RIBEIRÃO PRETO, SP, BRAZIL – In a thoughtful article published in The Rio Times Monday, August 19th, Peter Rosenwald gave a series of answers to the title question above. To sum them up, the Amazon is Brazilian national patrimony, but the rest of the world is a stakeholder, even if only indirectly.
This writer respectfully submits a demurrer—a quaint legalese term for an argument that another person’s statement is true but insufficient to resolve a question.
Point the first—numbers are (only) relative.
We can accept as true INPE’s numbers that deforestation in June and July 2019 were, respectively, 88 and 278 percent higher than in June and July 2018. But suppose, for a moment, that June and July 2018 saw very low amounts of deforestation. In such a case, a high percentage increase would say nothing about the true scale of deforestation.
At the very least, those who put forth scary percentage numbers should put them in context: for instance, compare July 2019 with every July in, say, the past decade. The numbers may well be scary, or they may not be.
Point the second—cynicism abounds.
We can accept as true the claim that some citizens of developed countries really care about their descendants’ future, and that this concern makes them indirect stakeholders in the Amazon’s future. Even so, most foreigners’ objections to Brazil’s projected encroachments upon forests have far more to do with the economy than with the environment.
A pithy encapsulation of the cynicism is the phrase “farms here, forests there”, supposedly the motivation of heavily subsidized agribusiness interests in developed countries that fear competition from Mercosur countries, where production costs are lower.
Recently, two important German publications, echoing a prior leader in The Economist newspaper, suggested it was time to impose penalties on Brazil for its failure to preserve the Amazon. Unsurprisingly, the recommended penalties were for the EU to stop importing Brazilian (soy) beans and beef. The massively subsidized European agribusiness lobby applauded loudly from the sidelines.
The lupine argument often comes swaddled in ovine clothing, with pious expressions of concern over the plight of Brazil’s indigenous peoples and the likelihood of modern-day slave labor here. French activists even suggested that deforestation was a crime against humanity and that the International Criminal Court should put Bolsonaro in the dock.
Point the third—development (still) depends on deforestation.
Brazil has long aspired to achieve recognition as a “developed” economy, leaving behind pejorative labels such as “underdeveloped”, “developing”, and “emerging”. All developed countries claim to support this desire.
However, this writer knows of no developed country in the world that has ever achieved its developed status without decimating (quite literally) its forests.
The Brazilian government believes that the path to development must involve growth in infrastructure and production, be it industrial or agricultural. Further, it believes that environmental restraints, by their very nature, will hinder such growth.
Under this theory, if Brazil truly determines to become fully developed, it must exploit a greater percentage of its territory than it now does. If that means hewing down forests, so be it: the sacrifice is no less necessary now than it was for developed nations in decades and centuries past.
Point the fourth—why Brazil?
There are tropical forests around the globe, most of which are being relentlessly plundered at rates far worse than the Amazon. Recent wildfires charred Portugal and Spain. So why do Europeans concentrate on the Amazon?
Most Brazilians stubbornly believe that the Amazon is so vast and so resilient, that deforestation can never actually make a significant dent in its biome. After the G-20 meeting in Japan, president Bolsonaro offered to fly 1,150 km from Rio Branco to Manaus with French president Macron, and dare him to spot any deforestation at all.
Macron’s answer came this Thursday, when he cried, “Our house is burning! The Amazon is on fire,” and asked to add the Amazon wildfires (“an international crisis”) to the G7 agenda this weekend in Biarritz. German Chancellor Merkel has seconded the motion. Bolsonaro says this posture reflects an anachronous colonialist vision of the world.
What is the point?
We can admit that many European politicians really do care about the Amazon, mostly because they believe their voters care. They may be right: Green parties have grown strong across Western Europe. But that does not resolve the question of ownership of, and responsibility for, the Amazon forest.
Similarly, Brazil’s brazen chest-beating about “The Amazon is ours!” does not contribute to solving the problem. Neither does macho bravado such as telling Norway and Germany to “keep your money and save your own forests.”
Deforestation, whether caused by wildfires or economic development, will certainly have consequences for Brazil and the rest of the world. No one knows for sure what those consequences will be, nor how long they will take to occur, nor even what to do about stopping them—climate change is not an exact science.
The escalation of rhetoric over ownership will only lead to further acrimony, not to solutions. Both sides should step back, take a deep breath, and think about how to solve the problem.