Brasilia, Brazil: Proposed
changes to Brazil’s forest laws that will
cut back protection and offer wide ranging
amnesties for illegal deforestation threaten
to undo the country’s
impressive performances in cutting back
emissions and protecting biodiversity.
"As it stands now, the forest law is
a piece of legislation that looks to the
future. It is the best possible legal framework
for our adaptation to Climate Change through
the conservation of ecosystems", the
leader of WWF’s Living Amazon Initiative,
Claudio Maretti, told a recent seminar organized
by NGO groups in Brasilia.
Over the last 10 years Brazil has set a
highly positive example of conservation,
not only by reducing the rate of deforestation
in the Amazon but also by creating terrestrial
protected areas, Maretti said.
In doing so, Brazil has legitimized its
leadership of the group of developing countries
at international meetings and assumed the
right to raise with the developed world
the question of fair sharing of costs and
benefits in adapting to climate change and
protecting biodiversity.
"The moment the forest law reform bill
is approved, Brazil will lose that role”
Maretti said. “The country will lose its
power of influence over other countries
and that will generate considerable impacts,
especially on Brazil's neighbours for whom
Brazil has been setting a good example."
13 times the emissions
The coordinator of the Nature Conservancy's
Climate Change Initiative, Fernanda Carvalho,
told the seminar that to date Brazil’s efforts
on deforestation and forest protection were
responsible for it meeting 64 per cent of
the carbon emission reduction goal it formally
committed to before the international community
Carvalho, however, believes
that the chances of achieving the remaining
36% will be drastically lessened by the
alterations to the current forest law now
being proposed.
"We had been unfolding a series of
policies designed to control deforestation
and then, in 2010, a discussion broke out
about reforming the forest law legislation
that seriously questions Brazil's political
capacity and will to achieve the goals it
committed to as a signatory to the Climate
Convention", said Carvalho.
She also pointed out that a study by the
Climate Observatory showed that allowable
deforestation on smaller properties could
release 25 billion tons of carbon into the
atmosphere - approximately 13 times Brazil’s
total emissions in 2007.
Better exports than
degradation
In deciding how to react to the proposed
forest law changes, Brazil needs to decide
what kind of development it wants to have.
WWF’s Claudio Maretti
feels that the dichotomy 'conservation versus
development' must be overcome and the economic
potential of activities based on ecosystem
services such as food production, medicines,
cosmetics and others must be given due recognition.
"Brazil has to decide whether it wants
growth achieved through degradation processes
or to grow by recuperating and taking advantage
of the potential of production allied to
conservation", said Maretti.
"Do we really want
a model that exports degradation - a model
whereby we lose more than we gain - or do
we want to invest in enhancing productivity,
in research and in sustainable use, and,
in doing so, gain access to differentiated
markets?"
