Incendies en Amazonie : la France participe-t-elle à la déforestation ? - Benoit Zagdoun (Franceinfo)

Incendies en Amazonie : la France participe-t-elle à la déforestation ?

La forêt amazonienne est aussi victime du déboisement en Guyane française, mais dans une bien moindre mesure qu'au Brésil. En revanche, la France est grande consommatrice de soja brésilien.

Benoît Zagdoun

Franceinfo, 28/08/2019

Une zone de la forêt amazonienne déboisée et brûlée le 24 août 2019 près de Porto Velho (Brésil). (CARLOS FABAL / AFP)

"On ne peut pas soutenir un modèle (…) qui favorise la déforestation de l’Amazonie et se prétendre le gardien de l’Amazonie." Le ton de l'eurodéputé écologiste Yannick Jadot s'est fait accusateur, lundi 26 août, au micro de franceinfo, alors qu'Emmanuel Macron affichait sa volonté de prendre la tête d'une mobilisation internationale contre les incendies qui ravagent la forêt amazonienne, au grand dam de son homologue brésilien, Jair Bolsonaro.

"La France participe de la déforestation en Guyane", a affirmé le député européen, avant d'ajouter : "La France favorise le développement d’un élevage où les animaux (…) sont nourris au soja brésilien." Sur France 2, Emmanuel Macron lui a donné en partie raison, reconnaissant que, sur la question des importations de soja brésilien, "on a une part de complicité". Des affirmations à remettre en perspective.

En Guyane, une déforestation limitée

La Guyane est le territoire le plus boisé de France. La forêt s'étend sur 8 millions d'hectares et recouvre environ 96% des terres, indique l'Office national des forêts (ONF). Cette forêt tropicale est publique à 99,4%. Elle est même domaniale, c'est-à-dire propriété de l'Etat, à 30%. Et seule une infime partie (0,6%) est privée, contrôlée par le Centre national d'études spatiales (Cnes) et le Centre spatial guyanais. Depuis 2007, la Guyane compte aussi le plus grand parc national de France, le Parc amazonien de Guyane, qui couvre 3,4 millions d'hectares. La responsabilité de la puissance publique dans la gestion de cet espace est donc quasi totale.

"Le plateau des Guyanes, qui comporte notamment la Guyane française, le Guyana et le Suriname, a des taux de déforestation extrêmement faibles et a maintenu un couvert forestier quasi intact par rapport à d'autres parties de l'Amazonie, aux zones andines ou brésiliennes", observe Laurent Kelle, responsable du WWF en Guyane.

En Guyane, on est très, très loin du reste de l'Amazonie, où on casse la forêt et on voit après ce qu'on fait.Pierre Courtiade, coordinateur du pôle énergie de l'Ademe en Guyaneà franceinfo

Entre 1990 et 2012, entre 3 000 et 3 300 hectares de cette forêt ont disparu chaque année, victimes de la la déforestation, d'après l'Institut géographique national (IGN). L'expansion de l'agriculture et de l'élevage est responsable de la disparition de 1 500 à 2 000 hectares par an, détaille la revue Territoire en mouvement. L'orpaillage, légal comme clandestin, entraîne la perte de 800 à 1 000 hectares par an – à parts égales, d'après Laurent Kelle. Et la construction d'infrastructures, routières mais aussi urbaines, cause le déboisement de quelque 400 hectares chaque année.

"Cela peut paraître beaucoup vu de métropole, mais c'est très peu à l'échelle amazonienne", relativise Lilian Blanc, chercheur en écologie forestière au Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique (Cirad). Ces 3 000 à 3 300 hectares de forêt rasés annuellement représentent environ 0,04% du territoire guyanais. "La déforestation en Guyane n'a rien à voir avec le contexte brésilien", insiste l'écologue. Au Brésil, la déforestation opère à une tout autre échelle. En 2018, ce sont 1,3 million d'hectares de forêt tropicale primaire qui y ont disparu, selon le World Resources Institute. Soit environ 0,4% de la forêt amazonienne restante au Brésil, déjà réduite de 20% depuis 1970.

Une exploitation forestière encadrée

"La forêt guyanaise est certainement la forêt tropicale la mieux gérée du monde, assure Lilian Blanc. Et sa gestion est planifiée et encadrée par l'ONF." Depuis 2012, l'office s'est d'ailleurs engagé dans une démarche de certification de la forêt guyanaise, afin de garantir une gestion durable de la ressource. "En Guyane, les exploitants forestiers ne prélèvent que quatre à cinq arbres à l'hectare contre dix au Brésil. Et les forestiers ne passent sur une parcelle que tous les 65 ans. Les arbres ont le temps de se régénérer et la biodiversité est préservée, expose l'écologue du Cirad. Au Brésil, les passages se font tous les cinq ou dix ans. C'est cette rapidité qui rend la forêt si vulnérable au feu. Et c'est cette forêt-là qui brûle aujourd'hui." 

La production de bois est faible en Guyane, de l'ordre de 90 000 mètres cubes par an. A titre de comparaison, dans les Landes, elle atteint un million de mètres cubes.Lilian Blanc, chercheur en écologie forestière au Ciradà franceinfo

En Guyane, la forêt amazonienne n'est pas non plus grignotée par l'agriculture et l'élevage, comme au Brésil. Dans cette région d'outre-mer, "il n'y a pas de volonté de pousser les grandes installations comme au Brésil, et ces implantations agricoles sont parfaitement contrôlées par l'Etat", explique Pierre Courtiade, qui constate cependant "une demande et une volonté légitime de développer l'agriculture et l'élevage". "En Guyane, la population double tous les quinze ans, il manque actuellement 7 000 logements et l'autosuffisance alimentaire ne dépasse pas 20%. On ne peut pas laisser les gens vivre dans des bidonvilles et il faut bien les nourrir. Les exploitations agricoles couvrent 30 000 hectares aujourd'hui. Et il en faudrait 50 000 hectares d'ici quinze ans pour nourrir tout le monde", chiffre le responsable de l'Ademe.

Mais une politique à géométrie variable

"L'Etat n'a pas toujours mis en avant comme une priorité la préservation de la forêt amazonienne en Guyane", pointe toutefois l'écologue Lilian Blanc. En 2015, lorsqu'il était ministre de l'Economie, Emmanuel Macron a ainsi soutenu le gigantesque et controversé projet minier Montagne d'or. Un soutien qu'il a confirmé en 2017, après son arrivée à l'Elysée. L'exécutif a finalement annoncé son abandon, en mai. Mais le président de la compagnie minière ne s'avoue pas vaincu, arguant que le projet n'est pas finalisé.

"Depuis 2014-2015, il y a énormément de spéculation de la part de multinationales autour des ressources minières guyanaises. Les demandes de permis d'exploration sont en hausse et concernent des milliers d'hectares", observe Laurent Kelle, responsable du WWF en Guyane. Des cartes de ces installations minières d'exploration ou d'exploitation qui mitent la forêt guyanaise sont consultables sur le cadastre minier officiel, mais aussi sur Panoramine, à l'initiative de l'association Ingénieurs sans frontières. D'après les ONG comme le collectif Or de question, opposé aux méga-projets d'extraction en Guyane, les activités minières, légales ou non, occupent 360 000 hectares de forêt.

"Il y aurait une incohérence à continuer d'octroyer des titres de prospection miniers, voire à terme des permis d'exploitation, et d'afficher une volonté de protéger l'Amazonie. Si, demain, on autorise une industrie minière en Guyane, on aura une activité économique incompatible avec la protection de l'environnement", prévient Laurent Kelle.

En 2019, on a encore recensé 132 sites miniers illégaux dans le parc national guyanais. La création de ce parc a contribué à lutter et à limiter l'impact de l'orpaillage illégal, mais on ne peut pas se satisfaire de ce bilan.Laurent Kelle, responsable du WWF en Guyaneà franceinfo

"Le gouvernement oscille entre deux tendances, au gré des pressions locales, nationales et internationales", analyse Lilian Blanc. D'un côté, les partisans d'une préservation totale de la forêt. De l'autre, les tenants de son utilisation comme outil de développement économique. En 2017, lors de la dernière grande crise sociale guyanaise contre la vie chère, l'Etat a lâché du lest face aux seconds. "Aujourd'hui, c'est plutôt le courant conservationniste [favorable à la préservation de la forêt] qu'on entend", estime l'écologue.

Et des importations de soja brésilien

Mais la France n'est pas seulement directement responsable des dommages qu'elle peut faire subir à la forêt amazonienne en Guyane, elle est aussi indirectement comptable de la déforestation en Amazonie brésilienne, notamment. Selon un rapport publié en juin par Greenpeace, s'appuyant sur la base de données Comtrade des Nations unies sur le commerce mondial, la France importe chaque année quelque 2 millions de tonnes de soja en provenance du Brésil, qui en a produit plus de 113 millions de tonnes en 2019, selon l'AFP. En 2017, le soja brésilien représentait ainsi 61% de l'ensemble du soja importé par la France, faisant du Brésil le premier fournisseur de soja de l'Hexagone, d'après Greenpeace. Ce soja était principalement destiné à l'alimentation animale dans les élevages, selon l'ONG.

Mais si la culture du soja, dont le Brésil est le premier exportateur mondial devant les Etats-Unis, a été l'une des principales causes de déforestation en Amazonie brésilienne, le moratoire entré en vigueur en 2006 a permis d'y mettre un quasi coup d'arrêt. La culture du soja n'est plus responsable que de 1% du déboisement contre 30% il y a trois ans, soit tout de même plus de 2 millions d'hectares, d'après Mighty Earth. L'ONG note toutefois que des géants du secteur ont reporté leur expansion sur les pays voisins, l'Argentine, le Paraguay ou la Bolivie.

Ces activités agricoles n'occupent d'ailleurs qu'environ 6,5% de la surface déboisée au Brésil. "L'élevage bovin extensif est le principal facteur de déforestation de l'Amazonie. Un peu plus de 65% des terres déboisées en Amazonie sont aujourd'hui occupées par des pâturages", pointe à l'AFP Romulo Batista, chercheur chez Greenpeace. Des entreprises françaises portent en outre une part de responsabilité dans l'exploitation illégale du bois de la forêt amazonienne au Brésil, d'après Greenpeace. Dans une enquête parue en 2018, l'ONG a accusé 19 sociétés d'avoir été complices de ce trafic en 2016 et 2017 en s'approvisionnant en bois exotique extrait de concessions dont les plans d'exploitation étaient frauduleux.

L'association Envol Vert a calculé l'"empreinte forêt" des Français. Elle estime qu'il faut raser en moyenne 352 m2 de forêt par Français pour répondre à nos habitudes de consommation. Le soja compte à lui seul pour 206 m2. Cela représente 2,4 millions d'hectares d'arbres arrachés pour l'ensemble de la population française, soit presque la superficie de la Bretagne. Des forêts qui disparaissent à cause de nos modes de vie en Amérique du Sud, mais aussi en Asie du Sud-Est et en Afrique.

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Editorial do Le Monde sobre a Amazônia: um bem universal

ÉDITORIAL

L’Amazonie, bien commun universel 

Editorial. La multiplication alarmante des incendies dans la forêt amazonienne ne concerne pas uniquement le Brésil, qui en abrite 60%, mais toute la planète, car elle s’inscrit dans le dérèglement global du système climatique.

Editorial du « Monde », 24 Août 2019

 A qui appartient l’Amazonie ? Aux neuf pays d’Amérique latine sur les territoires desquels s’étend cette immense forêt vierge ? Au Brésil, qui en abrite 60 % ? Ou à la planète, dont le sort environnemental est lié à sa santé ?

La multiplication alarmante des incendies dans la forêt amazonienne, ces dernières semaines, a donné une nouvelle acuité à cette interrogation. Si les feux y sont un phénomène naturel en fin de saison des pluies, ils ont pris cette année une ampleur telle que le 19 août, les nuages de particules dus à la combustion de la forêt ont obscurci jusqu’au ciel de Sao Paulo. Les observations de divers satellites ont confirmé l’étendue du désastre. En juillet, le nombre de départs de feux a marqué une hausse de 84 % par rapport à 2018. Pour les scientifiques, il ne fait pas de doute que la plupart d’entre eux sont volontaires, encouragés par la politique climatosceptique du président Jair Bolsonaro.

La crise a pris un tour diplomatique. A la veille de l’ouverture du sommet du G7 à Biarritz, samedi 24 août, auquel le président brésilien n’est pas convié, Emmanuel Macron s’est emparé de l’affaire. « Notre maison brûle, a-t-il tweeté. Littéralement. L’Amazonie, poumon de la planète qui produit 20 % de notre oxygène, est en feu. » Qualifiant les incendies de « crise internationale », le président français a indiqué son intention de mettre « cette urgence » au menu du G7. M. Bolsonaro s’est indigné, par retour de Tweet, de cette posture « colonialiste » consistant à traiter des affaires d’autres pays en dehors de leur présence. L’Allemagne et le Canada, membres du G7, et le secrétaire général de l’ONU, Antonio Guterres, qui y participe, ont appuyé l’initiative de la France. M. Macron a franchi un pas de plus en annonçant, après le premier ministre irlandais, que son pays ne ratifierait pas le traité commercial UE-Mercosur conclu en juin après des années de négociations : le président brésilien, a-t-il accusé, lui a « menti » sur ses engagements en faveur de l’environnement.

Responsabilité internationale

L’affaire pose deux questions. L’Amazonie est-elle un bien commun universel, comme l’affirme la France – qui se prévaut accessoirement du statut de pays amazonien grâce au département de Guyane, limitrophe du Brésil ? Ou bien est-elle « à nous, le Brésil », comme le revendique le président Bolsonaro ? Les conséquences de la destruction progressive de la forêt amazonienne pour le reste des habitants du monde donnent clairement raison aux pays européens : l’Amazonie est une source importante d’oxygène, d’eau et de biodiversité dont dépend l’ensemble de la planète. Sans même parler de son impact sur les populations indigènes, la déforestation massive par brûlis s’inscrit dans le dérèglement global du système climatique. Elle entraîne une hausse des émissions de gaz à effet de serre ; détruits, les arbres ne peuvent plus capter l’eau des sols pour produire de la pluie. M. Bolsonaro doit donc accepter cette responsabilité internationale.

L’autre question concerne l’accord UE-Mercosur : son rejet, aussi gratifiant soit-il politiquement auprès de l’opinion publique française, est-il la réponse appropriée pour faire plier le président brésilien ? Peut-être cette menace a-t-elle contribué à sa décision, vendredi soir, d’envoyer l’armée lutter contre les incendies. Mais ce traité constitue aussi un moyen de pression pour imposer les normes sanitaires et environnementales européennes aux pays producteurs latino-américains. On aurait tort de s’en priver totalement.

Le Monde

Quem vai invadir o Brasil para salvar a Amazonia? - Stephen Walt (Foreign Policy)

O mais ridículo é que militares, nacionalistas e soberanistas vão começar a atacar o autor, como se o que ele proclama fosse factível...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?

It's only a matter of time until major powers try to stop climate change by any means necessary.

Stephen M. Walt

Foreign Policy, August 5, 2019, 5:31 PM

Aerial view of the Transamazonica Road (BR-230) near Medicilandia, Para State, Brazil on March 13, 2019.  MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP/Getty Images

Aug. 5, 2025: In a televised address to the nation, U.S. President Gavin Newsom announced that he had given Brazil a one-week ultimatum to cease destructive deforestation activities in the Amazon rainforest. If Brazil did not comply, the president warned, he would order a naval blockade of Brazilian ports and airstrikes against critical Brazilian infrastructure. The president’s decision came in the aftermath of a new United Nations report cataloging the catastrophic global effects of continued rainforest destruction, which warned of a critical “tipping point” that, if reached, would trigger a rapid acceleration of global warming. Although China has stated that it would veto any U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Brazil, the president said that a large “coalition of concerned states” was prepared to support U.S. action. At the same time, Newsom said the United States and other countries were willing to negotiate a compensation package to mitigate the costs to Brazil for protecting the rainforest, but only if it first ceased its current efforts to accelerate development.

The above scenario is obviously far-fetched—at least I think it is—but how far would you go to prevent irreversible environmental damage? In particular, do states have the right—or even the obligation—to intervene in a foreign country in order to prevent it from causing irreversible and possibly catastrophic harm to the environment?

I raise this issue in light of the news that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is accelerating development of the Amazon rainforest (60 percent of which is in Brazilian hands), thereby imperiling a critical global resource. As those of you with more respect for science than Bolsonaro know, the rainforest is both an important carbon sink and a critical temperature regulator, as well as a key source of fresh water. Deforestation has already damaged its ability to perform these crucial roles, and scientists in Brazilian estimate that increasingly warm and dry conditions could convert much of the forest to dry savanna, with potentially catastrophic effects. Last week, the pro-business, free market-oriented Economist magazine’s cover story was “Deathwatch for the Amazon,” which frames the issue rather nicely. To restate my original question: What should (or must) the international community do to prevent a misguided Brazilian president (or political leaders in other countries) from taking actions that could harm all of us?

This is where it gets tricky. State sovereignty is a critical element of the current international system; with certain exceptions, national governments are free to do whatever they want inside their own borders. Even so, the hard shell of sovereignty has never been absolute, and various forces have been chipping away at it for a long time. States can be sanctioned for violating international law (e.g., by defying U.N. Security Council resolutions), and international law authorizes countries to go to war for self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes military action. It’s even legal to attack another country’s territory preemptively, provided there is a well-founded basis for believing it was about to attack you first.

More controversially, the “responsibility to protect” doctrine sought to legitimate humanitarian intervention in foreign powers when the local government was unable or unwilling to protect its own people. And as a practical matter, states routinely accept infringements on their own sovereignty in order to facilitate beneficial forms of international cooperation.

When push comes to shove, however, most states resent and resist external efforts to get them to change what they are doing inside their own borders. And even though destroying the Amazon rainforest presents a clear and obvious threat to many other countries, telling Brazil to stop and threatening to take action to deter, punish, or prevent it would be a whole new ballgame. And I don’t mean to single out Brazil: It would be an equally radical step to threaten the United States or China if they refused to stop emitting so many greenhouse gases.

It’s not as if world leaders haven’t recognized the seriousness of the problem. The U.N. long regarded environmental degradation as a “threat to international peace and security,” and the former European Union foreign-policy representative Javier Solana argued in 2008 that halting climate change “should be in the mainstream of EU foreign and security policies.” Scholars have already identified various ways the Security Council could act to prevent it. As the researchers Bruce Gilley and David Kinsella wrote a few years ago, “it is at least legally feasible that the Security Council could invoke its authority under Article 42, and use military force against states it deemed threats to international peace and security by virtue of their unwillingness or inability to curb destructive activities emanating from their territories.”

The question, therefore, is how far would the international community be willing to go in order to prevent, halt, or reverse actions that might cause immense and irreparable harm to the environment on which all humans depend? It might seem far-fetched to imagine states threatening military action to prevent this today, but it becomes more likely if worst-case estimates of our climate future turn out to be correct.

But here’s a cruel paradox: The countries that are most responsible for climate change are also the least susceptible to coercion, while most of the states that might conceivably be pressured into taking action aren’t significant sources of the underlying problem. The top five greenhouse gas emitters are China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan—four of them are nuclear weapons states, and Japan is a formidable military power in its own right. Threatening any of them with sanctions isn’t likely to work, and threatening serious military action against them is completely unrealistic. Moreover, getting the Security Council to authorize the use of force against much weaker states is unlikely, because the permanent members wouldn’t want to establish this precedent and would almost certainly veto the proposal.

This is what makes the Brazilian case more interesting. Brazil happens to be in possession of a critical global resource—for purely historical reasons—and its destruction would harm many states if not the entire planet. Unlike Belize or Burundi, what Brazil does could have a big impact. But Brazil isn’t a true great power, and threatening it with either economic sanctions or even the use of force if it refused to protect the rainforest might be feasible. To be clear: I’m not recommending this course of action either now or in the future. I’m just pointing out that Brazil might be somewhat more vulnerable to pressure than some other states are.

One can also imagine other remedies for this problem. States could certainly threaten or impose unilateral trade sanctions against environmentally irresponsible states, and private citizens could always try to organize voluntary boycotts for similar reasons. Some states have taken steps in this direction, and it is easy to imagine such measures becoming more widespread as environmental problems multiply. Alternatively, states that happen to govern environmentally sensitive territory could be paid to preserve it, in the interest of all mankind. In effect, the international community would be subsidizing environmental protection on the part of those who happen to possess the means of doing something about it.

This approach has the merit of not triggering the sort of nationalist backlash that a coercive campaign might provoke, but it might also give some countries an incentive to adopt environmentally irresponsible policies, in the hope of obtaining economic payoffs from a concerned international community.

This is all pretty speculative, and I’ve just begun thinking through some of the implications of these dilemmas. Here’s what I think I do know, however: In a world of sovereign states, each is going to do what it must to protect its interests. If the actions of some states are imperiling the future of all the rest, the possibility of serious confrontations and possibly serious conflict is going to increase. That doesn’t make the use of force inevitable, but more sustained, energetic, and imaginative efforts will be needed to prevent it.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

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A destruição da Amazonia no governo Bolsonaro - The Economist

Deathwatch for the Amazon

Brazil has the power to save Earth’s greatest forest—or destroy it

The Economist, Londres – 1.8.2019

Although its cradle is the sparsely wooded savannah, humankind has long looked to forests for food, fuel, timber and sublime inspiration. Still a livelihood for 1.5bn people, forests maintain local and regional ecosystems and, for the other 6.2bn, provide a—fragile and creaking—buffer against climate change. Now droughts, wildfires and other human-induced changes are compounding the damage from chainsaws. In the tropics, which contain half of the world’s forest biomass, tree-cover loss has accelerated by two-thirds since 2015; if it were a country, the shrinkage would make the tropical rainforest the world’s third-biggest carbon-dioxide emitter, after China and America.

Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the Amazon basin—and not just because it contains 40% of Earth’s rainforests and harbours 10-15% of the world’s terrestrial species. South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hastening the process—in the name, he claims, of development. The ecological collapse his policies may precipitate would be felt most acutely within his country’s borders, which encircle 80% of the basin—but would go far beyond them, too. It must be averted.

Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s they have done so on an industrial scale. In the past 50 years Brazil has relinquished 17% of the forest’s original extent, more than the area of France, to road- and dam-building, logging, mining, soyabean farming and cattle ranching. After a seven-year government effort to slow the destruction, it picked up in 2013 because of weakened enforcement and an amnesty for past deforestation. Recession and political crisis further pared back the government’s ability to enforce the rules. Now Mr Bolsonaro has gleefully taken a buzz saw to them. Although congress and the courts have blocked some of his efforts to strip parts of the Amazon of their protected status, he has made it clear that rule-breakers have nothing to fear, despite the fact that he was elected to restore law and order. Because 70-80% of logging in the Amazon is illegal, the destruction has soared to record levels. Since he took office in January, trees have been disappearing at a rate of over two Manhattans a week.

The Amazon is unusual in that it recycles much of its own water. As the forest shrivels, less recycling takes place. At a certain threshold, that causes more of the forest to wither so that, over a matter of decades, the process feeds on itself. Climate change is bringing the threshold closer every year as the forest heats up. Mr Bolsonaro is pushing it towards the edge. Pessimists fear that the cycle of runaway degradation may kick in when another 3-8% of the forest vanishes—which, under Mr Bolsonaro, could happen soon. There are hints the pessimists may be correct (see Briefing). In the past 15 years the Amazon has suffered three severe droughts. Fires are on the rise.

Brazil’s president dismisses such findings, as he does science more broadly. He accuses outsiders of hypocrisy—did rich countries not fell their own forests?—and, sometimes, of using environmental dogma as a pretext to keep Brazil poor. “The Amazon is ours,” the president thundered recently. What happens in the Brazilian Amazon, he thinks, is Brazil’s business.

Except it isn’t. A “dieback” would directly hurt the seven other countries with which Brazil shares the river basin. It would reduce the moisture channelled along the Andes as far south as Buenos Aires. If Brazil were damming a real river, not choking off an aerial one, downstream nations could consider it an act of war. As the vast Amazonian store of carbon burned and rotted, the world could heat up by as much as 0.1°C by 2100—not a lot, you may think, but the preferred target of the Paris climate agreement allows further warming of only 0.5°C or so.

Mr Bolsonaro’s other arguments are also flawed. Yes, the rich world has razed its forests. Brazil should not copy its mistakes, but learn from them instead as, say, France has, by reforesting while it still can. Paranoia about Western scheming is just that. The knowledge economy values the genetic information sequestered in the forest more highly than land or dead trees. Even if it did not, deforestation is not a necessary price of development. Brazil’s output of soyabeans and beef rose between 2004 and 2012, when forest-clearing slowed by 80%. In fact, aside from the Amazon itself, Brazilian agriculture may be deforestation’s biggest victim. The drought of 2015 caused maize farmers in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to lose a third of their harvest.

For all these reasons, the world ought to make clear to Mr Bolsonaro that it will not tolerate his vandalism. Food companies, pressed by consumers, should spurn soyabeans and beef produced on illegally logged Amazonian land, as they did in the mid-2000s. Brazil’s trading partners should make deals contingent on its good behaviour. The agreement reached in June by the EU and Mercosur, a South American trading bloc of which Brazil is the biggest member, already includes provisions to protect the rainforest. It is overwhelmingly in the parties’ interest to enforce them. So too for China, which is anxious about global warming and needs Brazilian agriculture to feed its livestock. Rich signatories of the Paris agreement, who pledged to pay developing ones to plant carbon-consuming trees, ought to do so. Deforestation accounts for 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions but attracts only 3% of the aid earmarked for combating climate change.

The wood and the trees

If there is a green shoot in Mr Bolsonaro’s scorched-earth tactics towards the rainforest, it is that they have made the Amazon’s plight harder to ignore—and not just for outsiders. Brazil’s agriculture minister urged Mr Bolsonaro to stay in the Paris agreement. Unchecked deforestation could end up hurting Brazilian farmers if it leads to foreign boycotts of Brazilian farm goods. Ordinary Brazilians should press their president to reverse course. They have been blessed with a unique planetary patrimony, whose value is intrinsic and life-sustaining as much as it is commercial. Letting it perish would be a needless catastrophe. 

Amazonia: a eterna esquecida - Belisario Arce

Prezados Associados e Amigos da PanAmazônia,

Compartilho transcrição de meu comentário no Observatório Pan-amazônico desta quinta-feira, transmitido pela CBN Amazônia, FM 101.5. Tema: eleições e oportunidades para a retomada do desenvolvimento econômico na Amazônia.

A Amazônia está engessada. O cenário econômico regional é o pior em muitas décadas. Há um acúmulo de leis que não foram feitas por nós, amazônidas, um excesso de regulamentação que trava o desenvolvimento econômico das sociedades amazônicas.

Entre muitos fatores desfavoráveis, há de salientar-se a agenda ambientalista e a ideologia de esquerda. Ambas têm contribuído muito para esse cenário de apatia socioeconômica.

Exemplo disso são as vastas porções de terras na Amazônia que foram transformadas em áreas de proteção ambiental ou reservas indígenas gigantescas. Uma dela, a propósito, inviabilizou a economia do Estado de Roraima, que hoje passa por situação dificílima.

Outra mazela foi o avanço do assistencialismo das bolsas sociais, como é o caso da bolsa família e da bolsa floresta, tornando reféns da politicagem as populações carentes que as recebem, e as mantendo para sempre na dependência e na pobreza.

A sociedade aparenta estar cansada desses exageros dos ambientalistas e da ideologia de esquerda. As pessoas vão se dando conta de que são discursos oportunistas e mentirosos.

Estas eleições refletem esse cansaço dos eleitores, os quais tendem a votar em candidatos que se opõem a tudo isso e que defendem uma agenda liberal e o desenvolvimento das potencialidades da Amazônia.

Aí, reside uma grande oportunidade.

Uma agenda liberal, essa é a grande oportunidade. A Amazônia precisa de liberdade para desenvolver todas suas potencialidades econômicas e explorar suas vastas riquezas naturais.

É imperioso nos livrarmos dos excessos de regulamentações que engessam a economia. Como está, nenhum empresário investe porque sabe que vai ter de enfrentar um inferno burocrático.

É importante ter clareza de que o desenvolvimento econômico amplo, irrestrito e integral da Amazônia é plenamente compatível com a conservação ambiental. Quem afirma o contrário mente.

O que é incompatível com a proteção de nossas florestas é a pobreza e a miséria que afligem tantos amazônidas.

Nestas eleições, temos uma grande oportunidade de mudar tudo isso. Há candidatos, especialmente, um deles à Presidência da República, inclusive, com boas chances de ser eleito, que defendem de modo muito claro uma agenda liberal e a necessidade de priorizar o desenvolvimento econômico da Amazônia.

Esse posicionamento inequívoco em defesa da prosperidade regional da Amazônia não se via no discurso de presidenciáveis há muito tempo.

É uma oportunidade excepcional para as sociedades da Amazônia. Temos de agarrar essa chance com unhas e dentes, e votar certo, escolhendo o candidato que seja favorável à prosperidade de nossa gente.

Cabe uma última ponderação: se as eleições resultarem mal, e um governo, mesmo que minimamente, de esquerda assumir o poder, o Brasil não aguentará. O que se seguirá será traumático.

Belisário Arce, para o Observatório Pan-amazônico, na CBN Amazônia, FM 101.5

Amazonia defina a política externa do Brasil - Ekaterina Nenakhova (Sputnik)

Como Amazônia define a doutrina da política externa brasileira

Ekaterina Nenakhova

Sputnik News, 12.07.2018

https://br.sputniknews.com/brasil/2018071211693169-amazonia-azul-verde-petroleo-pre-sal-recursos-politica-externa/

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Não é de duvidar que a região amazônica seja crucial para sustentabilidade e bem-estar ecológico do Brasil como país. Mas será que sua influência vai além destes conceitos? Discutimos essas e outras questões com uma cientista política russa especializada em assuntos brasileiros.

Continuidade do paradigma

© AFP 2018 / PABLO COZZAGLIO

Cientistas revelam como Amazônia pode 'definhar'

Em uma conversa com a Sputnik Brasil, a brasilianista e especialista em assuntos latino-americanos, professora titular da Universidade de Relações Internacionais de Moscou (MGIMO), Lyudmila Okuneva, explicou que os princípios da política de defesa expostos em três documentos — Estratégia Nacional de Defesa, Política Nacional de Defesa e Livro Branco da Defesa Nacional do Brasil — têm sido permanentes desde o século passado, bem como os alicerces da política externa.

Essa, por sua vez, se baseia na busca da paz, na resolução de todos os conflitos através de negociações e na diplomacia econômica.

"Entre os objetivos da política externa brasileira está a diplomacia econômica, ou seja, a participação do Brasil em todos os acordos e uniões econômicas possíveis. Acredito que no mundo não há uma entidade de integração ou comercial com que o Brasil não esteja relacionado", comenta a especialista, adiantando que isto é uma "caraterística tradicional" que permaneceu ainda desde a época pós-guerra (Segunda Guerra Mundial).

Assim, ressalta Lyudmila Okuneva, o país continua convivendo com os mesmos princípios, embora estes evidentemente tenham se encaixado em um cenário novo, dadas todas as perturbações políticas dos últimos anos e uma "ruptura muito séria" em todas as áreas políticas e econômicas.

Um exemplo disso é a intenção brasileira de virar uma verdadeira potência global, que parecia bem vigente até 2013, observa a analista. Porém, hoje em dia a crise econômica, que foi "promotora" da consequente debilitação política, não o permite nas proporções pensadas antes.

Baluarte amazônico

© SPUTNIK / VLADIMIR ASTAPKOVICH

Cientistas alertam para um dos 'efeitos mais graves' da atividade humana sobre o ambiente

Falando sobre os principais fatores em que está montada a política de segurança nacional brasileira, Lyudmila Okuneva observa que essa sempre se manifestou como meramente "defensiva".

"Caso encaixemos nesse conceito de política externa, ou seja, nesse rumo constante, os objetivos de defesa e militares, não serão operações militares de qualquer tipo… De manutenção de paz, sim, nisso o Brasil ganhou renome nas Nações Unidas. Mas são operações de paz, não ações militares fora do país e assim por diante", explica.

Deste modo, conta ela, a doutrina militar brasileira de fato se foca na vigilância de um "país-continente", que tem a maior fronteira marítima no Atlântico de 7,4 mil quilômetros e uma fronteira terrestre de 16,5 mil quilômetros.

"Claro que se deve proteger essa riqueza. E sua doutrina de defesa é focada nomeadamente na proteção daquilo que eles têm, o que foi expresso por absolutamente todos os presidentes, tanto Lula e todos antes dele, quanto o atual, Michel Temer", diz.

Os dois pilares em que se baseia a respectiva doutrina defensiva, observa, são as regiões da "Amazônia Verde" e "Amazônia Azul".

"Pois, eles [brasileiros] pretendem guardar este 'pulmão do planeta' e esta floresta amazônica […] da intervenção externa. Assim, por exemplo, Madeleine Albright, quando era secretária de Estado dos EUA na era Clinton [1997-2001], dizia que era preciso abrir tudo isso 'para a humanidade'… Abrir a todo o mundo em geral. Ela era uma adepta do globalismo completamente exagerado, o que, a propósito, resultou paradoxicamente dentro de muitos anos em uma reação extremamente dura representada pela postura de Donald Trump que, pelo contrário, abre mão de tudo isso. Porque o globalismo — tal como foi na época do final da década 90 e no início dos 2000 — já se esgotou", relembra a cientista política.

MÁCIO FERREIRA/ AG. PARÁ/ FOTOSPÚBLICAS

Temer x Amazônia: ameaça ao meio ambiente ou à soberania nacional?

Tal postura de então governo dos EUA, observa Lyudmila Okuneva, provocou uma atitude muito negativa por parte do então governo brasileiro, que se apressou a demonstrar que não tem a mínima disposição de partilhar aquilo que lhe pertence por direito.

"Por que isso deve ser um patrimônio nacional? É um patrimônio de toda a humanidade!' — parecem palavras bonitas, mas de fato querem dizer que isso [a região amazônica] estaria aberto para todos e que todos os países poderiam, digamos, usá-lo… Naquele momento, o Brasil ficou preocupado e protestou muito", assinala.

Recursos estratégicos

Além de aspetos evidentes como a biodiversidade e a emissão de oxigênio, a Amazônia ainda conserva muitas riquezas que devem ser protegidas, destaca a especialista.

"Vale falar ainda da água potável, pois aí na Amazônia tem reservatórios que igualam 3,5 lagos Baikal [maior lago da Rússia, muitas vezes considerado até como um mar]", argumenta a especialista, acrescentando que, segundo numerosos prognósticos, a escassez de água potável será o maior pomo de discórdia em regiões conflituosas em um futuro breve, inclusive no Oriente Médio.

"Por isso, suas reservas gigantes de água potável também são sua riqueza inestimável e uma vantagem competitiva, pois se todos correrem para eles na busca desta água potável, eles [o Brasil] vão se tornar a potência 'primeira entre iguais", assegura.

Em vista disso, conta a especialista, a estratégia no campo de segurança nacional do Brasil tem como prioridade as regiões da Amazônia, do Atlântico Sul e a camada pré-sal.

"Aquilo que eles chamam de ‘Amazônia Azul' tem a ver com a plataforma continental, onde foram descobertas reservas enormes de petróleo, isto é, o pré-sal", diz. "Assim, se trata de uma estratégia meramente defensiva que visa guardar tudo isso. Eles não planejam atacar ninguém, pois não é próprio deles — a última guerra foi a do Paraguai, que começou em 1864."