At last week's Governors' Global Climate Summit, Governors from the U.S., Indonesia and Brazil signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to reduce forestry-related greenhouse gas emissions. It was an historic event and the first state-to-state, sub-national agreement focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and land degradation. There was much applauding over the agreement as the signatories represent more than 60% of the earth's forested land.
This week, the political realities of trying to prevent deforestation were brought into stark relief as a mob of 3000 angry people in Brasilia, Brazil attacked government offices and went after environmental workers with the federal environmental protection agency, IBAMA, over crackdowns on illegal logging. Sparked by the seizure of 14,000 cubic feet of wood believed to have been illegally cut from an Indian reservation, it underscores a point made by Governor Braga of Amazonia at last weeks conference; we must give economic value to healthy forests in order to have truly sustainable development and end illegal logging. He explained that the existing economy in the forested areas is a horizontal one, relying on deforestation for agriculture and logging, rather than a vertical economy based on export of finished products. It is not politically feasible or socially just to take away the existing forms of livelihood without replacing them with something else.
California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who co-hosted the summit, made clear that he understood a part of the subtext here; any cap and trade mechanism must include compensation for keeping the rainforests in tact as carbon sinks in order to incentivize forest stewardship. However, poverty is not the only factor in deforestation. Greed is, too.
IBAMA official Marco Antonio Vidal told Globo TV's G1 Web site that some of the protesters were wood company owners and logging truck drivers. - MSNBC
Police threw tear gas at the pro-logging rioters in Brazil and report that no one was injured. These riots are not unique, similar riots happened in Paragominas over wood seizures last February.
It underscores the need for better education on the importance of healthy forests as carbon sinks and areas of great biodiversity, along with a plan to make it more economically desirable to protect the forests than it is to destroy them. But before we start judging our friends in Brazil too harshly, remember that it was people in the U.S. that were chanting about destroying their own natural resources and putting the environment in further peril (drill, baby, drill) just a few short months ago.
To their credit, the Brazilian government is steadfast in their commitment to cracking down on illegal logging:
[Environment Minister Carlos] Minc said the new riot would not stop efforts to control illegal logging: "To the contrary, we're going to intensify operations and we'll punish those who are responsible." - MSNBC
