07/03/2006 - Gland, Switzerland
– WWF welcomes Brazil's new forest law aimed
at combating deforestation in the Amazon,
while developing the region’s economic potential.
Signed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva on 2 March, the new law is
also expected to help end illegal land occupation
in the Brazilian Amazon through new measures
that will provide for the demarcation of
public forests.
Social and environmental organizations,
including WWF, have for years been struggling
to press for a way to halt the process of
illegal occupation and deforestation of
the Brazilian Amazon by ranchers and agribusiness,
protect the rights of local residents, and
conserve irreplaceable biodiversity found
within the Brazilian Amazon.
“The new law provides the Brazilian government
with the unique opportunity of fostering
development, creating jobs, and generating
income while keeping the Amazon forest standing,”
said Leonardo Lacerda, WWF International's
Protected Areas Manager.
Other new legislative measures include
the creation of an independent Brazilian
Forest Service and mechanisms for modernizing
the country’s forestry sector, including
a system of forestry concessions that promotes
responsible forestry as opposed to fostering
conversion of forests into other land uses.
"This law will provide incentives
to state and municipal governments in Brazil
to adopt policies consistent with forest
conservation since agriculture ceases to
be the only alternative for regional development
in the Brazilian Amazon," says Mauro
Armelin, WWF-Brazil's public policy director.
In the next 10 years, 11 million hectares
of forests will be the object of concessions
by the Brazilian government to private loggers
for sustainable management — this represents
3 per cent of the Brazilian Amazon forest.
Under the new law, the government will
open up some forest areas under 40-year
contracts. These contracts, to be tendered
out, will allow the highest bidders to log
trees under a sustainable development plan.
Nature reserves and indigenous lands are
barred from logging. The new Brazilian Forest
Service, to be financed mainly by revenues
from the logging contracts, will establish
criteria and manage the forest concessions.
The success of the new law will depend on
several factors including the standard of
forestry management of the areas to be opened
for concessions.
“Ultimately, the forest will only be conserved
if forestry operations achieve international
credible forest certification, such as from
the Forest Stewardship Council,” added Lacerda.
“To a large extent, the success of the
new law hinges on the speed with which the
government will be able to set aside and
demarcate national and state forests en
masse, as well as ascertain its ownership
over areas that currently have no clear
public land titles and that were being rapidly
and illegally occupied, cleared and privatized.”
To date, roughly 30 per cent of the Brazilian
Amazon is protected. Indigenous lands, for
example, already cover over 20 per cent
of the area. In addition, current efforts
like the Amazon Region Protected Areas Programme
(ARPA) are ensuring that at least 12 per
cent of the Brazilian Amazon is conserved
as extractive reserves, national parks and
other protected areas.
Up to July 2004, deforestation rates in
the Brazilian Amazon have been alarmingly
high, caused mainly by agricultural expansion.
Almost 20 per cent of the area has already
been cleared. The new law offers the opportunity
to keep most of the remainder of the land
that has not yet been privatised to remain
under forest cover.
WWF will support the Brazilian government
in the implementation of this new forest
law, and calls on others, particularly funding
agencies, to join in.
END NOTES:
• The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is
an independent, not-for-profit, non-government
organization based in Bonn, Germany, providing
standard setting, trademark assurance, and
accreditation services for companies and
organizations interested in responsible
forestry. It was created in 1993 by environmental
organizations such as WWF, Friends of the
Earth, and Greenpeace, indigenous forest
dwellers, professional foresters, big retailers
such as Sweden’s IKEA and the UK’s B&Q,
and large and small forest companies.The
certification system requires consultation
with all other forest users and interested
parties and ensures an independent assessment
of a company’s forest management practices.
