Oct 13 2023 | Nº. 88

Editorial

The shocking assault against Israel by the terrorist group Hamas over the weekend forced the Brazilian government to mobilize resources to ensure the safety of Brazilian citizens in Israel and Palestine. The Brazilian air force carried out several flights to remove Brazilians from areas expected to be targeted by reprisals from the Israeli government. At least two Brazilians were killed in the attack last weekend. Expressing his solidarity with the families of the victims, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asserted that Brazil would use its temporary position on the UN Security Council to urge restraint rather than escalation. He also urged “the international community to work to immediately resume negotiations that can lead to a solution to the conflict that guarantees the existence of an economically viable Palestinian State, coexisting peacefully with Israel within safe borders for both sides.” On Thursday, Lula called for a meeting of the UN Security Council to be held the next day to press for a ceasefire.

Previous Workers’ Party governments have been deeply critical of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. That position, however, is not historically out of step with the core tenets of Brazilian diplomacy. Asked this week why Brazil refuses to categorize Hamas as a terrorist organization, Ambassador Carlos Sérgio Sobral Duarte, secretary for Africa and the Middle East within Itamaraty, Brazil’s department of state, replied that Brazil’s repudiation of terror attacks—particularly those targeting civilians—is forceful, clear, and consistent. But Itamaraty only formally recognizes as terrorist organizations those entities identified as such by the UN. On social media, Lula did appeal directly to Hamas to release children being held hostage and to the Israeli government to stop bombing Gaza to allow for women and children to cross the border to safety in Egypt. This unexpected explosion of violence opens another front on the global agenda of pressing humanitarian issues. Brazil is likely to seek a mediating role, as it has with Russia’s war on Ukraine. Despite his clear attempt to play a more prominent international role, however, there have been few genuine diplomatic breakthroughs in Lula’s third term so far. It remains to be seen whether and how the Brazilian government believes it can contribute to a peaceful resolution of this most recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East. 

Highlights

• DROUGHT IN THE AMAZON. Regions of the Amazon through which the Madeira River flows are facing the worst drought in 56 years. Due to the lack of rain and the radical drop in water levels in the rivers that run through the tropical forest region, the National Water Agency declared on Tuesday, October 10th, a “critical situation of scarcity of water resources.” The drought makes river transport in the region unfeasible, harms the water supply, isolates riverside communities, increases the risk of fires, and worsens air quality. Another fact associated with the drought, caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon, is the large mortality of porpoises that inhabit the region's waterways.

• HOMOPHOBIC OFFENSIVE. The approval of a homophobic bill in a committee of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Congress, has raised an alert regarding marriage between people of the same sex in Brazil. The Social Security, Social Assistance, Childhood, Adolescence and Family Committee approved a bill that had been pending in the Brazilian Congress since 2009, created by a former military police officer who became a conservative congressman. The text prohibits same-sex marriages and prevents court decisions that attempt to make this law more flexible. The proposal is still far from becoming a law. It still needs to go through two other committees before going to a vote, but the conservative offensive shows the willingness of a growing evangelical group to overturn a decision by the Brazilian Supreme Court that, since 2011, has supported marriages of same-sex couples in the absence of a specific law on the subject.

• INCREASE IN ILLITERACY. The number of Brazilian children aged seven who cannot read or write rose from 20 percent in 2019 to 40 percent in 2022. Among children aged eight, this growth went from 8.5 percent to 20.8 percent in the same period. Among nine-year-old children, growth went from 4.4 percent to 9.5 percent in the same time period, which coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic and the severe restrictions imposed on the entire educational system. The data comes from the United Nations Children's Fund.

• VIOLENCE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. The number of agrarian conflicts registered in the first half of 2023 was the second highest ever recorded in Brazil in the last nine years. The period corresponds to the first six months of the Lula government. The survey is carried out by the Pastoral Land Commission, a civil society body, which is linked to the Catholic Church, and traditionally monitors data from the sector. Between January and July of this year, there were 973 incidents, compared to 1,007 registered in 2020 and 900 in 2022. The greatest number of victims are Indigenous peoples, who account for 38.2 percent of cases. The biggest aggressors are farmers, responsible for 19.75 percent.

• GREATER GROWTH. Brazil's Gross Domestic Product will grow 3.1 percent in 2023, according to the World Economic Panorama report, produced by the International Monetary Fund. This growth projection is one percentage point higher than previously made. The Brazilian economy as a whole will grow from 1.2 percent to 1.5 percent, according to these same projections, while the growth of the world economy will fall from 3 percent to 2.9 percent. The agricultural sector continues to drive the good results of the Brazilian economy, according to the document, along with the “resilience” of the service sector.

• INTERNATIONAL AGENDA. Lula has visited twenty countries since taking office as president in January 2023, which is an average of more than two international trips per month. According to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, the government had detected a risk of “wear and tear” in Lula's popularity due to this intense international agenda. The increase in this negative perception have been detected in opinion polls that are carried out by the government periodically. On social media, there are frequent posts from opposition politicians accusing Lula of neglecting national problems while traveling abroad. Lula's international protagonism contrasts with the almost complete irrelevance that Brazil achieved internationally during the four years in office of the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro.

• MORO IN THE CROSSHAIRS. Sergio Moro, who was the judge responsible for the Car Wash (Lava Jato) investigation and the arrest order against Lula before becoming Bolsonaro's Justice Minister and senator, is suffering a series of legal and political setbacks. In addition to having decisions reversed by the Supreme Court, as in the case of Lula, Moro also faces disciplinary complaints at the National Council of Justice and new questions at the Supreme Court about his impartiality as a judge, despite having retired from the role five years ago. The senator's current image contrasts with that of his projection as a superhero, which was built by the Right around his name over the last few years. It comes at a time when there is a wear and tear and widespread discrediting of the Lava Jato investigation, an operation that was launched at the time as a promise to purify the Brazilian political world. It has since been clear that the investigations were politically motivated to prevent Lula from being a candidate in the 2018 elections.

NEWS FROM SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MOVEMENTS:

CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON. The WBO and Georgetown University will hold the Brazil in Transition conference in Washington on October 19 and 20. There will be five panels, with fifteen speakers over two days, dealing with topics such as the environment, indigenous issues, racism, public security, economy and democracy. Participation is free and open to the public. Just sign up at the link: tinyurl.com/3hsa75bp

COUP D'ETAT. The Pact for Democracy – founded in 2018 and currently made up of a network of 150 Brazilian civil society organizations – made public this week a document with twelve suggestions to be incorporated into the final report that will be produced by the Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that is investigating in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies the frustrated coup attempt carried out by Bolsonaro's followers on January 8, 2023.

DEMOCRACY DAY. More than 200 personalities have already joined the campaign launched by the Vladimir Herzog Institute so that October 25 can be declared Democracy Day in Brazil. The date coincides with the murder of journalist Vladimir Herzog, killed under torture by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), on the same date in 1975. The Brazil Coalition for Memory, Truth, Justice, Reparation and Democracy also argues that the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, extinguished during the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, should be reconstituted on this same date.

Feature Article

by Caetano Scannavino

Time to Nationalize the Amazon and ‘Amazonize’ the World

If life is the greatest wealth that exists, Brazil is the richest country in the world, according to Gross Primary Productivity, which measures the synthesis of organic matter generated from water, light and air.

The Amazon is a factory of life that, just with the protection of Brazilian Indigenous lands as a measure to combat climate change, could yield US$523 billion to US$1.165 trillion in 20 years with the global benefits of carbon and ecosystem conservation (Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs).

It's sad that our Indigenous and traditional peoples, while providing voluntary service as guardians of the natural assets that keep us alive, receive in exchange bullets, mercury and diseases from the outside world instead of health, education, sanitation, energy policies, among other measures to ensure their well-being. Without social justice, there is no environmental justice.

We have already devastated an area equal to two German Amazon regions, in which 63 percent of the land is now occupied by extremely low-productivity pastures and another 23 percent has been abandoned, according to data from Inpe and Embrapa. We deforest to become poorer. IPS Amazônia data identifies the worst Social Progress Indexes precisely in the municipalities that deforested the most.

It is difficult to talk about sustainable development without first resolving the culture of illegal acts that prevails in the region, where the illegal is legal. We allow a few to appropriate wealth—gold, wood, land--that belongs to all Brazilians. They don't pay taxes and still leave a bill for the damage. Those who want to do the right thing cannot compete with the low price of illegal extraction, so they fail or change sides. Instead of responsible investments, cartels and criminal organizations end up being attracted to the region.

LIFE MAP – If life is the greatest wealth, Brazil is the richest country in the world according to the GPP map, cumulative production (synthesis of organic matter) generated by water, light and air. “The ability to generate life”, according to Julia Sekula, co-author of “Brazil: Restaurable Paradise”.

People kill and deforest in a collusion between private and public actors. In Brazil, which is among the three most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders, the fact that, of the 300 murders of activists in the Brazilian Amazon, only 14 went to trial in the last decade cannot be normalized (Human Rights Watch, 2019).

After a government that scrapped monitoring, inspection, and punishment mechanisms, rebuilding command and control policies and strategies is a first step. Protecting the Amazon, before being a foreign issue, is a national interest. Without the biome, the average temperature would rise 0.25 ºC on the planet, but it would jump 2 ºC in Brazil, where 25 percent of rainfall would also be lost, making agriculture and energy generation unfeasible, according to Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of SEEG (Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimation System).

Demanding support from rich countries is more than asking for a favor. It is a right. After all, the benefits generated by the Amazon are global and conservation costs remain local. To do this, you must have an agreed-upon project for the region. Sovereignty is offering paths that combine social and environmental solutions, which are fairer and more justly compensated.

One of them is to shield the forests and focus on increasing efficiency in consolidated agricultural areas, producing more with less land, and without deforestation. Ordering large-scale agriculture in the region is a damage reduction strategy, especially because cattle and soy are far from being Amazonian vocations.

By the way, starting at US$20 per ton of carbon, it is more profitable to restore the forest than to raise cattle in the Amazon. If livestock farming were replaced by regeneration, the country would be able to capture 16 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere and would receive around US$320 billion in 30 years ("Carbon and the Fate of the Amazon").

A robust restoration and socio-bioeconomy policy can, after decades, finally make Amazonia take off from the meager 8 to 9 percent share of the national GDP. “Brazil’s great potential is biodiversity”, says scientist Carlos Nobre. “Agroforestry systems with açaí can yield up to US$1500 per hectare annually, while livestock earns around US$100/hectare.”

The participation of the Brazilian Amazon in the global market for products compatible with the forest, such as nuts, fruits, peppers and others, is negligible. Despite representing 30 percent of the world's tropical forests, it occupies only 0.18 percent (US$300 million per year) of a market worth almost US$200 billion (“Opportunities for the Brazilian Amazon”).

In the Amazon alone, science has been discovering a new species every two days in recent years (New Species Report - WWF/Mamirauá). It makes perfect sense when they say that deforesting a primary forest is like deleting a hard drive without knowing what's inside, including possible discoveries of treatments for diseases that have not yet been cured.

If we lack resources to invest in research and technology, partnerships are welcome, as long as they are through fair cooperation mechanisms, respect for the rights and knowledge of Indigenous and traditional peoples, in order to protect and adequately manage all these assets and knowledge in the service of humanity.

Universities in the region have trained people to leave. In an Amazon region that is more than 70 percent urban, it would not be prohibitive to envisage strategic hubs with low-carbon technological plants, which train the local workforce with a focus on innovation, processing, and adding value to socio-biodiversity inputs. If the fiscal benefits of the Manaus Free Trade Zone are to be valued, why not make it, for example, a Silicon Valley of the Standing Forest, a global center for the bioeconomy and biodiversity?

In times where riches begin to change color, from the black of oil to the green of the standing forest, our decision makers should turn to legislative proposals that look towards the future, instead of wanting to perpetuate an outdated model that has gone wrong, insisting on bills to release cattle into Extractive Reserves, mines on Indigenous lands, and the maintenance of loyalty to the culture of crime that pays off by rewarding land grabbers with discounts of up to 98 percent for the acquisition of stolen public lands.

For these solutions to happen and gain scale, much more than international pressure is required. Brazilian society needs to take responsibility for compliance with the laws, for the socio-environmental measures that are not about the right or the left, but are effective state policies that consolidate a new culture in which good practices predominate.

If we do our homework, from Amazonia, we will have all the conditions to reverse the order, guiding instead of continuing to be guided. Brazil has everything it takes to lead a movement from the Global South for fairer global climate governance. We have two years to decide the fate of the rest of the century. The opportunity is there with Brazil assuming the presidency of the G20 in 2024, and of COP30 in 2025. This is important because the ten-year review of the Paris Agreement will be held in Belém. Then we will know if we want to reach 2030 discussing an increase in temperature of 1 to 2ºC or 2 to 3ºC.

As a colleague in this struggle rightly says, instead of internationalizing, the time is to “nationalize the Amazon and Amazonize the world.”

Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of the NGO Projeto Saúde & Alegria, operating in the Amazon for over 30 years, and member of the coordination of the Climate Observatory.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.