From: Jakarta Post
A strong message caps 17 meetings with government and NGO representatives in three cities in Brazil during a recent press visit: Save the Amazon, and, at the same time, change your polluting lifestyle.Unlike Indonesia, Brazil, the country with the largest expanse of rainforests in the world, is clear about rejecting carbon market mechanisms, where polluters with a lot of money - in the United States, for instance - can continue their high-carbon lifestyle or polluting practices by buying carbon credits to halt deforestation in the Amazon or Kalimantan.
While Greenpeace Brasil has a lot to say about government policies to save the Amazon, the organization backs this particular principle behind the government's national plan on climate change, launched by President Luiz In*cio Lula da Silva in Poznan, Poland, last year.
"We do support the government *for distancing itself from market mechanisms*," says S*rgio Leitao, policy director at Greenpeace Brasil in Sao Paulo.
He adds the REDD scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation is not necessarily attainable through market mechanisms.
To help finance a slowdown in deforestation in the Amazon, the Brazilian government has set up the Amazon Fund, a private fund aimed at raising money from governments and corporations. So far, it has secured an agreement with Norway, which will provide US$1 billion over 70 years. As of this year, Norway has disbursed $100 million towards the Amazon Fund.
The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) is financially managing the fund. S*rgio Wergellin, head of the bank's newly established environmental department, says 80 percent of the fund will be dedicated to Brazil's Amazon, while the remaining 20 percent will go toward monitoring forests in other countries, like the Peruvian part of the Amazon.
"The Amazon Fund is complementary; we apply the *additionality' principle," Wergellin says.
This means anyone who wants to help save the Amazon should do so in addition to shifting to low-carbon practices.
He adds the fund is allocated for financing projects "with good governance and with the correct aim".
The Amazon Fund committee has 24 members, nine from Amazonian states, nine from ministries, and six from NGOs.
Wergellin says proposals are weighed in a transparent manner. With the help of the fund, Brazil is aiming for an 80 percent reduction in its deforestation rate by 2020, based on the annual median of 19,500 square kilometers between 1996 and 2005.
Nevertheless, questions still arise over what kind of projects will get financial backing from the fund.
"We proposed a project *to the BNDES* to find out how the system works inside," says Osvaldo Stella Martins from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).
When the IPAM team submitted their proposal, they learned the BNDES did not have the expertise to analyze proposals, Martins adds.
The IPAM has proposed an increase in the productivity of 350 small-scale farmers who have less than 100 hectares of land in the Amazon. By doing so, the farmers are expected to generate maximum yields in one area, thus preventing them from clearing more forests.
Another kind of program that would give poor people living in the Amazon an economic alternative is developing perennial crops such as cacao or a**i, a fruit tree found in the forest. The Peabiru Institute in Bel*m, for instance, helps 500 poor families in different areas collect, package and market wild honey from the Amazon.
Such small enterprises can be an alternative to opening forests for pasture. It is common knowledge in Brazil that 70 percent of the deforestation in the Amazon is due to pastures or cattle ranching. At present, Brazil is the world's biggest exporter of meat, with 26 percent of the global market share, followed by Australia with 20 percent.
Cattle ranching in Brazil, however, takes up more than it needs, many critics say. The national average for the number of cattle per land area is one per hectare per year.
"The question is how to increase productivity instead of opening new areas," says Paulo Baretto, a senior researcher at the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon).
He adds soybean plantations also account for a large amount of deforestation, especially in the state of Mato Grosso.
Besides increasing productivity, campaigns to reduce demand, both domestic and international, could also help prevent deforestation.
Greenpeace's call for a soybean moratorium, for instance, has succeeded in gaining commitment from five big companies to stop buying soybeans from deforested Amazonian land.
"Greenpeace campaigners, wearing chicken costumes, chained themselves to McDonald's restaurant tills, saying *You buy chickens fed from soybeans produced on the deforested Amazon'," says campaigner Kiko Brito.
The same can be applied to beef consumption. Decreasing demand for beef would eventually reduce human pressure on the Amazon, activists say.
Many environmentalists advocate a vegetarian diet to reflect greater responsibility for the Earth. Some also endorse selective buying; if one really needs beef, buy some that was produced in a responsible manner. In a nutshell, everyone on Earth should bear responsibility for mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Leitao says although he does not reject grants coming from abroad for the Amazon Fund, Brazil should bear the brunt of the financial costs. He adds Brazil's internal budget should be enough to save the rich rainforest.
"Money from abroad should be an extra," he says.