In Brazil, Kenya, and other parts of the global South, opposition is mounting toward the UN "green economy" proposed for Rio+20, with its reliance on corporate lobbies and carbon marketers. Here is a trailer of a 28 min documentary made with indigenous peoples in Brazil:
from climate-connections, A Darker Shade of Green, by Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition, who are also working with indigenous peoples in Cancún and Chiapas, Mexico.
Kenyan views in The Green Belt Movement's Community Forest Climate Initiatives (Dec 2011):
Natural forests provide benefits such as water catchment, climate regulation, biodiversity... medicine and food.
[Kyoto CDM-AR as a model for REDD] Afforestation and reforestation (AR) can have positive or negative impacts on biodiversity depending on the ecosystem being rehabilitated and the management options being applied. AR activities that emphasize species selection and site location can promote the return, survival, and expansion of indigenous fauna and flora population. In contrast, clearing native forests and replacing them with a monoculture plantation of exotic species would have a highly negative impact on biodiversity.
GBM experience has shown that uncontrolled pressure to start and scale up forest carbon projects can be disastrous to biodiversity, water resources, food security and rural community livelihoods. Lack of clear laws and national policies, zoning maps, and institutional infrastructure often lead to unfavourable competition from logging and paper industry for ‘forest land’ at the expense of highly threatened biodiversity and watershed restoration.
An increased emphasis on carbon projects can encourage the planting of exotic trees which are fast growing and give quick return on carbon credits compared to indigenous trees that grow much slower, hence have a low return on carbon credits.... A plantation is a monoculture farm of exotic trees. We cannot afford to reduce natural forests.
GBM wants to see an equitable, ethical climate finance system. Carbon offsetting does not address the issue of climate change at its root cause; behavioural change is needed so fewer GHS [green house gases] are produced....
In addition, some of the rules in these carbon projects, such as the 1990 eligibility criteria for degraded forest for AR CDM projects, further discourages conservation efforts and biodiversity restoration in rural areas. This is because only sites that were deforested before 1990 are eligible for rehabilitation without any regard to the general health of the ecosystem as a whole. Such rules have been forcing the communities to prioritize sites based on year of deforestation at the expense of the prevailing biodiversity threats and watershed restoration needs in the critical water catchment areas therefore undermining the goals of livelihoods improvement.
Local community participation: Projects should respect communities rights, culture and livelihoods. GBM experience has been that this can be achieved if the project allows for full and effective participation of rural communities. This requires sufficient investments in education and empowering communities, and developing grassroots governance structures so as to ensure free prior informed consent, enforcement of agreements, safeguards, clear and equitable benefit sharing and conflict resolution guidelines. In the absence of these, the project can fuel community conflict.
Until governments put in places strong national forest authorities, these AR carbon projects and REDD projects cannot work in Africa.
See also reports from other countries in REDD-Monitor, Global Witness, CBD Alliance's Top 10 issues for biodiversity justice, and Third World Network's backgrounder on Forests. On safeguards, see Oxfam, Guide to Free Prior and Informed Consent.
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Friday, 13 January 2012
Monday, 13 June 2011
Brazilian NGOs protest against REDD+
 |
| Ministry of External Relations (Itamaraty), Brasilia |
(English translation of the original)
To: Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado
Minister of External Relations André Corrêa do Lago
Dear Sirs,
We, organizations and social movements that fight for climate justice and are members of the Belem Letter group, have followed the national policies on climate change and the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol.
We were very worried about the outcome of the decisions of Cancún that were not enough to take concrete steps to confront the climate crisis, nor showed an effective way to reduce emissions in countries of origin and the creation of mechanisms to support the populations that are already vulnerable and will be impacted by climate change.
We reiterate our demand for the Brazilian government to reject the use of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) as a carbon market mechanism and that it would not be accepted as an offsetting to emissions from the North, under any conditionality.
We reaffirm our rejection of market mechanisms as instruments to reduce carbon emissions, based on the firm conviction that the market is not the space capable of taking responsibility for life on the planet. The latest COPs, particularly Copenhagen and Cancun, and its aftermath have shown that governments are not willing to undertake commitments consistent public and thus transfer the responsibility of practice greetings to private goals, while domestic policies, as in the case of Brazil, also have been appropriate to market interests. This makes public investment and control over the achievement of goals legitimize the global CO2 market, which appears as a new form of investment and speculative financial capital and survival to a model of production and consumption bankrupt.
We urge the Brazilian government to reaffirm the [Kyoto] principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, to ensure that decisions on the offsetting mechanisms and new forms of carbon market are not adopted, both for REDD+ as under general sources of funding for the second period commitment for the Kyoto Protocol or in new sector policies.
We believe that the offsetting mechanism will not lead to emission reductions required in developed countries and only divert the focus of negotiations which should converge towards an agreement at COP 17. This agreement must be guided by emission reduction targets for developed countries and higher than 40% compared to 1990, for the period 2013-2017, based on science and to consider the historical responsibility and climate debt.
We realize from the projects already underway, that a deregulated market for offsets can also have serious consequences for communities and local populations in the South, both in relation to the management and violation of rights to land and territories and on their ways of life associated with the forest management and conservation.
Brazil has seen in recent weeks the massive increase in deforestation in the Amazon and impending relaxation of the most important landmark environmental development, the Forestry Code, with an increase of 540% between March and April this year in the state of Mato Grosso alone, according to data from IBAMA. The current attempt to deregulate the national environmental regime could have serious implications for achieving the international targets assumed in both the Climate Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity, putting Brazil in the position of serious contradictions between its foreign policy and domestic initiatives.
For all these reasons, the undersigned organizations argue that international negotiations on climate cannot be focused on the shift to achieve emissions reductions, by market mechanisms such as REDD+. Brazil, one of the most biodiverse countries of the world, has undertaken the challenge of a real transition to a new model of production, distribution and consumption, sponsored by the State. This model should be based on proposals already underway from the matrix of agroecology, solidarity economics, land and urban reform, democratization of the use and occupation of land in the territories, and community management of a diverse and decentralized energy model, which guarantee the right to an ecologically balanced environment and food security and sovereignty.
Signed:
Actionaid Brazil
Amigos da Terra Brasil- Friends of the Earth Brazil
ANA - Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia
APTA - Associação de Programas em Tecnologias Alternativas – ES
Associação Global de Desenvolvimento Sustentado
CEAPAC - Centro de Apoio a Projetos de Ação Comunitária
CEPEDES – Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas para o Desenvolvimento do Extremo Sul da Bahia
CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário
ESPLAR- Centro de Pesquisa e Assessoria
FASE – Solidariedade e Educação
Fórum Carajás
Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social
GAMBA – Grupo Ambientalista da Bahia
GIAS – Grupo de Intercâmbio em Agricultura Sustentável – Mato Grosso
INESC – Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos
Jubileu Sul Brasil - Jubilee South Brazil
Plataforma DHESCA Brazil
Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais
Terra de Direitos
Via Campesina Brazil
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Indigenous peoples protest so-called "green economy"
On UN Human Rights Day, 10 Dec 2010, Survival International released two videos highlighting the plight of the Guarani Indians in Brazil. In One must have courage they ask return of their lands, stolen for ranches, soya and sugarcane plantations.
The Gunmen expresses their anger at landgrabbers and fear of hired pistoleros.
Further north in Pará, Amazonian peoples protest huge hydro dams that destroy forest and river ecosystems, polluting their water and dispossessing them. In June and August, in the city of Altamira, hundreds demonstrated against the huge Belo Monte dam."The forest is our grocery, the river is our market. We want strangers to leave the rivers of the Xingu alone," say chiefs quoted by the church organization CIMI. 300 more dams are planned, say the protesters.
The NGO Amazonia has reported illegal pipeline construction, land grabs by ranchers, Indian children sold as slaves, vigilante murders, fullscale military attacks, corrupt state governments and judges -- all in the name of "development". Even REDD is "short-sighted and deadly" to indigenous peoples, the NGO adds.
There is blood on the organic soya (or hamburgers) you eat, the "green" biofuels you use. More than 1,400 rural poor in Pará have been killed by illegal logger-ranchers over the last 35 years, according to the Catholic Pastoral da Terra. Witnesses die mysteriously. This year, a long-standing court case marked by corrupt decisions ended; a rancher who ordered the assassination of a white Catholic human rights activist, Sister Dorothy Stang, was finally imprisoned after strong US diplomatic pressure. See the 2008 film They Killed Sister Dorothy and the 2009 opera Angel of the Amazon. Land grabs, deforestation, and near-slavery to big landowners continue. A fifth of Amazon forests have been clear-cut in 40 years, exceeding losses in the previous five centuries. Brazil has become one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases.
The price of development? A Time article "Brazil's Land-Reform Murders" points out that Brazil has become the world's biggest producer of sugar, soy beans, coffee, orange juice, beef and chicken. Father Edilberto Senna, an activist priest, says clear-cuts, jobs, and cash are motivating factors behind the bloodshed. Despite free elections, "nothing changes," he says. "Brazil will soon be the fifth biggest economy in the world... But who pays for these ambitious goals? Amazonia, the home of the biggest reserves of minerals and timber." A geographer, Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, has produced a map of the violence. Worst murder rates are in the frontier provinces, and cities where police death squads operate. See also National Geographic's eyewitness reports from the Amazon.
Thanks to Margaret Kidd's blogs on QEWnet for these references.
The Gunmen expresses their anger at landgrabbers and fear of hired pistoleros.
Further north in Pará, Amazonian peoples protest huge hydro dams that destroy forest and river ecosystems, polluting their water and dispossessing them. In June and August, in the city of Altamira, hundreds demonstrated against the huge Belo Monte dam."The forest is our grocery, the river is our market. We want strangers to leave the rivers of the Xingu alone," say chiefs quoted by the church organization CIMI. 300 more dams are planned, say the protesters.
The NGO Amazonia has reported illegal pipeline construction, land grabs by ranchers, Indian children sold as slaves, vigilante murders, fullscale military attacks, corrupt state governments and judges -- all in the name of "development". Even REDD is "short-sighted and deadly" to indigenous peoples, the NGO adds.
There is blood on the organic soya (or hamburgers) you eat, the "green" biofuels you use. More than 1,400 rural poor in Pará have been killed by illegal logger-ranchers over the last 35 years, according to the Catholic Pastoral da Terra. Witnesses die mysteriously. This year, a long-standing court case marked by corrupt decisions ended; a rancher who ordered the assassination of a white Catholic human rights activist, Sister Dorothy Stang, was finally imprisoned after strong US diplomatic pressure. See the 2008 film They Killed Sister Dorothy and the 2009 opera Angel of the Amazon. Land grabs, deforestation, and near-slavery to big landowners continue. A fifth of Amazon forests have been clear-cut in 40 years, exceeding losses in the previous five centuries. Brazil has become one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases.The price of development? A Time article "Brazil's Land-Reform Murders" points out that Brazil has become the world's biggest producer of sugar, soy beans, coffee, orange juice, beef and chicken. Father Edilberto Senna, an activist priest, says clear-cuts, jobs, and cash are motivating factors behind the bloodshed. Despite free elections, "nothing changes," he says. "Brazil will soon be the fifth biggest economy in the world... But who pays for these ambitious goals? Amazonia, the home of the biggest reserves of minerals and timber." A geographer, Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, has produced a map of the violence. Worst murder rates are in the frontier provinces, and cities where police death squads operate. See also National Geographic's eyewitness reports from the Amazon.
Thanks to Margaret Kidd's blogs on QEWnet for these references.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
The Waters of March in Quebec and Brazil -- by Mary Soderstrom, Tom Jobim & Elis Regina
Mary Soderstrom's blog Recreating Eden is a constant delight. Here are some samples:
13 March: Once upon a time this stream ran down the north side of Mount Royal to pool in Outremont, forming bogs which have since been transformed into Outremont and Saint Viateur parks. Now it runs through concrete pipe for some of its route, but in places it still sees the light of day. The photo was taken in Mount Royal cemetery where it is allowed to meander a bit. This morning, despite temperatures below freezing, there was no ice on it as it burbled away. More signs of spring.
16 March: Snowdrops in the front yard. When these started to show their heads a week ago, I was delighted to see that they've spread. Another triumph of Darwinian gardening! (That is: what will grow, will grow. Won't won't, we won't worry about.)
3 March: The first time I heard the excellent song "The Waters of March" by Tom Jobim, the rushing streams of spring were what I thought of, but now I realize that the waters referred to are really the fall rains after the Brazilian summer. Peu importe, as they say around here. It's a great song and very appropriate.
[Sung by Elis Regina (1945-82) -- nicknamed "furacão" ("hurricane") and "pimentinha" ("little pepper") -- Brazil's equivalent of Billie Holiday. Jobim's musical structure echoes the downward flow of drops, streams, gathering into rivers: the end of a season or a life, and the promise of renewal. - Ed.]
Lyrics
13 March: Once upon a time this stream ran down the north side of Mount Royal to pool in Outremont, forming bogs which have since been transformed into Outremont and Saint Viateur parks. Now it runs through concrete pipe for some of its route, but in places it still sees the light of day. The photo was taken in Mount Royal cemetery where it is allowed to meander a bit. This morning, despite temperatures below freezing, there was no ice on it as it burbled away. More signs of spring.
16 March: Snowdrops in the front yard. When these started to show their heads a week ago, I was delighted to see that they've spread. Another triumph of Darwinian gardening! (That is: what will grow, will grow. Won't won't, we won't worry about.)3 March: The first time I heard the excellent song "The Waters of March" by Tom Jobim, the rushing streams of spring were what I thought of, but now I realize that the waters referred to are really the fall rains after the Brazilian summer. Peu importe, as they say around here. It's a great song and very appropriate.
[Sung by Elis Regina (1945-82) -- nicknamed "furacão" ("hurricane") and "pimentinha" ("little pepper") -- Brazil's equivalent of Billie Holiday. Jobim's musical structure echoes the downward flow of drops, streams, gathering into rivers: the end of a season or a life, and the promise of renewal. - Ed.]
Lyrics
| Águas de Março É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho É um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho É um caco de vidro, é a vida, é o sol É a noite, é a morte, é o laço, é o anzol É peroba do campo, é o nó da madeira Caingá candeia, é o matita-pereira É madeira de vento, tombo da ribanceira É o mistério profundo, é o queira ou não queira É o vento ventando, é o fim da ladeira É a viga, é o vão, festa da cumeeira É a chuva chovendo, é conversa ribeira Das águas de março, é o fim da canseira É o pé, é o chão, é a marcha estradeira Passarinho na mão, pedra de atiradeira É uma ave no céu, é uma ave no chão É um regato, é uma fonte, é um pedaço de pão É o fundo do poço, é o fim do caminho No rosto o desgosto, é um pouco sozinho É um estrepe, é um prego, é uma ponta, é um ponto É um pingo pingando, é uma conta, é um conto É um peixe, é um gesto, é uma prata brilhando É a luz da manhã, é o tijolo chegando É a lenha, é o dia, é o fim da picada É a garrafa de cana, o estilhaço na estrada É o projeto da casa, é o corpo na cama É o carro enguiçado, é a lama, é a lama É um passo, é uma ponte, é um sapo, é uma rã É um resto de mato, na luz da manhã São as águas de março fechando o verão É a promessa de vida no teu coração É uma cobra, é um pau, é João, é José É um espinho na mão, é um corte no pé São as águas de março fechando o verão, É a promessa de vida no teu coração É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho É um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho São as águas de março fechando o verão, É a promessa de vida no teu coração É um passo, é uma ponte, é um sapo, é uma rã É um belo horizonte, é uma febre terçã São as águas de março fechando o verão É a promessa de vida no teu coração pau, pedra, fim do caminho resto de toco, pouco sozinho (bis) São as águas de março fechando o verão É a promessa de vida no teu coração. | The Waters of March A stick, a stone, It's the end of the road, It's the rest of a stump, It's a little alone It's a sliver of glass, It is life, it's the sun, It is night, it is death, It's a trap, it's a gun A pink plank of peroba A knot in the wood, A fox in the brush, The song of a thrush The wood of the wind, A cliff, a fall, A mysterious yearning Or nothing at all It's the wind blowing free, It's the end of the slope, It's a beam, it's a void, It's a hunch, it's a hope And the rain rains down And the river bank talks Of the promise of Spring Of the joy in your heart. The foot, the ground, The flesh and the bone, The beat of the road, A slingshot's stone. It's a bird in the sky It's a bird in the bush It's a buy, it's a gush. It's a morsel of bread. The bed of the well, The end of the line, Dismay in the face, At a little pain. A spear, a spike, A point, a nail, A drip, a drop, A story, a tale It`s a fish, it's a flash In the soft shining light, A truckload of bricks At the end of the night. It's a league, it's a day The end of a bite, It's a bottle of booze And a thorn in the foot. The plan of a house, A body in bed, And the car that got stuck In the mud, it's the mud. It's a step, it's a road, It's a frog, it's a toad, It's a bit of weed left In the morning light. And the waters of March Say the summer's end, Of the promise of life Of the joy in your heart. A snake, a stick, It is John, it is Joe, It's a thorn in your hand and a cut in your toe And the waters of March Say the summer's end, Of the promise of life Of the joy in your heart. It's a stick, it's a stone, It's the end of the line What remains of a touch, Of a little pain. And the waters of March Say the summer's end, Of the promise of life Of the joy in your heart. It's a step, it's a road, It's a frog, it's a toad, It's a sky clearing, It's a fever breaking. And the waters of March Say the summer's end, Of the promise of life Of the joy in your heart. Stick, stone, End of the line, Remains of a touch, A little pain. (Repeat) And the waters of March Say the summer's end, Of the promise of life Of the joy in your heart. |
*****
Mary Soderstrom’s blog Recreating Eden continues the themes of her books The Walkable City (2009), Green City: People, Nature & Urban Places (2007), and Recreating Eden: A Natural History of Botanical Gardens (2006). She has published several novels including The Violets of Usambara (2008). She lives in Montreal.
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Protesting pirate loggers in Amazonia -- by Brenda Balletti
Articulo en español en bajo. All photos and English article by Brenda Baletti, an expert on on environmental politics in Brazil, are taken from Grist 12 Jan 10. In theory, Brazil's Economic and Ecological Zoning plans (ZEE) protect indigenes, quilombolas (descendants of runaway slaves), traditional river people, landless peasants, and nature. But since 1990 over 500 people have been murdered by plantation bosses and land grabbers. The grileiros' violence and corruption of officials continue, making a mockery of "ecosystem management".
Early one morning in late November 2009, a group of 30 people set out by motorized canoes from the community of Santa Maria of Uruará, in the lower Brazilian Amazon to the junction of the Tamataí and Uruará Rivers, at the boundary of the Extractive Reserve Renascer.* The group set up a camp on the riverbank in order to do what the government has not — block illegal loggers who have been taking wood from inside the reserve.
In June of 2009, after more than a decade of conflict between the traditional riberinho (river dweller) communities of the region and loggers and commercial fishers, the Renascer Extractive Reserve was created, albeit at half of the size that the communities had requested. The size was limited in order to accommodate logging and mineral interests, according to government officials involved with the process.
But the creation of the reserve changed nothing—illegal loggers protected by armed gunman have continued to extract timber from inside the reserve’s boundaries. The state and federal government agencies (SEMA and IBAMA respectively) say they have no resources to monitor and enforce restrictions inside the reserve. In fact, after the creation of the reserve, the number of timber barges leaving the area actually increased; until the locals started blocking shipments of logs, up to five barges per day were floating down the river with a total of up to 5,000 cubic meters of wood illegally logged from the reserve.
The camp that started in late November quickly grew to hundreds of people, blocking passage of river barges and waiting for government agents to come and negotiate with them. What started as a few hammocks strung up in a muddy, mosquito-ridden forest has grown to a village. They cleared out the brush, and each family built a makeshift house from plastic and wood and dug a fire pit. They take turns fishing, and periodically one of them sacrifices a cow to feed the group.
Because the protesters prevented barges from floating down the river for more than a month, the thwarted loggers began to retaliate. Their planes periodically make threateningly low flyovers; loggers in passing boats yell threats. One night, five men set fire to brush next to the camp.
The Jaurú logging company attempted to bribe the community members to let wood pass down the river. When their offer was rejected, the company hired gunmen to accompany their barges to market. In the early morning of Jan. 3, five log-laden barges set forth, accompanied by 40 armed men. When they reached the encampment, they opened fire on the sleeping, unarmed protestors. Two people were shot. The victims were rushed to the hospital; they survived.
The demonstration at Renascer was in part inspired by action taken a month earlier and 100 miles to the west, in an area called Gleba Nova Olinda at the source of the Arapiuns River. On Nov. 12, people from over 40 indigenous and traditional communities—frustrated after more than a decade of failed negotiations with the state for territorial rights, and increasingly suffering threats and attacks against their leaders—closed the Arapiuns River to logging traffic and sequestered two barges full of timber. The protestors camped on the river’s edge for a month as they waited, to no avail, for state and federal governments to arrive and address the problem. Finally, they set fire to the 2,000 cubic meters of wood on the barges. The fires blazed on for three days.
Over the last 10 years, logging has increased dramatically in the west of Pará, where both of these conflicts are located. Pará is a state in lower Brazilian Amazon that is larger than most countries and is notorious for violent land conflict. The incursion of logging into their territories there has resulted in traditional and indigenous people demanding land rights as a way to protect their communities. But the people have grown increasingly frustrated at the government’s unwillingness or inability to protect their homelands; often, land rights are not granted, reserves are not protected, and laws and management plans are not enforced.
In some cases, the government is asking for GPS coordinates and photos to prove that illegal logging is taking place—a totally unrealistic request of people who have on average studied to a fifth-grade level, live from subsistence and small-scale market agricultural production, and have only recently gotten gas-powered motors that provide electricity to their homes. Even when NGOs and outside researchers collect this data, it frequently comes to naught, because officials never follow up and because laws are written or circumvented in favor of logging interests.
So the river dwellers and other indigenous people are taking matters into their own hands, trying to stop the injustices committed against their communities. Ironically, they’re now the ones being branded as criminals.
In the case of the Renascer encampment, the loggers got a municipal judge to issue an order saying that the camp must be disbanded or the people imprisoned. Two weeks ago, the police began an action to put six of the leaders from the Arapiuns in “preventative prison,” which would lock them up indefinitely until they are exonerated of all charges. Such imprisonment is normally imposed on people who are at risk of fleeing or who lack physical addresses and jobs, neither of which applies to these leaders.
This sort of punitive action accomplishes two things — it robs the movement of its leadership, and it diverts the movement’s time and energy into a legal battle, distracting from its larger goal of fighting for land rights and curbing illegal logging.
Thus are the power relations in rapidly industrializing Brazil. For people in the United States, tussles over territorial rights and protest camps can seem provincial and distant — regrettable, yes, but in a world overflowing with injustice, not cause for excessive concern.
But the Amazon is not your average disputed territory. In recent decades, tropical forests have absorbed 20 percent of global fossil-fuel emissions, and the Amazon has been the biggest carbon sink of them all, absorbing nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. The river dwellers aren’t defending a vision of the rainforest as a pristine carbon sink, but rather as a homeland that can support a broad range of species and vegetation, including humans. That might not be what Western environmentalists what to hear, but it’s surely a more ecologically responsible vision than clear-cutting followed by vast soybean monocrops.
tirado de Programa de las Américas 12 de enero de 2010. Brenda Baletti vive en Santarém y las investigaciones que realiza para su disertación doctoral versan sobre las luchas por los derechos territoriales en la parte oeste de Pará. Gilson Rego es licenciado en Sociología por la Universidad Federal de Pará y trabaja para la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra o Comissao Pastoral da Terra en Santarém. Antonio Sena es estudiante de Derecho en la Universidad Federal del Amazonas y se especializa en investigaciones sobre derechos a la tierra.
Tras más de una década de denuncias ignoradas, negociaciones infructuosas con el gobierno e incontables amenazas a sus dirigentes de parte de las empresas taladoras y sus mercenarios, los pobladores de la región Arapiuns en la Amazonia brasileña realizaron una protesta pública contra la tala ilegal en sus tierras. Más de 500 miembros de 40 comunidades se unieron, usando sus rabetas (canoas con motor fuera de borda) para cerrar el Río Arapiuns a la actividad de la tala en la Gleba Nova Olinda. Los manifestantes tomaron dos barcazas de troncos.
La protesta se prolongó durante más de un mes, mientras funcionarios del gobierno estatal y federal alternativamente les ignoraban o respondían con evasivas. Al final los manifestantes, frustrados, decidieron volver más apremiante su mensaje. El 12 de noviembre, luego de una segunda reunión con funcionarios estatales y federales que de nuevo dejaron sin solución sus problemas, incendiaron las barcazas.
La llamada Gleba Nova Olinda comprende 172,900 hectáreas entre los ríos Maró y Aruá, en el nacimiento del Río Arapiuns, municipio de Santarém. Sus recursos naturales son vitales para la sobrevivencia del pueblo Arapiuns. La protesta une a 14 comunidades de todo ese territorio, en el "Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y la Cultura de los Arapiuns."
Las comunidades indígenas y campesinas de la Gleba Nova Olinda han estado solicitando al gobierno el reconocimiento legal de sus derechos territoriales desde hace trece años, cuando se creó la vecina Reserva Extractiva Tapajós-Arapiuns. A lo largo de los últimos diez años, los programas de intercambio de tierras estatales y de incentivos para el desarrollo atrajeron a explotadoras forestales y agricultores potenciales de soya a la Gleba Nova Olinda. Su entrada despertó conflictos, que pronto se volvieron violentos, por los derechos a la tierra y a los recursos con los habitantes del área. La violencia efectiva y las amenazas de violencia son medios comunes para la resolución de conflictos en el estado de Pará, donde recursos valiosos como la madera conducen a conflictos donde mucho se arriesga y la coacción estatal es mínima.
Las explotadoras forestales han dividido a las comunidades de la región, expandiendo el conflicto más allá de la tradicional confrontación entre taladoras, especuladores de tierras y comunidades. Las empresas han comprado a bajo precio el apoyo de algunas comunidades proporcionándoles infraestructura que el gobierno nunca les entregó, como generadores y edificaciones comunitarias, o empleos que convierten a los pobladores del área en agentes de la deforestación. Sin embargo, casi toda la población continúa protestando contra la presencia de las compañías taladoras.
Las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Olinda, el sindicato de trabajadores rurales y la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra colaboraron durante tres meses en un proyecto de plan de tenencia de la tierra que garantizaría los derechos de los pobladores. Este plan se basó en años de discusiones entre las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Linda y la región de Arapiuns, más amplia. Después de todos sus esfuerzos, el gobierno del estado escogió ignorar su propuesta en favor de otra presentada por las compañías madereras y las cooperativas que reclamaban ilegalmente tierras y recursos dentro del área.1
En los hechos, el gobierno estatal de Pará resolvió no expulsar a las taladoras y especuladores de tierra que operan en los territorios tradicionales e indígenas. Por el contrario, la propuesta autorizó once "planes de administración sostenible" y redujo el tamaño del Proyecto de Asentamientos de Reforma Agraria Agroextractivistas Vista Alegre, de 25,000 hectáreas a 5,000 hectáreas.
Entre tanto, el proceso legal llevado por la Fundación Nacional del Indio (FUNAI) para que se reconozca y se demarque el área, ha permanecido estancado por años.2 La renuencia del FUNAI a demarcar el área ha permitido a las taladoras de la región y al gobierno estatal seguir ignorando los derechos del pueblo indígena Borari-Arapiuns construyendo caminos para el transporte de troncos, otorgando licencias para planes administrativos y negándose a hacer cumplir las normas para la tala y transporte de madera y tenencia de la tierra dentro del territorio indígena.
El Traslado de las Tierras y los Recursos al Mercado
En el estado de Pará, la vasta existencia de recursos naturales ha desembocado en corrupción incrustada en las instituciones. En una combinación tanto de manipulación legal como de violación de leyes con la impunidad, el gobierno frecuentemente facilita y encubre los delitos ambientales en la región. Como lo explica el especialista sobre la Amazonia Leal Aluzio, "a fin de cuentas, quienes tienen el poder de impedir o permitir la ilegalidad son las autoridades; ésta es la autoridad investida de poder institucional. Así la ilegalidad, cuando es 'liberada', se expresa en diversas formas de transgresión, desde lo claramente ilegal a lo presuntamente 'legal', que se encuentran 'protegidos' por la ley."3
Los cambios recientes en el uso del suelo y distribución territorial en la Amazonia brasileña siguen en general dos vertientes: Ha habido un ímpetu hacia el reconocimiento de derechos étnica y culturalmente fundamentados a tierras/territorio para los pueblos indígenas y nativos a consecuencia de movimientos populares de base más fuertes y convenciones internacionales. A los pobladores indígenas, quilombolas (descendientes de comunidades de esclavos fugitivos), pueblo "tradicional", campesinos sin tierra y a la naturaleza se les ha asignado sus propios polígonos en los "mapas de zonificación Económica y Ecológica", los planos territoriales de la región amazónica creados por la iniciativa del Banco Mundial para poner en práctica el "desarrollo sostenible participativo."4
La rezonificación inspirada por el Banco Mundial tiene por objeto facilitar otra meta de redistribución territorial del desarrollo económico, a saber, el desarrollo de mega-infraestructura y la apertura de áreas nuevas a la extracción maderera y minera, agroindustria y operación de ranchos. Los planos para la Zonificación Económica y Ecológica (ZEE por sus siglas en portugués), pretenden integrar los intereses ambientales y sociales al desarrollo económico en la Amazonia, pero se han convertido en un medio para "disfrazar de verde" el desarrollo económico de Brasil. El último plan de desarrollo económico brasileño, el Programa para el Crecimiento Acelerado (PAC - Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento), tiene destinados 95 mil millones de dólares de E.U. a la construcción de carreteras, vías fluviales y presas en la Amazonia en un período de cuatro años. La Zonificación Económico-Ecológica para el Oeste de Pará (ZEE – Oeste do Pará) fue creada en respuesta a preocupaciones ecológicas en torno al proyecto PAC para pavimentar la Carretera Santarém-Cuiaba (BR 163). Esta carretera es la única que cruza la Amazonia de sur a norte, y es potencialmente la vía más veloz para transportar cosechas de soya desde el sur de Brasil al Río Amazonas para su exportación. La Zonificación Ecológico-Económica divide a la región en áreas con diferentes clasificaciones según su uso.
En 2009, los gobiernos estatal y federal aprobaron rápidamente una serie de leyes y políticas que facilitan los cambios de usos del suelo contenidos en los planos ZEE. Estas leyes reorganizan las funciones territoriales y estatales para agilizar el desarrollo económico regional, e incluyen la creación de nuevas clasificaciones de tierras que relajan los reglamentos que permiten concesionar la agricultura y la extracción maderera y mineral. Algunas leyes crean también nuevos títulos de tierras o concesiones para uso colectivo.
Otras leyes atacan el código forestal brasileño. La misma ZEE reduce efectivamente la extensión de tierra que los tenedores deben conservar como bosque en su propiedad, del 80% al 50% en muchos casos.5 Actualmente se discute una medida para permitir que rancheros compren áreas de reserva fuera (y lejos) de su propiedad para dejarlos deforestar una mayor porción de su propia tierra, aun en áreas que están protegidas.6
Presuntamente las tierras indígenas y áreas de conservación están protegidas contra el desarrollo, mientras todas las demás áreas se dedican a "consolidar" o "expandir" actividades productivas para los mercados internos y externos, tales como operación de ranchos, agroindustria, y explotación forestal.7 Una vez delimitadas dichas áreas, leyes y políticas diversas obligan a que cada área funcione de acuerdo con su clasificación en los ZEE. La Gleba Nova Olinda está clasificada como zona de expansión, es decir que da prioridad al desarrollo por encima de la conservación, y permite a los desarrolladores obtener licencias para dichas actividades productivas.
La ambigüedad en la situación de la tenencia de la tierra es considerada un obstáculo para el desarrollo en el estado de Pará. Muy pocas personas tienen seguros sus derechos de propiedad en la forma de títulos sin gravámenes y gran parte del estado es terra devoluta, es decir, tierra de propiedad federal no clasificada, pero a menudo ocupada. En Pará, alrededor de 30 millones de hectáreas de esta tierra la tienen personas que la han ocupado ilegalmente 8 Existen programas de expedición de títulos de propiedad, asentamientos de reforma agraria, y áreas de preservación para resolver este problema.
Leyes como la de "terra legal", promulgada en 2009 [B1] legalizarán todas las reclamaciones de títulos de tierras en la Amazonia brasileña que constituyan tierra federal, hasta por 1,500 hectáreas. Pará promulgó una ley similar a nivel estatal. Estas leyes modernizan el traslado de las tierras, de propiedad pública, a propiedad privada.
Movimientos sociales, políticos de izquierda y algunos científicos han criticado estas leyes por abrir la puerta a la legalización de tierras obtenidas mediante invasiones ilícitas. También se han criticado estas leyes por promover la mercantilización de las tierras a gran escala, tergiversando la legalidad en beneficio de grandes terratenientes y de invasores de tierras, más conocidos como grileiros.9 El presidente Luiz Inácio da Silva trajo al profesor de Harvard Mangabeira Unger y lo nombró Secretario Especial de Asuntos Estratégicos para que presentara toda la argumentación política necesaria para lograr la aprobación de estas leyes: convencer legisladores, hacer tratos e infundir al proyecto el prestigio de Harvard. Unger renunció y regresó a Estados Unidos dos días después de que esta ley (federal) fue aprobada.
Frecuentemente se trata a los territorios indígenas y áreas de conservación como si estuvieran "fuera del mercado", pero los conflictos por el uso de la tierra en estas áreas demuestra que mientras contengan recursos viables, es improbable que se libren de la explotación. Las demoras extremas en la clasificación legal de áreas protegidas abren grandes oportunidades para la extracción rápida de los recursos antes de que dicha protección entre en vigor. Esto es práctica común.10 Cada vez más, los asentamientos de reforma agraria y las nuevas áreas de preservación son reducidas a una fracción de las dimensiones originalmente solicitadas, en favor de los intereses madereros y mineros.
El Caso de la Reserva Extractiva Renascer
La Reserva Extractiva Renascer fue creada como área de preservación dentro de la ZEE el 5 de junio de 2009 tras diez años de lucha. Las comunidades de la región comenzaron a cabildear para la creación de una reserva cuando grandes compañías de explotación forestal como Madenorte se mudaron a la región a finales de los 1990s, ocuparon el territorio y aseguraron sus límites mediante amenazas y violencia. Los organismos regulatorios federales se desentendieron de innumerables pedidos de sacar a las taladoras de la región. En 2006, el pueblo de Santa Maria do Uruará realizó una serie de acciones en el curso de tres meses, cerrando el camino al puerto, apoderándose de barcazas de troncos, y quemando finalmente una que transportaba 1,000 metros cuadrados de madera.
Fue sólo tras el incendio de las barcazas que el gobierno, por fin, respondió. En diciembre de 2006, el gobierno federal puso en práctica el "Operativo Renascer" contra la tala ilegal, que produjo nueve arrestos y eliminó la tala ilegal en la región, durante algún tiempo. Sin embargo, tres años después, todavía no se ha establecido la reserva y han regresado las mismas taladoras. Las empresas en sí no cambian: su personal e infraestructura siguen siendo los mismos. Solamente cambian su denominación y conservan las mismas prácticas. Madenorte, por ejemplo, funciona ahora como Jaurú, empleando los mismos aserraderos e instalaciones portuarias dentro de la reserva.
Después de negociaciones entre el estado, el gobierno federal, el WWF, y los miembros del sindicato de trabajadores rurales y el sindicato de pescadores, se creó la reserva Extractiva Renascer en junio pasado con la mitad de la extensión originalmente propuesta. La porción de la reserva con recursos minerales potenciales, la vasta mayoría de los bosques primarios, y las fuentes de los tres ríos de la zona quedaron excluidas, de acuerdo con altos funcionarios del Instituto Chico Mendes para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad (ICMBio), que administra las unidades de preservación en Brasil, a menudo a favor de los intereses madereros y mineros. Con la creación de la Reserva en el papel, la velocidad a la que se está extrayendo ilegalmente la madera ha crecido exponencialmente. Los habitantes informan que diariamente abandonan el área hasta cinco barcazas que transportan entre 1,000 y 2,000 metros cúbicos de madera.
En respuesta a las denuncias reiteradas de miembros de la comunidad, el Instituto Chico Mendes y la SEMA, Secretaría Estatal del Medio Ambiente, responsable de hacer cumplir las reglas de la tala en las tierras estatales y federales dentro de Pará, declararon que no pueden hacer nada sin tener que agotar largos procesos burocráticos. Afirman necesitar más información específica como datos y fotos obtenidos por geolocalización satelital (GPS), lo que rebasa la capacidad de las comunidades, siendo también su obtención un peligro para ellas. Así, las acciones y omisiones gubernamentales mandan las tierras y los recursos, teóricamente protegidos, directamente al mercado.
El pasado 27 de noviembre, los habitantes de Renascer y de Santa Maria de Uruará, en los límites de la reserva, decidieron que ya no podían esperar que el gobierno resolviera. Establecieron un campamento junto al límite de la Reserva en la confluencia de los ríos Tamataí y Uruará. Avisaron a las taladoras y a los gobiernos municipal, estatal y federal que ya no permitirían el paso de una sola barcaza maderera más. Una barcaza que iba en camino río abajo regresó de inmediato a su puerto y ninguna otra traspuso el bloqueo durante más de un mes.
Después de varias semanas de que las comunidades acamparon al lado del río (Tamataí), el Instituto Chico Mendes emitió la orden de cerrar el puerto. Un juez municipal también ordenó que se cerrara el puerto hasta que se ejercitaran las leyes contra la tala ilegal dentro de la Reserva. Con todo, la tala dentro de la Reserva no se detuvo, y los gobiernos estatal y federal siguieron asegurando que la falta de recursos hacía prohibitivo el cumplimiento de la ley ordenado por el juez. Los miembros de la comunidad siguen recibiendo amenazas diarias, tanto verbales como de los barcos y aviones que pasan cerca. Más de 200 personas siguen acampadas en la boca del Tamataí, impidiendo la salida de barcazas y exigiendo la respuesta gubernamental.
Después de intentar vanamente sobornar a los miembros de la comunidad para que permitieran la tala ilegal, el 3 de enero de 2010 las compañías taladoras contrataron a pistoleros para que transportaran su madera al mercado. Al llegar al campamento, y al cerrar los miembros de la comunidad el río con sus canoas, los mercenarios abrieron fuego hiriendo a dos pobladores, y las barcazas de troncos siguieron su camino hacia el mercado.
Intervenciones
Los actos de desobediencia civil de los movimientos sociales para llamar la atención hacia las violaciones de sus derechos son criminalizados en la prensa, descalificados por ONGs internacionales que afirman haberlos apoyado, y se les abren procesos legales con mayor frecuencia.11 Los líderes de los movimientos tanto de Arapiuns como de Renascer han sido citados por la policía y amenazados con la cárcel mientras las taladoras siguen actuando impunemente. Empero tales actos parecen las únicas opciones para arrancar una respuesta al gobierno y hacer retroceder a quienes han delinquido contra ellos.
Los gobiernos del G-20, la prensa, la mayoría de las ONGs ecológicas internacionales importantes, y muchos científicos, han celebrado esta preservación orientada al desarrollo, y obtenida por medio de acciones oficiales basadas en el mercado, como la mejor forma de salvar la Amazonia. Sin embargo estas políticas ya están demostrando ser insuficientes, conflictivas y contraproducentes, tal como se ha visto en los casos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer. Los costos sociales y ecológicos de "disfrazar de verde" este tipo de desarrollo inherentemente destructivo son enormes. Los graves problemas de los debates posteriores al protocolo de Kyoto, la actual crisis económica global y las múltiples crisis del paradigma de los mercados libres crean un contexto de explotación acelerada justo cuando los líderes mundiales honran la conservación ambiental de dientes para afuera.
Si los países y organizaciones del hemisferio norte realmente quieren detener la destrucción de los bosques y los pueblos de las regiones tropicales, deben reconocer, valorar y poner en práctica las innumerables propuestas para la conservación ambiental no basadas en el mercado. Los habitantes de estos bosques son quienes pueden garantizar su supervivencia a través de sus conocimientos y prácticas diversos [B1].
Los burócratas del G-20 harían bien en aprender de esta gente. Un paradigma más humano y considerado comienza por reconocer que nuestros modelos de consumo y de gobierno internacional son directamente responsables de gran parte de la destrucción.
La comunidad internacional puede ayudar más a la conservación de la Región Amazónica prestando la atención debida a los temas que surgen en los debates de la localidad, en lugar de recurrir al discurso generalizado de "buen gobierno" y de soluciones basadas en el mercado a los problemas planteados por los patrones mundiales de consumo. Un enfoque más razonable es el de presionar a los gobiernos en los niveles estatal y nacional para que reconozcan y respeten los derechos de la población a gobernar sus propios territorios y recursos en la práctica y no sólo en la retórica.
Éste no es un llamado romántico al localismo; es una cuestión trascendental de soberanía política. Los pueblos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer ¿no tienen el derecho de determinar su identidad, demarcar sus territorios y decidir cómo administrar las tierras y los recursos dentro de ellos?
Notas
1. Treccani, G.D. 2009. Regularizacao Fundiaria da Regiao Mamuru Arapiuns. Presentación en Power Point. Seminario Ideflor. Santarém.
2. El proceso de reconocimiento de derechos indígenas a la tierra se inicia con una investigación antropológica de la historia y la cultura de los pueblos aunada a una investigación geográfica de las dimensiones de su territorio. Se publica un informe sumario en el Diario de la Federación, y se abre un proceso de 90 días durante el cual las partes interesadas pueden contender por los derechos al área. Toda la documentación se envía al Ministerio de Justicia, el cual anuncia oficialmente la demarcación. La demarcación física de los límites es realizada por un tercero contratado por el gobierno. La investigación antropológica y geográfica respecto a la Gleba Nova Olinda se completó en 2007. El informe sumario todavía no se publica.
3. Leal, Aluizio. Trabalho Escravo Os porquês da questão? Texto inédito en portugués.
4. ACSELRAD, Henri. O Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico da Amazônia e o panoptismo imperfeito. P&A Editora: Rio de Janeiro, 2002.
5. Véase la ley Nº 7,243, del 9 de enero de 2009. Mientras que el código forestal ordena una reserva de 80%, estipulando que si un individuo posee tierra que está deforestada en más de 80%, esa tierra debe reforestarse, la ZEE cambió este requisito. Los tenedores de tierra ya deforestada pueden utilizar hasta el 50% de esa propiedad en lugar de reforestarla.
6. Véase http://www.socioambiental.org/noticias/nsa/detalhe?id=.
7. Véase la ley Nº 7,243 del 9 de enero de 2009.
8. Benatti 2007.
9. Como ejemplo, véase la carta abierta de Marina Silva sobre esta medida: http://www.socioambiental.org/nsa/detalhe?id=2896.
10. Benatti, J.H. 2007. Internacalizacão da Amazônia e a questão ambiental: o direito das populações tradicionais e indígenas a terra. Revista Amazônia Legal de estudos sócio-jurídico-ambientais. 1(1): 23-39.
11. Como ejemplo véase "Moradores incendeiam balsas com Madeira no Pará http://www.greenblog.org.br/?cat=202.
Ver también estas noticias de Greenpeace Brasil en portugues: uno, dos.
*****
indigenous protesters at Gleba Nova Olinda
Early one morning in late November 2009, a group of 30 people set out by motorized canoes from the community of Santa Maria of Uruará, in the lower Brazilian Amazon to the junction of the Tamataí and Uruará Rivers, at the boundary of the Extractive Reserve Renascer.* The group set up a camp on the riverbank in order to do what the government has not — block illegal loggers who have been taking wood from inside the reserve.In June of 2009, after more than a decade of conflict between the traditional riberinho (river dweller) communities of the region and loggers and commercial fishers, the Renascer Extractive Reserve was created, albeit at half of the size that the communities had requested. The size was limited in order to accommodate logging and mineral interests, according to government officials involved with the process.
But the creation of the reserve changed nothing—illegal loggers protected by armed gunman have continued to extract timber from inside the reserve’s boundaries. The state and federal government agencies (SEMA and IBAMA respectively) say they have no resources to monitor and enforce restrictions inside the reserve. In fact, after the creation of the reserve, the number of timber barges leaving the area actually increased; until the locals started blocking shipments of logs, up to five barges per day were floating down the river with a total of up to 5,000 cubic meters of wood illegally logged from the reserve.
The camp that started in late November quickly grew to hundreds of people, blocking passage of river barges and waiting for government agents to come and negotiate with them. What started as a few hammocks strung up in a muddy, mosquito-ridden forest has grown to a village. They cleared out the brush, and each family built a makeshift house from plastic and wood and dug a fire pit. They take turns fishing, and periodically one of them sacrifices a cow to feed the group.
Because the protesters prevented barges from floating down the river for more than a month, the thwarted loggers began to retaliate. Their planes periodically make threateningly low flyovers; loggers in passing boats yell threats. One night, five men set fire to brush next to the camp.
The Jaurú logging company attempted to bribe the community members to let wood pass down the river. When their offer was rejected, the company hired gunmen to accompany their barges to market. In the early morning of Jan. 3, five log-laden barges set forth, accompanied by 40 armed men. When they reached the encampment, they opened fire on the sleeping, unarmed protestors. Two people were shot. The victims were rushed to the hospital; they survived.
The demonstration at Renascer was in part inspired by action taken a month earlier and 100 miles to the west, in an area called Gleba Nova Olinda at the source of the Arapiuns River. On Nov. 12, people from over 40 indigenous and traditional communities—frustrated after more than a decade of failed negotiations with the state for territorial rights, and increasingly suffering threats and attacks against their leaders—closed the Arapiuns River to logging traffic and sequestered two barges full of timber. The protestors camped on the river’s edge for a month as they waited, to no avail, for state and federal governments to arrive and address the problem. Finally, they set fire to the 2,000 cubic meters of wood on the barges. The fires blazed on for three days.
Over the last 10 years, logging has increased dramatically in the west of Pará, where both of these conflicts are located. Pará is a state in lower Brazilian Amazon that is larger than most countries and is notorious for violent land conflict. The incursion of logging into their territories there has resulted in traditional and indigenous people demanding land rights as a way to protect their communities. But the people have grown increasingly frustrated at the government’s unwillingness or inability to protect their homelands; often, land rights are not granted, reserves are not protected, and laws and management plans are not enforced.
In some cases, the government is asking for GPS coordinates and photos to prove that illegal logging is taking place—a totally unrealistic request of people who have on average studied to a fifth-grade level, live from subsistence and small-scale market agricultural production, and have only recently gotten gas-powered motors that provide electricity to their homes. Even when NGOs and outside researchers collect this data, it frequently comes to naught, because officials never follow up and because laws are written or circumvented in favor of logging interests.
So the river dwellers and other indigenous people are taking matters into their own hands, trying to stop the injustices committed against their communities. Ironically, they’re now the ones being branded as criminals.
In the case of the Renascer encampment, the loggers got a municipal judge to issue an order saying that the camp must be disbanded or the people imprisoned. Two weeks ago, the police began an action to put six of the leaders from the Arapiuns in “preventative prison,” which would lock them up indefinitely until they are exonerated of all charges. Such imprisonment is normally imposed on people who are at risk of fleeing or who lack physical addresses and jobs, neither of which applies to these leaders.
This sort of punitive action accomplishes two things — it robs the movement of its leadership, and it diverts the movement’s time and energy into a legal battle, distracting from its larger goal of fighting for land rights and curbing illegal logging.
Thus are the power relations in rapidly industrializing Brazil. For people in the United States, tussles over territorial rights and protest camps can seem provincial and distant — regrettable, yes, but in a world overflowing with injustice, not cause for excessive concern.
But the Amazon is not your average disputed territory. In recent decades, tropical forests have absorbed 20 percent of global fossil-fuel emissions, and the Amazon has been the biggest carbon sink of them all, absorbing nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. The river dwellers aren’t defending a vision of the rainforest as a pristine carbon sink, but rather as a homeland that can support a broad range of species and vegetation, including humans. That might not be what Western environmentalists what to hear, but it’s surely a more ecologically responsible vision than clear-cutting followed by vast soybean monocrops.
*****
See also *Renascer as failed ecosystem management, in New Statesman 28 Jun 07; John Frevalds on the origin of the word grileiros; Laura Molinari, "Land Conflicts between Grileiros and Peasants in Para, Brazil" American University, ICE 2005; "Battle in Amazonia" by Brenda Baletti, Gilson Rego and Antoni0 Sena in Counterpunch 13 Jan 10;" Local Battles to Save the Brazilian Amazon Pit Residents against Loggers and Government" by the same authors in Americas Program 6 Jan 10; photos of Uruará and Gleba Nova Olinda on Flickr.com; a 2006 report on illegal soy plantations in the region, linked to Cargill and other corporations. Oxfam video about climate change with Muriel Saragoussi of Brazil Ministry of Environment (Portugese with English subtitles).*****
Las batallas locales por salvar la Amazonia brasileña enfrentan a los pobladores con las empresas taladoras y el gobiernotirado de Programa de las Américas 12 de enero de 2010. Brenda Baletti vive en Santarém y las investigaciones que realiza para su disertación doctoral versan sobre las luchas por los derechos territoriales en la parte oeste de Pará. Gilson Rego es licenciado en Sociología por la Universidad Federal de Pará y trabaja para la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra o Comissao Pastoral da Terra en Santarém. Antonio Sena es estudiante de Derecho en la Universidad Federal del Amazonas y se especializa en investigaciones sobre derechos a la tierra.
Tras más de una década de denuncias ignoradas, negociaciones infructuosas con el gobierno e incontables amenazas a sus dirigentes de parte de las empresas taladoras y sus mercenarios, los pobladores de la región Arapiuns en la Amazonia brasileña realizaron una protesta pública contra la tala ilegal en sus tierras. Más de 500 miembros de 40 comunidades se unieron, usando sus rabetas (canoas con motor fuera de borda) para cerrar el Río Arapiuns a la actividad de la tala en la Gleba Nova Olinda. Los manifestantes tomaron dos barcazas de troncos.
La protesta se prolongó durante más de un mes, mientras funcionarios del gobierno estatal y federal alternativamente les ignoraban o respondían con evasivas. Al final los manifestantes, frustrados, decidieron volver más apremiante su mensaje. El 12 de noviembre, luego de una segunda reunión con funcionarios estatales y federales que de nuevo dejaron sin solución sus problemas, incendiaron las barcazas.
La llamada Gleba Nova Olinda comprende 172,900 hectáreas entre los ríos Maró y Aruá, en el nacimiento del Río Arapiuns, municipio de Santarém. Sus recursos naturales son vitales para la sobrevivencia del pueblo Arapiuns. La protesta une a 14 comunidades de todo ese territorio, en el "Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y la Cultura de los Arapiuns."
Las comunidades indígenas y campesinas de la Gleba Nova Olinda han estado solicitando al gobierno el reconocimiento legal de sus derechos territoriales desde hace trece años, cuando se creó la vecina Reserva Extractiva Tapajós-Arapiuns. A lo largo de los últimos diez años, los programas de intercambio de tierras estatales y de incentivos para el desarrollo atrajeron a explotadoras forestales y agricultores potenciales de soya a la Gleba Nova Olinda. Su entrada despertó conflictos, que pronto se volvieron violentos, por los derechos a la tierra y a los recursos con los habitantes del área. La violencia efectiva y las amenazas de violencia son medios comunes para la resolución de conflictos en el estado de Pará, donde recursos valiosos como la madera conducen a conflictos donde mucho se arriesga y la coacción estatal es mínima.
Las explotadoras forestales han dividido a las comunidades de la región, expandiendo el conflicto más allá de la tradicional confrontación entre taladoras, especuladores de tierras y comunidades. Las empresas han comprado a bajo precio el apoyo de algunas comunidades proporcionándoles infraestructura que el gobierno nunca les entregó, como generadores y edificaciones comunitarias, o empleos que convierten a los pobladores del área en agentes de la deforestación. Sin embargo, casi toda la población continúa protestando contra la presencia de las compañías taladoras.
Las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Olinda, el sindicato de trabajadores rurales y la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra colaboraron durante tres meses en un proyecto de plan de tenencia de la tierra que garantizaría los derechos de los pobladores. Este plan se basó en años de discusiones entre las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Linda y la región de Arapiuns, más amplia. Después de todos sus esfuerzos, el gobierno del estado escogió ignorar su propuesta en favor de otra presentada por las compañías madereras y las cooperativas que reclamaban ilegalmente tierras y recursos dentro del área.1
En los hechos, el gobierno estatal de Pará resolvió no expulsar a las taladoras y especuladores de tierra que operan en los territorios tradicionales e indígenas. Por el contrario, la propuesta autorizó once "planes de administración sostenible" y redujo el tamaño del Proyecto de Asentamientos de Reforma Agraria Agroextractivistas Vista Alegre, de 25,000 hectáreas a 5,000 hectáreas.
Entre tanto, el proceso legal llevado por la Fundación Nacional del Indio (FUNAI) para que se reconozca y se demarque el área, ha permanecido estancado por años.2 La renuencia del FUNAI a demarcar el área ha permitido a las taladoras de la región y al gobierno estatal seguir ignorando los derechos del pueblo indígena Borari-Arapiuns construyendo caminos para el transporte de troncos, otorgando licencias para planes administrativos y negándose a hacer cumplir las normas para la tala y transporte de madera y tenencia de la tierra dentro del territorio indígena.
El Traslado de las Tierras y los Recursos al Mercado
En el estado de Pará, la vasta existencia de recursos naturales ha desembocado en corrupción incrustada en las instituciones. En una combinación tanto de manipulación legal como de violación de leyes con la impunidad, el gobierno frecuentemente facilita y encubre los delitos ambientales en la región. Como lo explica el especialista sobre la Amazonia Leal Aluzio, "a fin de cuentas, quienes tienen el poder de impedir o permitir la ilegalidad son las autoridades; ésta es la autoridad investida de poder institucional. Así la ilegalidad, cuando es 'liberada', se expresa en diversas formas de transgresión, desde lo claramente ilegal a lo presuntamente 'legal', que se encuentran 'protegidos' por la ley."3
Los cambios recientes en el uso del suelo y distribución territorial en la Amazonia brasileña siguen en general dos vertientes: Ha habido un ímpetu hacia el reconocimiento de derechos étnica y culturalmente fundamentados a tierras/territorio para los pueblos indígenas y nativos a consecuencia de movimientos populares de base más fuertes y convenciones internacionales. A los pobladores indígenas, quilombolas (descendientes de comunidades de esclavos fugitivos), pueblo "tradicional", campesinos sin tierra y a la naturaleza se les ha asignado sus propios polígonos en los "mapas de zonificación Económica y Ecológica", los planos territoriales de la región amazónica creados por la iniciativa del Banco Mundial para poner en práctica el "desarrollo sostenible participativo."4
La rezonificación inspirada por el Banco Mundial tiene por objeto facilitar otra meta de redistribución territorial del desarrollo económico, a saber, el desarrollo de mega-infraestructura y la apertura de áreas nuevas a la extracción maderera y minera, agroindustria y operación de ranchos. Los planos para la Zonificación Económica y Ecológica (ZEE por sus siglas en portugués), pretenden integrar los intereses ambientales y sociales al desarrollo económico en la Amazonia, pero se han convertido en un medio para "disfrazar de verde" el desarrollo económico de Brasil. El último plan de desarrollo económico brasileño, el Programa para el Crecimiento Acelerado (PAC - Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento), tiene destinados 95 mil millones de dólares de E.U. a la construcción de carreteras, vías fluviales y presas en la Amazonia en un período de cuatro años. La Zonificación Económico-Ecológica para el Oeste de Pará (ZEE – Oeste do Pará) fue creada en respuesta a preocupaciones ecológicas en torno al proyecto PAC para pavimentar la Carretera Santarém-Cuiaba (BR 163). Esta carretera es la única que cruza la Amazonia de sur a norte, y es potencialmente la vía más veloz para transportar cosechas de soya desde el sur de Brasil al Río Amazonas para su exportación. La Zonificación Ecológico-Económica divide a la región en áreas con diferentes clasificaciones según su uso.
En 2009, los gobiernos estatal y federal aprobaron rápidamente una serie de leyes y políticas que facilitan los cambios de usos del suelo contenidos en los planos ZEE. Estas leyes reorganizan las funciones territoriales y estatales para agilizar el desarrollo económico regional, e incluyen la creación de nuevas clasificaciones de tierras que relajan los reglamentos que permiten concesionar la agricultura y la extracción maderera y mineral. Algunas leyes crean también nuevos títulos de tierras o concesiones para uso colectivo.
Otras leyes atacan el código forestal brasileño. La misma ZEE reduce efectivamente la extensión de tierra que los tenedores deben conservar como bosque en su propiedad, del 80% al 50% en muchos casos.5 Actualmente se discute una medida para permitir que rancheros compren áreas de reserva fuera (y lejos) de su propiedad para dejarlos deforestar una mayor porción de su propia tierra, aun en áreas que están protegidas.6
Presuntamente las tierras indígenas y áreas de conservación están protegidas contra el desarrollo, mientras todas las demás áreas se dedican a "consolidar" o "expandir" actividades productivas para los mercados internos y externos, tales como operación de ranchos, agroindustria, y explotación forestal.7 Una vez delimitadas dichas áreas, leyes y políticas diversas obligan a que cada área funcione de acuerdo con su clasificación en los ZEE. La Gleba Nova Olinda está clasificada como zona de expansión, es decir que da prioridad al desarrollo por encima de la conservación, y permite a los desarrolladores obtener licencias para dichas actividades productivas.
La ambigüedad en la situación de la tenencia de la tierra es considerada un obstáculo para el desarrollo en el estado de Pará. Muy pocas personas tienen seguros sus derechos de propiedad en la forma de títulos sin gravámenes y gran parte del estado es terra devoluta, es decir, tierra de propiedad federal no clasificada, pero a menudo ocupada. En Pará, alrededor de 30 millones de hectáreas de esta tierra la tienen personas que la han ocupado ilegalmente 8 Existen programas de expedición de títulos de propiedad, asentamientos de reforma agraria, y áreas de preservación para resolver este problema.
Leyes como la de "terra legal", promulgada en 2009 [B1] legalizarán todas las reclamaciones de títulos de tierras en la Amazonia brasileña que constituyan tierra federal, hasta por 1,500 hectáreas. Pará promulgó una ley similar a nivel estatal. Estas leyes modernizan el traslado de las tierras, de propiedad pública, a propiedad privada.
Movimientos sociales, políticos de izquierda y algunos científicos han criticado estas leyes por abrir la puerta a la legalización de tierras obtenidas mediante invasiones ilícitas. También se han criticado estas leyes por promover la mercantilización de las tierras a gran escala, tergiversando la legalidad en beneficio de grandes terratenientes y de invasores de tierras, más conocidos como grileiros.9 El presidente Luiz Inácio da Silva trajo al profesor de Harvard Mangabeira Unger y lo nombró Secretario Especial de Asuntos Estratégicos para que presentara toda la argumentación política necesaria para lograr la aprobación de estas leyes: convencer legisladores, hacer tratos e infundir al proyecto el prestigio de Harvard. Unger renunció y regresó a Estados Unidos dos días después de que esta ley (federal) fue aprobada.
Frecuentemente se trata a los territorios indígenas y áreas de conservación como si estuvieran "fuera del mercado", pero los conflictos por el uso de la tierra en estas áreas demuestra que mientras contengan recursos viables, es improbable que se libren de la explotación. Las demoras extremas en la clasificación legal de áreas protegidas abren grandes oportunidades para la extracción rápida de los recursos antes de que dicha protección entre en vigor. Esto es práctica común.10 Cada vez más, los asentamientos de reforma agraria y las nuevas áreas de preservación son reducidas a una fracción de las dimensiones originalmente solicitadas, en favor de los intereses madereros y mineros.
El Caso de la Reserva Extractiva Renascer
La Reserva Extractiva Renascer fue creada como área de preservación dentro de la ZEE el 5 de junio de 2009 tras diez años de lucha. Las comunidades de la región comenzaron a cabildear para la creación de una reserva cuando grandes compañías de explotación forestal como Madenorte se mudaron a la región a finales de los 1990s, ocuparon el territorio y aseguraron sus límites mediante amenazas y violencia. Los organismos regulatorios federales se desentendieron de innumerables pedidos de sacar a las taladoras de la región. En 2006, el pueblo de Santa Maria do Uruará realizó una serie de acciones en el curso de tres meses, cerrando el camino al puerto, apoderándose de barcazas de troncos, y quemando finalmente una que transportaba 1,000 metros cuadrados de madera.
Fue sólo tras el incendio de las barcazas que el gobierno, por fin, respondió. En diciembre de 2006, el gobierno federal puso en práctica el "Operativo Renascer" contra la tala ilegal, que produjo nueve arrestos y eliminó la tala ilegal en la región, durante algún tiempo. Sin embargo, tres años después, todavía no se ha establecido la reserva y han regresado las mismas taladoras. Las empresas en sí no cambian: su personal e infraestructura siguen siendo los mismos. Solamente cambian su denominación y conservan las mismas prácticas. Madenorte, por ejemplo, funciona ahora como Jaurú, empleando los mismos aserraderos e instalaciones portuarias dentro de la reserva.
Después de negociaciones entre el estado, el gobierno federal, el WWF, y los miembros del sindicato de trabajadores rurales y el sindicato de pescadores, se creó la reserva Extractiva Renascer en junio pasado con la mitad de la extensión originalmente propuesta. La porción de la reserva con recursos minerales potenciales, la vasta mayoría de los bosques primarios, y las fuentes de los tres ríos de la zona quedaron excluidas, de acuerdo con altos funcionarios del Instituto Chico Mendes para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad (ICMBio), que administra las unidades de preservación en Brasil, a menudo a favor de los intereses madereros y mineros. Con la creación de la Reserva en el papel, la velocidad a la que se está extrayendo ilegalmente la madera ha crecido exponencialmente. Los habitantes informan que diariamente abandonan el área hasta cinco barcazas que transportan entre 1,000 y 2,000 metros cúbicos de madera.
En respuesta a las denuncias reiteradas de miembros de la comunidad, el Instituto Chico Mendes y la SEMA, Secretaría Estatal del Medio Ambiente, responsable de hacer cumplir las reglas de la tala en las tierras estatales y federales dentro de Pará, declararon que no pueden hacer nada sin tener que agotar largos procesos burocráticos. Afirman necesitar más información específica como datos y fotos obtenidos por geolocalización satelital (GPS), lo que rebasa la capacidad de las comunidades, siendo también su obtención un peligro para ellas. Así, las acciones y omisiones gubernamentales mandan las tierras y los recursos, teóricamente protegidos, directamente al mercado.
El pasado 27 de noviembre, los habitantes de Renascer y de Santa Maria de Uruará, en los límites de la reserva, decidieron que ya no podían esperar que el gobierno resolviera. Establecieron un campamento junto al límite de la Reserva en la confluencia de los ríos Tamataí y Uruará. Avisaron a las taladoras y a los gobiernos municipal, estatal y federal que ya no permitirían el paso de una sola barcaza maderera más. Una barcaza que iba en camino río abajo regresó de inmediato a su puerto y ninguna otra traspuso el bloqueo durante más de un mes.
Después de varias semanas de que las comunidades acamparon al lado del río (Tamataí), el Instituto Chico Mendes emitió la orden de cerrar el puerto. Un juez municipal también ordenó que se cerrara el puerto hasta que se ejercitaran las leyes contra la tala ilegal dentro de la Reserva. Con todo, la tala dentro de la Reserva no se detuvo, y los gobiernos estatal y federal siguieron asegurando que la falta de recursos hacía prohibitivo el cumplimiento de la ley ordenado por el juez. Los miembros de la comunidad siguen recibiendo amenazas diarias, tanto verbales como de los barcos y aviones que pasan cerca. Más de 200 personas siguen acampadas en la boca del Tamataí, impidiendo la salida de barcazas y exigiendo la respuesta gubernamental.
Después de intentar vanamente sobornar a los miembros de la comunidad para que permitieran la tala ilegal, el 3 de enero de 2010 las compañías taladoras contrataron a pistoleros para que transportaran su madera al mercado. Al llegar al campamento, y al cerrar los miembros de la comunidad el río con sus canoas, los mercenarios abrieron fuego hiriendo a dos pobladores, y las barcazas de troncos siguieron su camino hacia el mercado.
Intervenciones
Los actos de desobediencia civil de los movimientos sociales para llamar la atención hacia las violaciones de sus derechos son criminalizados en la prensa, descalificados por ONGs internacionales que afirman haberlos apoyado, y se les abren procesos legales con mayor frecuencia.11 Los líderes de los movimientos tanto de Arapiuns como de Renascer han sido citados por la policía y amenazados con la cárcel mientras las taladoras siguen actuando impunemente. Empero tales actos parecen las únicas opciones para arrancar una respuesta al gobierno y hacer retroceder a quienes han delinquido contra ellos.
Los gobiernos del G-20, la prensa, la mayoría de las ONGs ecológicas internacionales importantes, y muchos científicos, han celebrado esta preservación orientada al desarrollo, y obtenida por medio de acciones oficiales basadas en el mercado, como la mejor forma de salvar la Amazonia. Sin embargo estas políticas ya están demostrando ser insuficientes, conflictivas y contraproducentes, tal como se ha visto en los casos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer. Los costos sociales y ecológicos de "disfrazar de verde" este tipo de desarrollo inherentemente destructivo son enormes. Los graves problemas de los debates posteriores al protocolo de Kyoto, la actual crisis económica global y las múltiples crisis del paradigma de los mercados libres crean un contexto de explotación acelerada justo cuando los líderes mundiales honran la conservación ambiental de dientes para afuera.
Si los países y organizaciones del hemisferio norte realmente quieren detener la destrucción de los bosques y los pueblos de las regiones tropicales, deben reconocer, valorar y poner en práctica las innumerables propuestas para la conservación ambiental no basadas en el mercado. Los habitantes de estos bosques son quienes pueden garantizar su supervivencia a través de sus conocimientos y prácticas diversos [B1].
Los burócratas del G-20 harían bien en aprender de esta gente. Un paradigma más humano y considerado comienza por reconocer que nuestros modelos de consumo y de gobierno internacional son directamente responsables de gran parte de la destrucción.
La comunidad internacional puede ayudar más a la conservación de la Región Amazónica prestando la atención debida a los temas que surgen en los debates de la localidad, en lugar de recurrir al discurso generalizado de "buen gobierno" y de soluciones basadas en el mercado a los problemas planteados por los patrones mundiales de consumo. Un enfoque más razonable es el de presionar a los gobiernos en los niveles estatal y nacional para que reconozcan y respeten los derechos de la población a gobernar sus propios territorios y recursos en la práctica y no sólo en la retórica.
Éste no es un llamado romántico al localismo; es una cuestión trascendental de soberanía política. Los pueblos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer ¿no tienen el derecho de determinar su identidad, demarcar sus territorios y decidir cómo administrar las tierras y los recursos dentro de ellos?
Notas
1. Treccani, G.D. 2009. Regularizacao Fundiaria da Regiao Mamuru Arapiuns. Presentación en Power Point. Seminario Ideflor. Santarém.
2. El proceso de reconocimiento de derechos indígenas a la tierra se inicia con una investigación antropológica de la historia y la cultura de los pueblos aunada a una investigación geográfica de las dimensiones de su territorio. Se publica un informe sumario en el Diario de la Federación, y se abre un proceso de 90 días durante el cual las partes interesadas pueden contender por los derechos al área. Toda la documentación se envía al Ministerio de Justicia, el cual anuncia oficialmente la demarcación. La demarcación física de los límites es realizada por un tercero contratado por el gobierno. La investigación antropológica y geográfica respecto a la Gleba Nova Olinda se completó en 2007. El informe sumario todavía no se publica.
3. Leal, Aluizio. Trabalho Escravo Os porquês da questão? Texto inédito en portugués.
4. ACSELRAD, Henri. O Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico da Amazônia e o panoptismo imperfeito. P&A Editora: Rio de Janeiro, 2002.
5. Véase la ley Nº 7,243, del 9 de enero de 2009. Mientras que el código forestal ordena una reserva de 80%, estipulando que si un individuo posee tierra que está deforestada en más de 80%, esa tierra debe reforestarse, la ZEE cambió este requisito. Los tenedores de tierra ya deforestada pueden utilizar hasta el 50% de esa propiedad en lugar de reforestarla.
6. Véase http://www.socioambiental.org/noticias/nsa/detalhe?id=.
7. Véase la ley Nº 7,243 del 9 de enero de 2009.
8. Benatti 2007.
9. Como ejemplo, véase la carta abierta de Marina Silva sobre esta medida: http://www.socioambiental.org/nsa/detalhe?id=2896.
10. Benatti, J.H. 2007. Internacalizacão da Amazônia e a questão ambiental: o direito das populações tradicionais e indígenas a terra. Revista Amazônia Legal de estudos sócio-jurídico-ambientais. 1(1): 23-39.
11. Como ejemplo véase "Moradores incendeiam balsas com Madeira no Pará http://www.greenblog.org.br/?cat=202.
Ver también estas noticias de Greenpeace Brasil en portugues: uno, dos.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Peak fertility passed - new satellite data
photosynthetically active radiation: UNH Global Land Remote Sensing
Poor farmers in Asia, Africa and South America face a double threat: climate change and loss of soil fertility, Alexander Muller of the Food and Agricultural Organization warned 3 years ago.Food security hangs by a thread: with drought in Africa and China; millions displaced by earthquakes and the 2004 Asian tsunami; the 2008 food shortage, triggered by biofuel speculation, which caused riots in 38 countries. Under-financed like other UN agencies, the FAO has been unable to find permanent solutions for either problem: disaster refugees or the hungry poor.
New satellite-sensing data show that worldwide land fertility has fallen steadily for 20 years, affecting 24% of the earth's cropland and forests -- shockingly higher and in different regions than the 15% estimate by soil experts in the previous GLASOD (Global Assessment of Soil Degradation – see map). The new 20 Mar 2009 report by Bai et al. from Wageningen University warns that unless halted, the loss in NPP (net primary productivity) in these regions – previously productive tropical countries with a quarter of world population – will become an additional driver of global warming.
This loss in ecosystem services is alarming. The Wageningen authors say vegetation loss meant a thousand million tonnes of CO2 was not captured. At a shadow price of $50 per tonne, that is $50 billion. That might be doubled by the unestimated loss of organic carbon already fixed in the soil.
Challenging the usual interpretation of causes, the new study finds only “weak correlations” with traditional culprits: rural population density and drought. Among likely causes are
- industrial: the hamburger connection in Central America, Brazil, now spreading to Africa; other man-made destruction of tropical forests; monoculture, topsoil erosion, forcing crops with irrigation and artificial fertilizers, chemical pollution, and urban sprawl.
- traditional agriculture: overgrazing, deep ploughing, absence of fallow, cutting of fuelwood.
The study shows that the fastest degradation is not in regions already identified by GLASOD as undergoing desertification or erosion, the African Sahel and around the Mediterranean. The worst-affected countries are
- Africa, the Congo, Zaire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Asia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Korea and Indonesia, with over 50% of land area degraded
- Swaziland with 95 per cent land area degraded
- rural China (nearly half a billion people), India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Brazil.
--
See FAO country-by-country GLASOD maps; Wageningen's GlobalSoilMap.net; UNEP Earthwatch; AfSIS; Saba Ganguly's critique of India's green revolution, the most successful; NASA's illustrated explanation of remote sensing and the NDVI vegetation index; the new AgCam which begins operation this year; Encyclopedia of Earth's article on the great transition.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Blogue du FSM à Belém: news from the World Social Forum
WSF 2005: courtesy Friends of the Earth
Le blogue bilingue de plusieurs québécois au FSM se trouve à UNI-alter. Voir aussi Le Devoir du 27 janvier, et les rapports quotidiens 21-31 janvier 2009 des délégués du ROJeP. Alternatives.ca 6 fév 09 rapporte en français and in English.
Le blogue bilingue de plusieurs québécois au FSM se trouve à UNI-alter. Voir aussi Le Devoir du 27 janvier, et les rapports quotidiens 21-31 janvier 2009 des délégués du ROJeP. Alternatives.ca 6 fév 09 rapporte en français and in English. The English below is freely translated from an op-ed by the Quebec delegates, published in Le Devoir 27 Jan 2009, as the forum opened in Belém, Brazil. For more reports in English, see the Theology and Liberation website, WFTL history, 2009 themes and papers, John Wilde's blog. For the WSF that followed, see World Social Forum site, Cy Gonick's and Ben Powless' blogs, Terraviva, Food First, World Council of Churches reports and photos. WSFtv.net videos.
WSF Declaration of Principles (excerpt):
The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Humankind and between it and the Earth.
Quebec delegates at Belém:
The first WSF held at Porto Alegre in January 2001 developed a vision of a different world, seeking sustainable and humane solutions to world problems in proposals by an astonishing variety of social movements, NGOs and grassroots groups -- an alternative to the world's numerous problems of poverty, pollution, pillage and privilege.
In the next few years literally hundreds of social forums have been held across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. They range in size from thousands to 100 or so, from global to city or neighborhood. In 2007 there was a nationwide US gathering in Atlanta; another in Montréal 5,000 strong, as well as regional forums in Chicoutimi and the Outauais. Planning this year is for a North American forum, and a second round of the Quebec SF.
The forums' primary goal is to reinforce ties between citizen movements (e.g. peace marches, rights for women, First Nations, migrant workers, and corporate social responsibility), to share social innovations (economic solidarity, co-ops, fair trade networks), to encourage popular education and citizen participation, and to show alternatives to the consumerist way of life. These forums are the seed bed of a renewed political culture -- plural, participative and inclusive.
They began as a reaction to the market fundamentalism of the Washington consensus, presented by our elites and media as the only choice possible. Economic rationalism. Lucidity. Common sense. Privatization. Deficit reduction in the First World. Structural adjustment programs in the Third World. There was no alternative. Democracy did not enter into it. The WSF slogan, “another world is possible” broke out of this mental straitjacket, liberating human hopes and popular initiatives, allowing a new creativity beyond the stale theorems of mainstream economics.
Recent events have confirmed the critics of neoliberalism. A series of social economic and financial crises which began in the global South in the 1980s, continued in the North with the bursting of one speculative bubble after another (dot.com, Enron and fossil fuels, slice-and and-dice derivatives, mortgage crisis) to the point that we are now seeing the fall of automobile and communications giants, banks, pension funds, and a longterm worldwide depression.
Must we continue down the same path of extreme consumerism and individualism? Is maximization of profits the sole rule of life? Are they compatible with sustainable development, an economy of relation between generations, between races, between all living things? How can we develop local economies, global solidarity and equity? These are some of the questions being asked at the Belém SF.
The social forums listen to the voices of groups and and movements that are often fighting for community survival, those off the radar of the political class and the media -- such as our own aboriginal people, migrant workers, and homeless, those forced to seek nourishment in soup kitchens and food banks. For this reason, the 2009 WSF puts indigenous people, especially those of the Amazon region, in the limelight.
Giving voice and recognition to the voiceless must also mean listening, opening dialogue, and working together to transform our society. It means taking responsibility for social solidarity, an awakening of civic conscience, because each of us is a member of society, a community, and a neighborhood. Social justice must be built one day at a time.
Meanwhile, things are changing fast around us. While we try to restart the engines of civic responsibility at home, there are new hopes in the South. A number of Latin American peoples have just chosen governments committed to popular democracy, economic and social transformation – Lula in Brazil, Hugo Chavez' Bolivarean revolution in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador.... an inspiration to us in the North.
They assert the right of the people to control their own natural resources and development. The multiple economic crises show that another world is not only possible but necessary -- nay, inevitable. And the reconstruction of the North will depend on our ability to change our governments, and nurture the participative political culture, following trails first blazed by the social forums.
-- by Professors Raphaël Canet, U d'Ottawa; Dominique Caouette, U de Montréal, Marie-Josée Massicotte, U d'Ottawa; Caterina Milani, Y du Québec International coordinator.
Friday, 26 September 2008
Ecology and Liberation – by Leonardo Boff
One of the world's most distinguished liberation theologians, Leonardo Boff was born in Brazil, educated in Bavaria, taught at a Franciscan Institute and was advisor to many base communities. His books include Ecclesiogenesis, Faith on the Edge, The Path to Hope, Jesus Christ Liberator, and New Evangelization. The following excerpts are from Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm (1993, transl. Maryknoll NY, Orbis, 1995).Ecology vs limitless growth
For modern society, whether socialist or liberal bourgeois, economics is the science of limitless growth....that, like some incubus, has come to dominate society as a whole for some five hundred years. The greater the development the less the investments and the greater the profits. The common preconception is that we move within... natural resources and progress toward the future.... but the two quantities are illusory. The natural resources are limited and nonrenewable, and the present model of progress is not applicable on a universal level. If China thought of giving Chinese families the automobiles owned by North American families... the country would be paralyzed immediately....
The technological project [sustainable development] maintains intact the model, but proposes... filtration of noxious gases, noise reduction, and the decontamination of rivers and lakes. But it is not enough to attack the consequences and to ignore the causes. That is tantamount to grinding down the wolf's teeth without changing his wolfish nature.... Entrepreneurial groups [pursue] their own advantage and the profit motive. They have to follow the logic of their system or give way to the forceful strategies of their competitors. The state, in turn, pursues its own policy of development... The price...is the aggressive use of the ecosystem: atmospheric pollution, destruction of the countryside.... (pp.19-21)
What kind of society do we want? Surely we want it to be more participatory, egalitarian, aiming at solidarity, and capable of uniting imagaination and analytical reason.... For the marginalized (the majority in the peripheral countries) what does it mean to say that food should be organic and additive-free when they haven't enough to eat? ...devoting public means to natural gas when there are no public funds?... to offer children in the favelas enriched milk when they lack any form of basic health care? (p.23)
Molecular revolutions do occur; that is revolutions started by social actors who, like molecules, are organized in groups, in a community, in laboratories of thought and action... (p.27)
The liberation of creation theology
Above all, we should see the creation as the expression of God's joy, as the dance of God's love, as the mirror of both God and all created things.... every creature is a messenger of God, and God's representative as well as sacrament. In this vision...there is no form of hierarchy.... The world belongs to God, its creator. But the world is assigned to humanity to till and keep. (p.46)
The originality of St Francis of Assisi is...his synthesis of internal and external ecology.... We are sons and daughters [of our Father], and therefore we are brothers and sisters. He used these loving terms to addrsess the moon, fire and water, and even weeds, sickness and death. Blind and sick, at the end of his life he composed a hymn to his brother the sun...the marriage of heaven and earth and of human existence with all things and the... God who shone in the depths of his heart. (pp.52-53)
The Trinity is neither an absurd mystery nor a mathematical contradiction, but the supreme expression of love and human communion.... Behind everything, behind all being, within all life, and in the thrust of all passion is a love and three lovers. (pp.153-4)
God is the God of all human beings; God has demonstrated this existentially – this is the god of those who weep, of the loving kindness of the oppressed, of the revolution that will challenge the unjust order of this era, and the new life offered to all men and women.... A poet has written, “Sweeper sweeping the street / You are sweeping in the kingdom of God.” (p.157)
Injustice [forces] the oppressor to block fine impulses, to to deny that the other is like him or her, and even to dehumanize the self (to lose his or her own center)... a lack of concern for the inward realm of the sacred leads to violation of its outward aspect, the person. But the longing for and impulse to social and political liberation opens up [a] road to interior freedom, and vice versa. This quest for and culture of the personal center is spirituality. (p.169)
Spirituality means the capacity to experience the Holy Spirit in all cosmic energy... the enlivening of the entire human being... tuning into the Spirit dwelling in everything and everywhere, living the enthusiasm (which in Greek has a 'god' in the middle: en-theos-mos) which makes this communication possible and allows it to pass through us and to reach the point of transcendence. (p.177)
Ver tambien: Leonardo Boff - "Quien controla el agua, controla la vida... controla el poder"
entrevista en Avizora mar 2008.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Fuel vs Food
graphic: enviro.org.au (footnotes below)
Ethanol production increases not reduces green house gas emissions, according to scientists. US corn ethanol, touted as cutting fuel GHG by 20%, will almost double them in 30 years and the effect will last for 167 years (1). Worldwide, crop biofuels will release 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the fossil fuel they replace (2). The only alternative, next generation biofuel from perennial grasses, depends on still unproven technology.
Impacts on ecosystems and human security are severe, lack hard statistics, and lag years behind futures markets hype. "Green deserts" were created by megaprojects in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay -- where rich landowners and investors clearcut rainforest, drove out native people and small farmers, often with violence, and imposed GMO / chemical monocultures. There is now evidence from Argentina and Brazil that their bonanza profits lasted only a few years, soil fertility fell, while chemical use doubled (3); people have been poisoned by reckless pesticide spraying (4); nitrate fertilizers pollute wells and rivers (5). Fertilizers and farm mechanization, both based on fossil fuel, increase emissions. Alarmingly, many of these projects were financed by "carbon offsets" and the misnamed "Clean Development Mechanism" of Kyoto (6).
Madhu Khanna, a University of Illinois professor of agricultural and consumer economics, was one of the experts in a Feb 2008 roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, Gender Equity and Human Security. In a UI News interview she says:
The food vs. fuel debate is real and can only be expected to intensify in the near future...Given the questionable environmental benefits of corn-based ethanol, the large diversion of corn from food/feed that it requires and the limited potential to rely on it to achieve meaningful independence from foreign oil there is a need to rethink our current policy.
Since Congress subsidies in 2005, corn prices doubled despite a huge expanse in acreage. Soy and wheat prices also rose. 90% percent of ethanol distilleries popping up across the United States are corn-based. Diverting half of US corn from food to fuel only meets 10% of of our current gas-guzzling, she points out:
The recent Energy Bill sets ambitious mandates for renewable fuel production of 36 billion gallons annually by 2022. Of this, 15 billion gallons is expected to be corn-based ethanol; this would represent less than ten percent of our annual gasoline consumption in the US and require using 50 percent of our current corn production for fuel production... World prices of food and feed are likely to rise even further with potentially adverse impacts on net food importing developing countries as well as on the poor in urban populations.
It is already happening: in early 2008 there were food riots in a number of countries.(7)
Next-generation alternatives to corn ethanol include dedicated energy crops, such as Miscanthus x giganteus and Switchgrass, crop residues like corn stover and wheat straw and municipal wastes. These feedstocks can be used to produce ligno-cellulosic biofuels. Miscanthus and switchgrass are high yielding perennial grasses with low input requirements that can be grown under a wide range of growing conditions in the midwest and southern regions of the US. They have the potential to more than double the gallons of ethanol that can be obtained per acre and are expected to have a significantly lower greenhouse gas intensity than corn ethanol. These grasses also reduce soil erosion and nitrogen run-off. However, the commercial viability of converting these next generation feedstocks into biofuels is highly dependent on technological breakthroughs that are still in the pipeline.
Footnotes
(1) T. Searchinger, et al "Use of U.S. Croplands" in AAAS Science Feb 2008
(2) Joseph Fargione, et al. "Land Clearing" in AAAS Science Feb 2008; W Laurance, "US corn subsidies promote Amazon deforestation¨ in Science Dec 2007, reported by Enviro.org.au.
(3) "Soyabean in Argentina" in Wikipedia Monsanto; on Brazil, Institute of Science in Society UK, Climate Ark.
(4) pesticide poisoning in LaSoyaMata; "fumigation" in Independent Science Panel, Indymedia and GRR.
(5) green deserts: see Guardian 2004. For those caused by eucalyptus monoculture for paper see WRM, Chris Lang's blog, police violence against dispossessed natives, protests led by MST, Via Campesina, FoE in 2007-08, video of Brazil women's leader Arlete Pinheiro.
(6) carbon financing: Red Pepper Sep 2006, Guardian Feb 2007, Environment New Net on dubious certifications (for CDM).
(7) "Food Crisis," BiofuelWatch Feb 2008.
Videos of small farmer-campesino-peasant activists around the world: All Raised Voices.
En español: Grupo de Reflexión Rural con audios, Via Campesina, La Soja Mata. Videos contra las papeleras.
Ethanol production increases not reduces green house gas emissions, according to scientists. US corn ethanol, touted as cutting fuel GHG by 20%, will almost double them in 30 years and the effect will last for 167 years (1). Worldwide, crop biofuels will release 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the fossil fuel they replace (2). The only alternative, next generation biofuel from perennial grasses, depends on still unproven technology.Impacts on ecosystems and human security are severe, lack hard statistics, and lag years behind futures markets hype. "Green deserts" were created by megaprojects in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay -- where rich landowners and investors clearcut rainforest, drove out native people and small farmers, often with violence, and imposed GMO / chemical monocultures. There is now evidence from Argentina and Brazil that their bonanza profits lasted only a few years, soil fertility fell, while chemical use doubled (3); people have been poisoned by reckless pesticide spraying (4); nitrate fertilizers pollute wells and rivers (5). Fertilizers and farm mechanization, both based on fossil fuel, increase emissions. Alarmingly, many of these projects were financed by "carbon offsets" and the misnamed "Clean Development Mechanism" of Kyoto (6).
Madhu Khanna, a University of Illinois professor of agricultural and consumer economics, was one of the experts in a Feb 2008 roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, Gender Equity and Human Security. In a UI News interview she says:
The food vs. fuel debate is real and can only be expected to intensify in the near future...Given the questionable environmental benefits of corn-based ethanol, the large diversion of corn from food/feed that it requires and the limited potential to rely on it to achieve meaningful independence from foreign oil there is a need to rethink our current policy.
Since Congress subsidies in 2005, corn prices doubled despite a huge expanse in acreage. Soy and wheat prices also rose. 90% percent of ethanol distilleries popping up across the United States are corn-based. Diverting half of US corn from food to fuel only meets 10% of of our current gas-guzzling, she points out:
The recent Energy Bill sets ambitious mandates for renewable fuel production of 36 billion gallons annually by 2022. Of this, 15 billion gallons is expected to be corn-based ethanol; this would represent less than ten percent of our annual gasoline consumption in the US and require using 50 percent of our current corn production for fuel production... World prices of food and feed are likely to rise even further with potentially adverse impacts on net food importing developing countries as well as on the poor in urban populations.
It is already happening: in early 2008 there were food riots in a number of countries.(7)
Next-generation alternatives to corn ethanol include dedicated energy crops, such as Miscanthus x giganteus and Switchgrass, crop residues like corn stover and wheat straw and municipal wastes. These feedstocks can be used to produce ligno-cellulosic biofuels. Miscanthus and switchgrass are high yielding perennial grasses with low input requirements that can be grown under a wide range of growing conditions in the midwest and southern regions of the US. They have the potential to more than double the gallons of ethanol that can be obtained per acre and are expected to have a significantly lower greenhouse gas intensity than corn ethanol. These grasses also reduce soil erosion and nitrogen run-off. However, the commercial viability of converting these next generation feedstocks into biofuels is highly dependent on technological breakthroughs that are still in the pipeline.
Footnotes
(1) T. Searchinger, et al "Use of U.S. Croplands" in AAAS Science Feb 2008
(2) Joseph Fargione, et al. "Land Clearing" in AAAS Science Feb 2008; W Laurance, "US corn subsidies promote Amazon deforestation¨ in Science Dec 2007, reported by Enviro.org.au.
(3) "Soyabean in Argentina" in Wikipedia Monsanto; on Brazil, Institute of Science in Society UK, Climate Ark.
(4) pesticide poisoning in LaSoyaMata; "fumigation" in Independent Science Panel, Indymedia and GRR.
(5) green deserts: see Guardian 2004. For those caused by eucalyptus monoculture for paper see WRM, Chris Lang's blog, police violence against dispossessed natives, protests led by MST, Via Campesina, FoE in 2007-08, video of Brazil women's leader Arlete Pinheiro.
(6) carbon financing: Red Pepper Sep 2006, Guardian Feb 2007, Environment New Net on dubious certifications (for CDM).
(7) "Food Crisis," BiofuelWatch Feb 2008.
---------
See Wikipedia on biofuel, second and third generation; updates in Science; our previous postings peak everything and biofuel debate. Brazil cropdusting videos one, two.Videos of small farmer-campesino-peasant activists around the world: All Raised Voices.
En español: Grupo de Reflexión Rural con audios, Via Campesina, La Soja Mata. Videos contra las papeleras.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Sustainable forestry in Paraguay
Reforestation with yerba mate, Itabó
Guayakí Yerba Mate is preserving the 12,500-acre Itabó Rainforest Preserve in Eastern Paraguay. Here, yerba mate, the national tea of Argentinians and others, has been replanted in its native habitat and serves as the primary income for the Preserve. Certified organic, the tea is shade-grown below its native rainforest canopy. Income from the 300 reforested acres is sufficient to protect the totality of the preserve and its incredibly diverse animal and plant life. The company has established other Atlantic Forest preserves with the Ache Guayakí native people and in Brazil. This forest, reduced 95% by recent ranching and soybean megaprojects, used to cover North Eastern Paraguay, North Eastern Argentina and Southern Eastern Brazil. It is one of the world’s top 5 biodiversity hotspots and one of South America’s highest priority sites for bird conservation. The Ache Guayakí people themselves were threatened by genocide in the 1970s.Guayakí’s project has been singled out by the United Nations and environmental organizations as one of the best examples of medium-scale sustainable use in South America. Cambridge University researchers called the Preserve "an impressive example of sustainable forest use... It is crucial that the success of Itabó is widely publicized as a model to be duplicated.” Here is a recent study.
Itabó is home to over 330 species of birds, and 36 mammal species including giant armadillos, and jaguar. It includes threatened hardwood trees such as the Lapacho (Pau D'Arco). The Preserve also protects some of the last of the endangered Interior-Atlantic forest, a critical gene pool for future reforestation. The reforested yerba mate area is now habitat for most varieties of native birds-- a sign of a healthy ecosystem.
Greenpeace photo: clearcutting rainforest for Cargill soya plantation.
More information: La Soya Mata / Soy Kills on environmental and human impacts of clearcutting and GMO soy monoculture in Paraguay, World Land Trust study of biodiversity in the region, Greenpeace news and report Eating up the Amazon on World Bank and multinationals involved in soy clearcuts in neighbouring Brazil, Suzuki Foundation report on clearcutting for eucalyptus.
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