to grow.

I share Beto Veríssimo’s view that it is about time the Brazilian government sets zero deforestation as a target, instead of the goal of 80% reduction of logging rates by 2020. Veríssimo thinks that zero deforestation by 2014 would be perfectly feasible.

Sergio Abranches
How can a supposedly communist legislator champion the interests of traditional landowners, and seek amnesty to illegal logging, often associated with violent land-grabbing and force-labor? The Brazilian House is right now discussing a bill proposing changes in the Forestry Code Law that does exactly that. The proposal under discussion was drafted by communist deputy Aldo Rebelo, a former Speaker of the House during President Lula’s first term in office.

The Forestry Code was instrumental in reducing deforestation rates. Deforestation although still not entirely sustainable has prevented the loss of a large amount of the Amazon forest. The proposal responds solely to the interests of the more traditional sector of the Brazilian agribusiness. Its main effect, if turned into law, would be to pardon illegal practices that led to deforestation and destruction of riparian vegetation that caused the erosion of river beds and drying of water sources. I’ve been to areas of soybean plantation where producers are desperate about water scarcity brought about by land clearing that destroyed all the previous vegetation, including the riverine, to increase agricultural area. Now rivers and sources are drying, and they’re left with no water for irrigation. In the future they’ll leave the land bare, and look for new areas to occupy pushing deforestation further into the Amazon and the savanna fields (Cerrado).

If approved, the proposal would do harm not only to the environment, but to the economic sustainability of competitive agricultural production in many areas. It benefits a traditional  mode of production that destroys the vegetal riparian protection of river banks and water sources; clears the vegetation that prevents landslides on steep hillsides; disregards the legal reserve of primary forest as a means to protect biodiversity. It is detrimental to a contemporary and competitive agricultural commodity business.

Large global buyers are banning all grain, beef and leather coming from land illegally cleared, or produced with the use of forced labor from their supply chains. In the Brazilian domestic market large retailers such as Walmart, Pão de Açúcar and Carrefour are also banning beef coming from areas of deforestation from their shelves. Major Brazilian exporters of leather goods will soon be forced to do the same.

The bill goes to the extreme of giving fiscal benefits to those who have illegally cleared their land and disrespected rules for the protection of riparian vegetation and primary biodiversity. Farmers who have obeyed all rules and paid a price for being legal will now see those who have thrived in illegality getting subsidized long-term finance to abide by far less demanding rules. Rules that will lead to the resumption of deforestation and destruction of river courses.

How can that happen? An alliance between a communist and the more conservative forces of the right linked to traditional rural practices of production and domination? How come the successors of the Brazilian latifundia can find political help from a supposedly left wing politician? How can a government led by a president who came from the progressive metalworkers union movement, leader of a labor-oriented party let such a bill follow its course unhindered? The government leadership is taking no action either to block or to modify a proposal that contradicts current government policies. It would, among other things, prevent the government from meeting the deforestation targets it has registered under the Copenhagen Accord. Several representatives of the Social-democrat opposition are also supporting the proposal or have adopted an attitude of benign neglect.

The Brazilian political system has some very specific features that help to explain such apparently surreal outcomes. Features that are hard to explain to foreign audiences.

Brazil has a presidential political system in which the President depends on a multiparty coalition to govern. I called it a ‘coalition presidential system’ a long time ago. It explains why president Lula is so uninterested on the fate of the Forestry Code. He has many traditional rural business sectors in his coalition that have a direct interest in changing the Code for their own benefit. The majority of the progressive forces in his coalition are not really interested in what happens to the distant Amazon region or the rich savanna fields of the Brazilian midwest.

Brazilian parties are two-headed entities, with a “national head” focused on presidential coalition politics, and a “regional head” focused on state and local politics. The Forestry Code is far more about regional and local interests than it is about general, strategic national issues. And this is also a measure of the little importance environmental issues have in the national political agenda. There is no place in the Brazilian party system for ideology or policy-oriented behavior. Parties are machines finely tuned to grabbing power and controlling the largest possible share of the national budget. All political dealings are led by the convenience of personalities, factions and their allies. Paramount among allies are business sectors that can provide resources to parties’ and politicians’ campaign finance; labor organizations that can provide loyal vote clusters; and organized sectoral lobbies controlling either money or vote pools.

Ideologies in this system are so fuzzy that ultra-right and ultra-left nationalists can easily coalesce to fight what they see as the perils of globalization. Retrograde business groups and opportunistic politicians who identify themselves as “progressive”, “communist”, or “socialist” can easily find common ground to justify their alliance. Ideological identifications are today no more than meaningless labels. That’s how a “communist” can staunchly defend the interests of landowners. Among the landowners to be benefitted there may be several who have had illegal or illegitimate access to land either by directly appropriating public land, or buying illegally grabbed land with fraudulent property documentation. Some of them are being prosecuted for the use of forced labor in their farms. The proposed version of the bill does not make any clear distinction between legitimate owners of legal land and land-grabbers.

The bill is presently at the stage of House committees review. After being voted at the House floor it has to be reviewed by the Senate. As we are approaching the campaign for general elections, including a presidential election, it is unlikely the bill could become law this year, under normal circumstances. Here lie the hopes of those who want to defend Brazilian forests and rivers: to obstruct the decision-making process and wait for the new correlation of forces that will come out of the elections. Seat turnover is likely to be very high this year: 100% of House seats and two thirds of the Senate seats are up for the grabs. Safe seats will be no more than 30% in the House. In other words only around 30% of the House are likely to get reelected. At least 60% of the Senate seats will change hands, a turnover of around 40%. Newcomers to the House can be as much as 50% of the total. We should also include in the renewal at least another 20% or 30% of seats that will likely be gained by former House members that did not run at the previous election or failed to get elected.

With the possibility of a power shift at the Presidency and a substantial change in party seat share in the Congress, the best strategy for those who oppose these changes to the Forestry Code should be to prevent the bill from being voted this year. The issues addressed by the bill will certainly be debated during the campaign and different points of view will become better known to the public. This would the best way to deal with the complexities and idiosyncrasies of the Brazilian political system.

The proposal responds solely to the interests of the more traditional sector of the Brazilian agribusiness. Its main effect, if turned into law, would be to pardon illegal practices that led to deforestation and destruction of riparian vegetation that caused the erosion of river beds and drying of water sources. I’ve been to areas of soybean plantation where producers are desperate about water scarcity brought about by land clearing that destroyed all the previous vegetation, including the riverine, to increase agricultural area. Now rivers and sources are drying, and they’re left with no water for irrigation. In the future they’ll leave the land bare, and look for new areas to occupy pushing deforestation further into the Amazon and the savanna fields (Cerrado).

The proposal does harm not only to the environment, but to the economic sustainability of competitive agricultural production in many areas. This mode of production destroys the vegetal riparian protection of river banks and water sources; clears the vegetation that prevents landslides on steep hillsides; disregards the legal reserve of primary forest as a means to protect biodiversity. It is detrimental to a contemporary and competitive agricultural commodity business. Large global buyers are banning all grain beef and leather coming from land illegally cleared, or produced with the use of forced labor from their supply chains. In the Brazilian domestic market large chains such as Walmart, Pão de Açúcar and Carrefour are also banning beef coming from areas of deforestation from their shelves. Major Brazilian exporters of leather goods will soon be forced to do the same.

The proposal goes to the extreme of giving fiscal benefits to those who have illegally cleared their land and disrespected rules for the protection of riparian vegetation and primary biodiversity. Farmers who have obeyed all rules and paid a price for being legal will now see those who have thrived in illegality getting subsidized long-term finance to abide by far less demanding rules. Rules that will lead to the resumption of deforestation and destruction of river courses.

How can that happen? An alliance between a communist and the more conservative forces of the right linked to traditional rural practices of production and domination? How come the successors of the Brazilian latifundia can find political help from a supposedly left wing politician? How can a government led by a president who came from the progressive metalworkers union movement, leader of a labor-oriented party let such a bill follow its course unhindered? The government leadership is taking no action either to block or to modify a proposal that runs against current government policies. It will, among other things, prevent the government from meeting the deforestation targets it has registered under the Copenhagen Accord. Several representatives of the Social-democrat opposition are also supporting the proposal or have adopted an attitude of benign neglect.

The Brazilian political system has some very specific features that help to explain such apparently surreal outcomes. Features that are hard to explain to foreign audiences.

Brazil has a presidential political system in which the President depends on a multiparty coalition to govern. I called it a ‘coalition presidential system’ a long time ago. It explains why president Lula is so uninterested on the fate of the Forestry Code. He has many traditional rural business sectors in his coalition that have a direct interest in changing the Code for their own benefit. The majority of the progressive forces in his coalition are not really interested in what happens to the distant Amazon region or the rich savanna fields of the Brazilian midwest.

Brazilian parties are two-headed entities, with a “national head” focused on presidential coalition politics, and a “regional head” focused on state and local politics. The Forestry Code is far more about regional and local interests than it is about general, strategic national issues. And this is also a measure of the little importance environmental issues have in the national political agenda. There is no place in the Brazilian party system for ideology or policy-oriented behavior. Parties are machines finely tuned to grabbing power offices and getting a fair share of the national budget. All political dealings are led by the convenience of personalities, factions and their allies. Paramount among allies are business sectors that can provide resources to parties’ and politicians’ campaign finance; labor organizations that can provide loyal vote clusters; and organized sectoral lobbies controlling either money or vote pools.

Ideologies in this system are so fuzzy that ultra-right and ultra-left nationalists can easily coalesce to fight what they see as the perils of globalization. Retrograde business groups and opportunistic politicians who identify themselves as “progressive”, “communist”, or “socialist” can easily find common ground to justify their alliance. Ideological identifications are today no more than meaningless labels. That’s how a “communist” can staunchly defend the interests of landowners. Among the landowners to be benefitted there may be several who have had illegal or illegitimate access to land either by directly appropriating public land, or buying illegally grabbed land with fraudulent property documentation. Some of them are being prosecuted for the use of forced labor in their farms. The proposed version of the bill does not make any clear distinction between legitimate owners of legal land and land-grabbers.

The proposal is presently under discussion by the House at the committee level. After being voted at the House floor it has to be reviewed by the Senate. As we are approaching the campaign for general elections, including a presidential election, it is unlikely the bill could become law this year, unless President Lula tells his leaders in Congress to give it urgency status. Here lies the hopes of those who want to defend Brazilian forests and rivers: to obstruct the decision-making process and wait for the new correlation of forcers that will come out of the elections. Seat turnover is likely to be very high this year: 100% of House seats and two thirds of the Senate seats are up for the grabs. Safe seats will be no more than 30% in the House. In other words only around 30% of the House are likely to get reelected. At least 60% of the Senate seats will change hands, a turnover of around 40%. Newcomers to the House can be as much as 50% of the total. We should also include in the renewal at least another 20% or 30% of seats that will likely be gained by former House members that did not run at the previous election or failed to get elected.

With the possibility of a power shift at the Presidency and a substantial change in party seat share in the Congress, the best strategy for those who oppose these changes to the Forestry Code should be to prevent the bill from being voted this year. The issues addressed by the bill will certainly be debated during the campaign and different points of view will become better known to the public. This should be the best way to deal with the complexities and idiosyncrasies of the Brazilian political system.

Sérgio Abranches

If history will repeat itself again in Haiti, the country runs the risk of plunging into deep social regression. It is on the verge of a dreadful state of nature. A state where people are led by instinct, fed by pain, anger, despair, and distrust.

History is not fate, or destiny. It is the result of social forces interacting with natural factors. Ramsey Clark alerts that “the history of Haiti will break your heart.” Brazilians use to sing Caetano Veloso’s 1980‘s song Haiti, where he asks: “think about Haiti, pray for Haiti.”

Haiti’s history has been an intercourse between human predators and brutal natural forces. Exploitation, isolation, occupation, the imposition of heavy reparations, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis have devastated the country’s right to a civilized future since the beginning of colonial rule.

Its native population was decimated in less than three decades after Columbus set foot on Hispaniola Island. The natives were replaced by African slaves. Haiti paid a double and unbearable price for its Independence War. As Clark wrote:

Haiti lay in ruins, nearly half its population lost. The African slaves of Haiti had defeated the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. The 12-year war for liberation had destroyed most of the irrigation systems and machinery that, with slave labor, had created France’s richest colony and were the foundation of the island’s economy.

After Independence, in 1804, came isolation. The economies of the Americas were built on slavery. European nations were colonial powers. No nation wanted to legitimate an order born of slave revolt for freedom, or colonial rebellion. The United States would only recognize the independent republic after Civil War rid the country of its slave system, in 1862. Slavery was only abolished in Brazil in 1888, 66 years after its independence from Portugal.

The wealthier landowners who had not left Haiti after heavy losses from the destruction of coffee, cocoa, cotton and tobacco plantations, or were not killed during the Independence War, fled the island before the French surrender, or with the French troops.

Fear of the virus of black insurrection turned the “Pearl of the Caribbean” into the pariah of the Americas. Isolation was a greater price to pay for rebellion than lives lost and a devastated economy. It gave the poor island no means for recovery. Its connections with world markets were severed. The US would only allow limited trade before official recognition. Haiti desperately needed economic integration with the rest of the world. Its only source of revenue were tradable commodities (sugar, cotton, coffee, cocoa, tobacco). It lacked capital, and would not attract investors. Access to the French market would only be opened to Haiti after the country agreed to pay a heavy – and mostly illegitimate – indemnity for seized land.

After isolation, came occupation. The US occupied Haiti for 19 years, from 1915 to 1934. It left the country poorer than when the marines took over the Island.

Unemployed Haitians,looking for jobs, had moved to the Dominican Republic during occupation. The Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo presided over a genocidal racist campaign against black Haitians. As many as 40,000 were killed.

After foreign abuse, came brutal domestic oppression. The two Duvaliers, Papa Doc and Baby Doc, and their Tonton Macoutes established a murderous reign of terror, exploitation and corruption. It lasted for 30 years, most of the time with the formal or informal support of Western Nations, the US in particular.

As late as 2003 the US, the European Union and multilateral banks were withholding $500 million in aid and loans because, they said, Aristide’s government failed to reach a compromise with opposition parties which boycotted the elections. Again the threat of sanctions and isolation was used against the poor Haitians on political grounds.

What about natural forces? Haiti is geographically a disaster prone location. When natural risk is evaluated against the social frailties of the Island, it becomes a tragedy prone country.

Hurricanes were unknown to Europeans venturing in the Caribbean seas for the first time. Christopher Columbus met his first near Hispaniola in 1495 and was startled by its violence. During colonial times tropical storms and hurricanes devastated plantations throughout the Caribbean. The heavier losses were incurred by the more valued and demanding plantations of coffee, cotton, cocoa and tobacco. Sugar cane plantations were also destroyed, but their shorter cultivation cycle allowed landowners to resume production sooner, at lower investment cost. This explains to a considerable extent the trend towards monoculture. It also led many wealthier plantation owners to migrate with the cash results of their production. Hence the progressive reduction on the size of landed properties and the impoverishment of the landed elite. An impoverished elite, eager to extract the most from its land on the shorter span of time possible, meant more exploitation of slave labor, greater violence and absence of any concern for the welfare of slaves and the non-elite. Growing poverty and dispossession resulted from the climatic hardships of the plantation economy.

Extensive plantation and the search for safer locations led to deforestation. Hispaniola had an immense wealth of biodiversity when it was discovered. All this wealth was lost with almost total deforestation. Deforestation increased the island vulnerability do extreme climate.

In short, since colonial times Haitians were victims of a merciless cycle of misery caused by the interplay of human violence, environmental degradation and severe natural phenomena.

Deforestation, lack of adequate emergency service and poor infrastructure also help to explain the recent history of extreme natural events making human tragedy to be reenacted time and again in Haiti.

In 1935, a storm killed more than 2000 people. In 1946, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake was registered in Hispaniola. Although centered in the Dominican Republic it also affected Haiti extensively. In 1954, hurricane Hazel killed people, destroyed 40 per cent of the coffee trees and 50 per cent of the cacao crop. In 1963 hurricane Flora killed 8000 people. In 1994, hurricane Gordon wiped out 80% of the crops of the country. In 2004 tropical storm Jeanne provoked extensive flooding and landslides, killing 2,500 people and displacing thousands more. In 2008 Haiti was hit by four different hurricanes – Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike – in the space of 30 days: 800 people died, 60 per cent of the country’s agriculture were devastated, and entire cities became desolate and uninhabitable.

“Today, we are all Haitians”, New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof (@nickkristof ) twitted from New York City, CNN anchor Kristie Lu Stout (@klustout) retwitted from Hong Kong, and O Globo columnist Míriam Leitão (@MiriamLeitaoCom), re-retwitted from Rio de Janeiro. It remains to be seen for how long we’ll keep Haiti on our hearts and minds.

I fear we will forget the Haitian tragedy in a few months. The country will fail to get aid on the amount required to rebuilt its cities appropriately. People will not get safer and better homes. Infrastructure will not be recovered and improved. Emergency service will not be provided. Risk areas will continue to be occupied and unattended.

The best case scenario, alas an unlikely one, would be an unprecedented success story of world solidarity to Haitians. Haiti wouldn’t be forgotten. The world would give back to its people through unconditional and unprejudiced aid part of the wealth it transferred to richer nations. The Haitian children, half of its population, would get good, unprejudiced education. Quality education would enable young Haitians to take the best of its cultural tradition, acquire the knowledge to become good active citizens and get qualified to lead the country to a civilized life sometime in the 21^st century.

Let me finish with Ramsey Clark’s whole phrase on Haiti’s history.

The history of Haiti will break your heart. Knowing it, the weak will despair, but the caring will strive to break the chains of tragedy.

After months of political infighting Brazilian authorities have finally agreed last Friday to commit to a voluntary target to curb between 36 percent and 39 percent of projected emissions under a Business As Usual (BAU) scenario to 2020. It is a major political shift, although real carbon cuts could be much lower than the percentages seem to indicate.

Sergio Abranches

The major contribution to this deviation from a BAU trajectory of GHG emissions will come from reduction of deforestation and degradation, around 25 percentage points. The remaining will come mainly from agriculture, and a ban on the use of charcoal from native forest logging by pig iron mills. Contributions from the manufacturing and transport sectors will be very modest.

Real emissions reductions will depend on the baseline adopted and on the assumptions used to project the future trajectory of emissions. Part of the conflict between the so-called “developmentalists” led by Chief of Staff Dilma Roussef and the “environmentalists” with Environment minister Carlos Minc at the front was over the rate of future growth used for the estimates.

Original projections from the Secretary for Climate Change of the Environment Ministry used a yearly 4 percent average GDP growth as reference, already higher than the average economic growth of the last decade. The projections were then rerun using 5 percent and 6 percent growth averages, that seem highly unlikely to obtain in the near future. Higher growth figures tend to overestimate both the physical values and the pace of increase of emissions associated to the percentages.

Another important issue the government has yet to clear regards the emissions data used in the projections. The only official figures publicly available for emissions date from 1994. An explanation is still due for how government experts have calculated the future trajectory of emissions, without a series of actual emissions for the last 14 years.

Structural change since currency stabilization, commercial opening, and privatization have totally reconfigured the Brazilian industrial, agricultural and transport sectors. The auto industry has more than doubled output from 1994 to 2008. Commodity exports have increased dramatically. The manufacturing, transport, agribusiness, and energy industries are totally different today compared to their condition in 1994. All this structural change has deeply affected the distribution of GHG emissions among the different areas of activity.

The current coefficients for all sectors ought to be very different from those of 1994. Deforestation, for instance, averaged 20,700 sq. km for the period 1994-1996. The average for the last 3 years came down to 14,800 sq. km. The government has used an average of 19,500 sq. km to set the target of 80% reduction to 2020. This means that to meet the target, actual decline in logging will have to be far less steeply than if the government chose more recent figures as a baseline. This lower figure will, however, also contribute to lower the five-year average for the next period. The target is defined by periods using a five-year moving average.

This week the government has announced the smallest estimate for annual deforestation since measurement began: 7,000 sq. km. If this number is confirmed, and can be sustained after recession is gone, it means that half the target set for 2020 would have already been met, due to the high starting point chosen to define the goal.

Contribution of deforestation to GHG emissions was much higher in 1994, than it is today. The contribution of the transport and energy industries has increased significantly. Over the last 8 years most of the new electricity added to the Brazilian grid came from fossil fuel fired power plants.

How seriously this target will be taken by the government remains to be seen. It could well be no more than an act of electoral marketing. One of the reasons to suspect that much is that the center stage was occupied by president Lula’s appointee to run for president next year, Chief of Staff Dilma Roussef. She was clearly not at easy defending the same environmental issues she has opposed during all her tenure at the government.

To gain credibility the government has to publish, the sooner the better, the model and the data base used to project future emissions, the scenario assumptions, and the coefficients for the contribution of each sector to the reduction of emissions. Transparency and independent review of the data and projections used to set these goals will be a necessary condition for a credible commitment.

Depending on the data used for the projections, the announced policy could represent a reduction between 10% and 20% of 2005 emissions.

The final GHG emissions cut resulting from the policy notwithstanding, the fact remains it is a major political shift. After years denying any responsibility to mitigation and rejecting the idea of committing to a quantified goal, the government has finally decided to present a quantifiable and verifiable mitigation action at COP15.

Once the diplomats officially announce the target, Brazil will become accountable for it. The country will have crossed a point of no return. Whether it is legally binding or not is just a formality. Politically it will make the government accountable.

From this point onwards it will be a matter of refining and enlarging the country’s commitment. The next step will likely be for the new administration to take office in 2011 to substitute this deviation from a projection of future emissions with a target based on real emissions for a base-year, probably 2005.

The state of São Paulo, whose governor, José Serra, from PSDB, the main opposition party, is a likely presidential candidate, has already written into law a reduction of 20 percent of 2005 GHG emissions, by 2020. A far more concrete and incontrovertible goal.

This move from Brazil, together with the likely cooperative attitude from China, and depending on what the US will do could well change for the better the prospects of a meaningful political deal in Copenhagen.

Preliminary satellite data points to the smaller amount of logging since measurement began. But can it be sustained?

Sergio Abranches

INPE – The National Space Research Agency reports a major reduction of deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon. Preliminary satellite data shows that total deforestation from August 2008 to July 2009 reached the lowest level since measurement began: 7,008 sq. km. Although the government, in full electoral drive, attributes this sharp drop in logging activity to policies of land property regularization, it has other causes.

The government is also celebrating these figures as a durable achievement, which is unlikely to be true. The major factor behind such a low number was the recession, that has dramatically reduced housing activities, the major source of demand for Amazon timber – both legal and illegal. The world economic crisis has also substantially reduced foreign demand for agricultural commodities, at the same time their prices fell significantly. There is a historic correlation between agricultural commodities prices and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

Deforestation has been, nevertheless, on a downward trend since 2005. The two major economic drivers of deforestation in Brazil, soybean plantation and cattle ranching are under relative control due to successful action from Greenpeace. First the NGO has targeted soybean production, and led major consumers such as MacDonald’s, and its major supplier, Cargill, to join other large companies on a soy moratorium that is now 3 years old. Earlier this year, Greenpeace targeted cattle retailers, and as a result the larger supermarket chains Wal-Mart, Pão de Açúcar and Carrefour announced a ban on beef from ranchers and slaughterhouses accused of deforestation by state prosecutors. The government became a part of these initiatives after they were already in force.

This downward trend has also resulted from policies the of the command and control introduced by former Environment Minister Marina Silva, and maintained by the present minister Carlos Minc. Minc has also increased Federal Police and Environmental Agents’ raids against cattle ranchers and illegal loggers in the Amazon that began with so-called Operation Arch of Fire created by Marina Silva.

Among the most effective actions taken by the former minister was the resolution by the Monetary Authority prohibiting financing of farms and companies found to be illegally logging.

But it is clear that deforestation will only drop on a sustained way after a whole new development policy for the region is implemented.

Although this lower level of deforestation is good news, it is still too high. According to Warren Dean (With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest) it took 150 years for the sugar cane producers to destroy 7,500 sq. km of the Atlantic Rainforest, between 1700 to 1850. In other words the government celebrates as a great achievement the fact that we are logging in one year the same amount of trees that were cut from the Atlantic Rainforest over 150 years. (Thanks to @claudioangelo for reminding us).

The government has been sounding its trumpets at every opportunity regarding the environmental agenda, since former Environment Minister, Marina Silva, quit Lula’s party, PT, to join the Green Party – PV on a bid to the Presidency in 2010. Suddenly a government that has always been aloof to environmental and climate change issues moved them to the center of its political marketing agenda.

This newly found concern for the environment will likely influence the government’s decision to commit to a quantifiable action aiming at curbing carbon emissions in Copenhagen. A good sign of this propensity for a shift on Brazil’s traditional diplomatic state of denial is that Lula has appointed his minister Dilma Roussef as head of the Brazilian delegation. Dilma Roussef, Lula’s Chief of Staff has been personally picked by the president as his party’s presidential candidate. This decision is likely to be announced later today. Tomorrow president Lula leaves for a visit to France, and minister Roussef goes from Paris to Copenhagen for preparatory talks on the way to COP15.

These are all incremental improvements that will require further work to become truly meaningful. The good news is that inertia has been broken. Underneath a heavy clutter of green washing and political marketeering there is some progress that may prove useful in the future, after politics gives room to sound policy.

China will likely play a pivotal role at COP15, next December in Copenhagen. Brazil can also have a leading role. This decision is on president Lula’s hand today.

Sergio Abranches

At the opening press conference in Barcelona, UN top climate change official Yvo de Boer said China is now the world leader on actions to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The representative of the European Union has also commended China for its endeavors at reducing carbon emissions. Jonathan Pershing considered China’s attitude towards curbing emissions a “terrific” example.

A recent report by the World Resources Institute says China is getting ready to meet the climate change challenge, and will likely meet its targets to reduce GHG emissions. According to WRI, China’s national program has clear targets and goes beyond mitigation.

Reducing the energy intensity of GDP by 20 percent over the five years 2006 through the end of 2010.

Increasing alternative energy in the fuel mix to 15 percent by 2020.

Increasing forest cover to 20 percent of China’s land mass by the end of 2010.

The national program is more than a mitigation program. It also contains support for climate science and for preparedness and adaptation. China’s scientists have been active in the global effort to understand climate change and are increasingly involved in developing technical approaches to both mitigation and adaptation.

Professor Wei Liang, of the Monterey Institute of International Studies has told me that when president Hu Jintao spoke about the new Chinese National Program in New York, although he did not announce any operational detail, he was talking about real change. China will set the details on the negotiation table, and ask for a commensurate response from industrialized countries, especially the US.

The Brazilian proposal to reduce 80% of deforestation in the Amazon by 2020 has also been praised worldwide by commentators and government officials. But the Brazilian proposal lacks substance on operational grounds, and still has very fragile political foundations. Differently from the Chinese program, it is the result of neither considered government planning, nor a government policy consensus. The government is deeply divided.

Carlos Minc, minister for the Environment, has drawn a more careful proposal to deviate Brazil’s carbon emissions between 30% and 40% from the business as usual trajectory by 2020 – but it yet lacks effective operationalization. This proposal, adequately operationalized and implemented, could amount to a reduction of about 20% of total carbon emissions by 2020. That would require stopping deforestation not only in the Amazon, but also in the rich savannah (Cerrado), the Wetlands (Pantanal), and the Atlantic Rainforest; abandoning all fossil fuel fired thermal power plants the government has approved for the coming years; adopting new regulation for automotive emissions, fuel efficiency, and quality of fuel; among other measures.

President Lula is holding a cabinet meeting, with the ministers that will be in Copenhagen, to decide whether to adopt Minc’s proposal. On a prior meeting, Chief of Staff – and presidential candidate appointee – Dilma Roussef has been very critical, saying the plan would jeopardize Brazil’s growth prospects. Minister of Science and Technology, Sérgio Resende, was also unyielding. Celso Amorim, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, opposed the plan, because it would be offering far more than what is expected from Brazil in Copenhagen.

Carlos Minc has called on the Climate Network, a coalition of several Brazilian reputed scientific institutions, to help him draw different growth scenarios for his proposal and to better detail the actions required to meet the target. (See an interview of the president of the Brazilian Agency for Space Research explaining the network – in Portuguese). This new version will be discussed today with president Lula, in the cabinet meeting. There the Brazilian president will choose whether or not Brazil will join China as a pivotal player in Copenhagen, returning to the leading role it had at the Rio ’92 meeting.