Saving the Amazon: Winning The War on Deforestation
Posted by Unknown in Brazil, Deforestation, Environmental Issues, South America on Saturday, 26 January 2013
By Justin Rowlatt
BBC News, Amazonia
For
years, the story told about the Amazon has been one of destruction -
the world's largest rainforest, a region of amazing biodiversity, key to
the fight against climate change, being remorselessly felled. But that
is no longer the whole truth.
The
Environment Agency special ops team gathered in a sultry town right on
the southern edge of the Amazon. A group of officers, men and women,
were relaxing in the shade of a majestic mango tree outside their
offices. They were smoking and chatting.
These
aren't bureaucrats with crumpled suits and clipboards. In Brazil,
environment agents wear military fatigues, with heavy black pistols
slung casually on their thighs.
These
officers are, as I was to discover, soldiers on the front line in what
Brazil regards as a war - a war to protect the Amazon rainforest.
I'd
been invited along on one of the agency's routine raids in the jungle.
The idea was to target a gang of illegal loggers the satellite
monitoring team had spotted working in the forest.
On
a map pinned to the wall, three commanders were working out strategies
and logistics, just like a military operation. I was starting to feel
distinctly anxious.
"Are the loggers likely to be armed?" I asked.
"Don't worry about guns," said the lead officer, Evandro Selva. "They're only likely to have hunting rifles. Nothing serious."
Nothing serious?
Moments
later, we were in a pickup truck on our way to the airstrip and before I
knew it, Evandro was urging me into the helicopter, its blades already
scything through the humid air.
I
just had time to strap myself in before he gestured for take-off and
the ground shrank away. The pilot banked the craft round and off we
thudded towards our target.
I
was in Brazil to report on that rare thing, an environmental battle
that is actually being won. For decades, pretty much the only story
we've heard from the Amazon is about the remorseless tide of destruction
sweeping through the forest.
The
received wisdom has always been that it is unstoppable. It is certainly
true that the economic logic of deforestation is powerful - land in the
Amazon is worth far more if the trees are cut down. But I was here to
discover the remarkable progress Brazil has made in silencing the
chainsaws.
My
journey was to take me across the southern Amazon, the area the
Brazilians call "the arc of destruction" - a grey area between
civilisation and one of the world's last true wildernesses.
For
years it was a vision of hell here. Vast fires swept through the forest
while the chainsaws whined, and armoured tractors roared as they
grubbed up the roots of the great Amazonian trees.
We
could see the fruits of all this labour from the window of the
helicopter. We flew over vast open fields, some many kilometres square
that have been carved out of the virgin forest just in the last decade
or so.
An
hour into our flight, Evandro signalled that we were nearing the
target. We were over what looked to me like pristine jungle when
suddenly the carpet of trees gave way and a vast clearing opened up
beneath us.
Even
I could tell they had been freshly cut. There were still some trees
standing - tall fragile-looking Brazil nut trees - but on the ground
were great rough mounds of branches and brush. I could see open scars in
the red earth where the machines had gouged their passage.
Over
the headphones I could hear excited shouting in Portuguese. One of the
officers pointed down. I saw a truck piled high with tree trunks and a
tractor in front of it. Beside it were two, possibly three men, looking
up at the helicopter.
We
wheeled around and pilot started to bring the helicopter down. It
kicked up a storm of dust and dry leaves. The rotors seemed perilously
close to the trees. I hung on tight.
Then we were on the ground and running. The truck and tractor were still there but, of course, the culprits had fled.
"They'll be back," Evandro said confidently. "We'll just hide here and wait for them."
The
three officers hid among the logs and branches, pistols in their hands.
Cameraman Keith Morris and I also took cover. Meanwhile, the helicopter
flew off in another flurry of leaves and red earth.
Then
all was silent. Just the five of us crouching silently in the hot sun,
clouds of tiny bees swarming around our faces and hands.
How can this possibly stop the onslaught, I thought to myself.
In
the decade between 1996 and 2005, 19,500 sq km (7,530 sq miles) of
jungle was lost on average every single year. The comparison is
overused, but that really is an area about the size of Wales or New
Jersey each year. It reached a peak in 2004 when more than 27,000 sq km
was lost.
Then, in 2004 Brazil declared war - it said it would cut deforestation by 80% by 2020.
Seven
years later and it has almost reached its goal. The latest figures,
released just weeks ago, show that 2011 had the lowest rates of
deforestation since records began three decades ago - just over 6,200 sq
km was cut. That's 78% down on 2004, still a lot of trees - an area the
about the size of Devon, or Delaware - but a huge improvement.
Of
course, the Brazilian government cannot claim all the credit. On my
journey across the arc of destruction I met a bizarre cast of characters
all of whom are playing a role:
John
Carter, a Texan cayman-wrestling ex-US Special Forces soldier turned
Amazonian rancher whose alliance of farmers and ranchers is working to
improve land management on farms in the Amazon
The indigenous Amazonian Indians who have been recruited as "smoke jumpers" - forest fire-fighters
One
of the most efficient agricultural enterprises on the planet - an
Amazonian soya farm - by the multibillionaire they call the "King of
Soya", who now claims to be an environmentalist
Greenpeace's
swashbuckling pilot, Fernando Galvao Bezerra, a veteran of many of
Greenpeace's successful campaigns, who earned his pilot's wings ferrying
miners, prostitutes and priests into some of the most remote and
dangerous places in the jungle
In
one of the most remote states in the entire Amazon, a condom factory in
the jungle makes the world's first rainforest-friendly rubbers using
latex harvested from wild rubber trees in the jungle
But
for the moment I was still hunched in the bushes, the first twinges of
cramp in my leg and a river of sweat running down my back. We had been
waiting half an hour when - just like in the movies - I heard a branch
snap underfoot and suddenly the officers were up and running.
Hope
"Para ai! Para ai!" they shouted - "Stop right there!"
I
saw a man in a ragged T-shirt dive into the dirt, arms wide as if he
had been crucified. Another hesitated on the edge of the forest. The
officer in front of me fired his gun. The man turned and darted off into
the trees.
In
all, the officers arrested five men and impounded three trucks and two
tractors. I'd been nervous about confronting these guys but they seemed
rather pathetic, smoking rollups in their scruffy clothes. The agents,
however, seemed very content with their haul.
We
hitched a lift back to the helicopter sitting on top of a pile of huge
tree trunks on the back of a truck the enforcement officers had seized
from the loggers. As we bounced back through the jungle, I couldn't help
feeling a great sense of hope.
Of
course, the fact that there is still an illegal logging operation like
this just an hour's helicopter ride from a major Brazilian city shows
that there is still huge pressure on the forest. But extraordinary as it
sounds, it really does seem as if the war to stop the destruction of
Amazon rainforest is being won.
What's
more this is happening before it is too late, because what most people
don't realise is just how much of the forest is still standing.
Satellite images confirm almost 80% of the Amazon is still intact.
What
an inspiring thought to begin the New Year, I thought, as the battered
old truck coughed and wheezed its way along the dusty path between the
towering trees.
