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TOPICS FOR THE AMAZON’S PRESENT AGENDA*
Saulo Baptista
Abstract
The Amazon is the stage of actions from the global economy’s agents, who establish their enclaves in the area, taking
advantage of the incentives offered by the Brazilian State. Such actions are exogenous and alien to the interests of the Amazonian people. The development model follows the instrumental logic of Capitalism,
supported by local oligarchies that also benefit from the exploitation. The text explains how the land and the nature resources were transformed into merchandise and how such appropriation has caused the destruction
of a vital patrimony for the future, not only for Brazil, but also for all humanity. The work presents several topics that may constitute an agenda of prior issues for the responsible action of whoever wants to be
committed with the quality of life in the Amazon: deforestation, human rights, militarization, Indian peoples, biopiracy, sustainable development etc.
Introduction
In the 17th Century, there were two very distinct Portuguese colonial structures in South America: the colony of Brazil, founded in 1500, less than half the present country, and the colony of Grão Pará and Maranhão, founded in 1615, which corresponded to that which we know now as the Brazilian Amazon. Any wide approach of the Amazon must consider the globalization of economy and the social issues. I believe that this is a consensus. We know that today the social fact is simultaneous in time and space. On the other hand, I still believe that a visit to History will allow us to find the roots and the conditionings of the present problems in this region. For that reason, I will start by offering a brief outline of the Amazon’s economic history in order to show how the world market’s game of power defined the present configuration of the region, being the Brazilian State its great instrument. In that context, we will notice that the great biological diversity, the mineral riches and all the fountainheads that nature offered to the Amazon have been transformed into merchandise, favoring the big capital agents, supported by local oligarchies, without caring for the needs and the rights of 16 million human beings that live in the area. In The Amazon, the public policies were established always aiming at the capital’s appropriation of resources. The State’s presence has been very powerful since 1942, with Getúlio Vargas. It continued with Juscelino Kubitschek, was strengthened during the military governments and proceeded the same way until today.
The ecological problems and the sustainable development discourse will be dealt with as an integral part of this logic
(or instrumental reason) of the adopted development model, which is being strengthened now in Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s program “Advance Brazil”. That is, the violence against the Amazon’s integrity continues!
Economy in the Amazon
The first incursions of the European voyagers through the great Amazonas River, in search of the El Dorado,
occurred in the 16th Century. Both of these names are the fruit of these adventurers’ imagination, avid for treasures of the New World. The Portuguese colonization began in 1616, with the establishment of the Castle’s fortress in Belém. One year before, the colony of Grão Pará and Maranhão had begun, more than one century after the colony of Brazil. Therefore, it was a new colony, separated and with distinct characteristics. It was different also in the Portuguese’s form of exploitation. In the Amazon, agriculture was not developed, because the extractivist economy was successful from the beginning. In the beginning of the 17th century, the Europeans exterminated all the Indian populations that lived along the Amazonas River’s watercourse and some of its river arms. The only survivors were those who flew to the so-called dry land, that is, those who hid in the thickets of the woods, estimated in another one million people. The first phase of the Amazonian economy was sustained by the exploration of spices: anil, clove, cinnamon, cocoa and wood. The Amazonian cocoa became a very important exportation product for Brazil, at the time. Baroque churches and palaces that still exist in the most ancient cities, especially Belém, are remnants of the period. From the second half of the 19th century until 1915, the rubber economy prevailed, with a strong participation in the Brazilian exportation, together with the coffee from the countryside of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In that period, Manaus and Belém lived the belle
époque, experiencing an industrialization and urbanization outbreak, similar to the European capitals, especially Paris.
Nonetheless, the production of the Amazonian rubber proved itself unable to meet the growing demands of the American
automotive industry, causing the loss of that important market and the bankruptcy of the latex economy. At the time, the British took the hevea to Malaysia, where they started a rational cultivation, winning the world market. A typical example of biopiracy that happened more than one century ago. From 1915 to 1942, we had a survival phase, with a depressed internal economy. With the advent of the Second World War and the interruption in the rubber supply from Asia, the United Stated persuaded the Brazilian government to reactivate the rubber extraction in order to meet their needs. So the Rubber Credit Bank was created in 1942, and transformed into the Amazon Credit Bank, in 1950. In 1953, the government starts a valorization plan for the Amazonian valley, creating SPVEA, a superintendence that failed in fulfilling its mission, due to the lack of money and political intermeddling in its administration. Even though, during the existence of SPVEA the Belém-Brasília road was built, uniting the Amazon to the Center-West, opening the way to a inordinate migration and the implantation of farming projects, alien to the economic vocation of a region in which the dense forest and large watercourses prevail. In 1966, the Castelo Branco administration launched the “Amazon Operation”. In the occasion, it transformed the Credit Bank into the Amazon Bank, adding to it the function of a development bank, as an agent of the tax incentives’ system. SPVEA was transformed into the Superintendence for the Development of the Amazon (SUDAM) in order to plan and coordinate the development actions in the region. In 1967, the Superintendence of the Free Trade Zone of Manaus (SUFRAMA) was created.
What did these decisions mean?
The State gave to big entrepreneurs from the South and Southeast of Brazil the privilege to invest their owed taxes in
farming, cattle-raising and industrial projects in the Amazon. That is, the State gave to outside entrepreneurs the privilege to conduct the destinies of a strategic region, and privatized the use of public
resources. And society accepted, even applauded it.
What did the entrepreneurs do?
Through several maneuvers, most of these entrepreneurs made this capital return to their companies without benefiting the
Amazon. The Free Trade Zone of Manaus, for example, is still an assembler of high-technology products and it will disappear as soon as the Brazilian State removes the tax incentives from the entrepreneurs’ hands. Of
all the 2000 private projects stimulated by the former SUDAM, where US$ 6 billion, approximately, were spent during its 35 years of life, less than 15% were successful. The development model was elitist and did not
know the social-environmental and economic reality of the region. That ignorance was aggravated by the national security ideology that was in effect in the military dictatorship, from 1964 to 1985, but whose
vestiges can still be seen in projects like SIVAM (the System for the Vigilance of the Amazon). In the mid-seventies, there was a phase of “big projects” in the Médice dictatorship, under the slogan “Integrate not
to give away”. During the eighties, the Amazon suffers the most violent environmental intervention through the building of the hydroelectric power plant in Tucuruí, the Great Carajás Project, the Aluminum Complex in
Porto Trombetas and Barcarena, and the Jari project, this one implanted with capital from the North-American Millionaire Daniel Ludwig, but with tax advantages granted by the Brazilian government. The economic
team’s idea, commanded by Delfim Netto and others, was to generate surplus on the trade balance, extracting from the Amazon’s entrails all its treasures. The results were disastrous for millions of inhabitants of
the region, who were ignored in those actions and are still suffering the consequences of that capitalism of enclaves, that benefit only the investors from the central economies and the elite entrepreneurs from the
South of Brazil. The Amazon exports energy, minerals, woods, animals, plants etc., and benefits nothing as a compensation for such bloodshed. It is the tragedy of the Amazon’s “open veins”!
In such historical context, we will emphasize here some themes that may integrate a present agenda for such important and
pillaged area of the planet, whose conservation is basic not only for its inhabitants, but for all humanity, both for the present and future generations. These themes are in a very subjective order. It is hard to
say what is a priority; it depends on each one’s view. First of all, though, it is important to explain how the land and the diversity of the Amazon’s nature lost their character of use value for their populations
and acquired the character of exchange value, that is, of merchandise, for those who confiscated them, by the way they entered the World circuit. We will talk only about the transformation that occurred with the
appropriation of the land, because this example is enough to understand the rest.
The land issue
Before the construction of the roads that linked the Amazon to other parts of Brazil, its lands had almost only use
value. The so-called “colonels” possessed huge pieces of forest with the purpose of collecting resins, fruit and saps, like cocoa, cinnamon, nuts, rubber and balata. The base of the economy was the
extraction. Lands were not delimited nor speculated. To have an idea, there was a farm, called “Saracura”, owned by Colonel José Júlio de Andrade, which extended from the right shore of the Amazonas River, crossed
Guyana, and finished in the Atlantic Ocean. This farm’s limit line measured 1000 kilometers. After the construction of the Belém-Brasília and Brasília-Acre roads, the farming enterprises began, and soon the land
speculation stirred up. At the time, with the same amount of money that bought one hectare in the countryside of Paraná it was possible to buy ten hectares in the Amazon. Soon, companies from São Paulo and the
Southeast began to buy the Amazonian lands to appear as paid-up capital in their balances. Thus, with a small investment, those companies were qualified to receive “tax incentives” from SUDAM. The farming projects
were farms of 30 thousand hectares, in average, but some of them reached 100, 200 and even 400 thousand, like Volkswagen’s, Cetenco’s, Matsubara’s and Lunardelli Brothers’, etc. In a short time, there was an
exaggerate concentration of land properties, stimulated by the public power. In the interstices of these large estates, homesteaders began to live, expelled from the lands they had lived in for so many generations.
The newcomers began to fight with these traditional inhabitants of the land, threatening them and even killing them.
The industry for land legalization, for land division and for the sales of public bonds was created. Watercourses were sold as lands, superimposed lots proliferated and revenges happened through the action of hired gunmen. Unfortunately, that story repeats itself, even after the states equipped themselves with their land institutes.
In March of this year (2002), the land institute of Pará (ITERPA) dispatched 53 bonds in the district of Jacareacanga, in
the untouched woods of the South trough of the Amazonian river – 106 thousand hectares of unoccupied government lands that were privatized. Four families now possess those lands. The division into 53 lots was made
to circumvent the Law, because that land extension could not be alienated without the approval of the Senate. That practice had been stopped by the government, but it is coming back now to consume the rest of the
untouched forest in the region. The major interest is the mahogany, which still exists in the area. The Greenpeace is defending a moratorium for this “middle land”, an area of 8.3 million hectares of public lands,
surrounded by Indian reserves between Xingu and Tapajós. This is the only preserved land in the right shore of the Amazonas River, but it is beginning to be destroyed for wood exploitation, to open pastures, to
build roads and form tillages, that go from North Mato Grosso to South Pará. The first step to get an agricultural credit in a public bank is to obtain a bond. Then comes the saw that puts part of the forest to the
ground, the devastation, the environmental degradation, the conflicts with homesteaders, gold seekers, Indians and, in such context, the action of hired gunmen. The lawless borders are still very present in the
region!
The Amazon has around 270 thousand square kilometers of meadows, which is equivalent to half the size of France, but
there is no policy to support the waterside producers. That is the area in which some species are cultivated, like açaí, jute, and malva. To obtain an agricultural financing, the waterside inhabitants
would have to get a long-term lease of real property bond. INCRA’s agrarian reform did not foresee this kind of agriculturist. In the last few months, the federal organisms began to issue bonds for some communities.
These lands belong to the Navy, and other businesses are developed in them, besides the agricultural activity, like tourism, for example. We cannot forget that there are several urban centers in the meadow
Deforestation
The Amazon detains one third of the planet’s rainforests, but it is the one that loses more green coverage in a fast
pace. Images from the Landsat satellite, over the Legal Amazon, register the following deforestation pace in hectares:
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1975
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1990
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2000
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15 million
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40 million
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58 million
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This area of 58 million hectares is bigger than the size of France and is equivalent to the states of Rio Grande do Sul,
Santa Catarina and Paraná together.
According to Mary Allegretti, from the Legal Amazon Secretary, who coordinates the Government’s actions for the
region, there are 43 districts in which the deforestation is expanding. Some technicians mention a “deforestation arc”
that includes part of the states of Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Pará. But Pará is the one that has the most
critical situation, because the advance of the border of land appropriation and felling of trees begins with the wood
companies and ends with the large soybean plantations that are expanding in Pará and may invade Amazonas.
Mato Grosso already has a well-defined savanna area, incorporated to the soybean plantation. Rondônia has a limited
exploration, due to its small plantation. According to the bishop of Guarajá-Mirim, many small farmers are selling their
lands and moving as illegal immigrants to the United States, Spain, and Italy due to the lack of incentives to proceed
their production. Acre has already made its zoning. Tocantins has its savanna area. Thus, the danger is the advance of
Pará’s agricultural border toward the central forest of the Amazon. Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s Program of National
Axis of Integration and Development, called “Advance Brazil”, includes some works that will impact the Amazon’s
environment, like the asphalting of the Santarém-Cuiabá and Transamazônica roads, both in the state of Pará. The
Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) deals, at the same time, with the
wood exploitation, the fishing issue, the waterways and power plants and the huge companies of mineral extraction. The most difficult problem to control, though, is the wood exploitation.
The entrepreneurs submit, every year, stewardship plans for each area to be explored, with an inventory indicating the
amount of wood to be removed. IBAMA approves and issues the authorizations. But most entrepreneurs sell their
authorizations to other companies, which extract wood from any non-registered area. Until 1998, there were more than
80 mahogany stewardship plans in Pará. After IBAMA’s inspections of the areas and documents, 11 regular plans were left, of which only 3 were apt for the stewardship. The consequence: IBAMA suspended the mahogany
exploration, which is extinguishing, but the entrepreneurs got juridical authorizations from one same judge, releasing
the mahogany that had already been cut. But the audit proved the mahogany was illegal. Ten thousand cubic meters,
that is, 3 thousand trees have already left. The ports of São Paulo, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina
have a lot of mahogany from Pará in warehouses to be exported. Almost all of it is illegal. Recently, the lumber-dealers
boycotted the foundation of the extractivist reserve “Verde para sempre” [Forever green], which would involve 2.4 million
hectares, in the Xingu region, later reduced to 1.4 million hectares. The problem is that there is mahogany there, and
most of the mayors of the region are lumber-dealers themselves and have processes for land regularization in the Land
Institute of Pará. So, public men are defending their own private interests. The State government supported these
lumber-dealers. The Amazon’s vocation is the forest, but the present government of Pará is interested in farming and
cattle raising and supports the landowners. The reserve would benefit the traditional populations that subsist by the fishing, the exploration of medicinal plants like copaiba, andiroba and other forest products.
For the exploration of forest wood there is an international organization that issues certificates. It is the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC). Its aim is to promote the use of forests in the whole planet in an environmentally proper,
socially beneficial and economically viable way. Its green stamp is the most accepted one. There are 25 million
hectares of certified forests in 50 countries of the world. In Brazil, there are a little more than 1 million hectares
certified, between natural and planted forests, being 200 thousand hectares in the Amazon native forest. According to
Greenpeace, there are two lumber dealers who control the mahogany exploration in Pará: Osmar Alves Ferreira and
Moisés Carvalho Pereira. They are said to have bonds with five exporting companies that control 80% of all sales.
From the importer’s side, there are only four foreign companies that control those same 80% of the market. The
problem is that these “kings of mahogany” have political allies in Brasília and also with Indian leaderships that support
them. The wood extraction in the Indian reserves is forbidden, but the Indians complain that there is lack of assistance
from FUNAI (Indian National Foundation). The price paid to the Indians for each standing tree is US$ 100, but after the
tree is cut down and transported, it reaches more than US$ 4000, that it, forty times more, without any processing. In
1991, from all the wood that entered in Europe coming from rainforests, only 0.9% came from areas of self-sustainable exploration, with a real planting effort to ensure the replacement of cut down trees.
How is the scenery today? The experts do not know.
Mahogany is extinguishing. There are scattered occurrences in the “middle land”, between Xingu and Iriri rivers, in an
area of less than 500 thousand square kilometers, equivalent to twice the size of São Paulo state. Four hundred to five
hundred trucks leave the area daily, full of logs, crossing Mato Grosso and going to the Southeast. Another smaller
flow goes to Belém, where it is sold to foreign countries. In November 2001, IBAMA caught, with the help of
Greenpeace, 22 thousand cubic meters of mahogany stocked in the Caiapó Indian reserve and in rafts that were
coming down Xingu River. The strange thing in such operation was the presence of representatives of Cecílio Rego
Almeida, one of the biggest squatters in the Amazon. There were no representatives from FUNAI to join the operation.
For the Federal Public Ministry, which acts in the ecological area, the situation worsened since Eco-92. The traffic of
wild animals has increased, the forest has been more devastated and some species of animals are extinguishing. The Caiapós from South Pará are claiming the release of 30 thousand cubic meters of mahogany which IBAMA
apprehended from lumber dealers working in their lands, in the last months. The Indians complain that they are hungry,
while all that wood is worth 70 million reais. Behind the Caiapós pressure is the action of lumber dealers that want to
export the mahogany. Besides the lack of inspection officers, the proctors state that IBAMA is not committed to the
environmental cause. As to the judges, they are not very strict, because many of them consider the crimes against
nature less serious, for examples, than drug traffic. For one of IBAMA’s leaders, there was no aggravation. The
expectations raised in ECO-92 and the promises of resources and technology from the rich countries to countries in
development, which did not happen, caused frustration. We know that IBAMA published an edict to hire 600 environment analysts in the end of April 2002.
Violence
Brazil was condemned eight times by the Organization of American States for not carrying out its own laws and for not
protecting its citizens. The “Land Pastoral Commission” published its 2001 report. Pará is still the record holder of
violence in the field: one third of all registered cases in Brazil. From July to November, there were 7 murderers and
more than 100 people arrested. In land vacations, the police from Pará arrested 131 workers, while in the rest of Brazil,
139 people were arrested. The police are efficient only when arresting landless workers, but it is not quick enough to
arrest gunmen and crime instigators. Many crimes are selective, reaching syndicalists, their wives and children. All in
all, in the last 30 years 790 people were killed and more than 3000 were injured in these land conflicts. Official data
from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) show that there are 16 thousand landless
workers in Pará, according to a register made through the Post Service. The Institute states that it has settled 87
thousand families, during the last seven years, in that state. In fact, the organism regularizes ancient occupations and
calls that “settlement”. Many families do not receive the credits they are entitled to, because all the family members
are illiterate. The Federal University of Pará, in a covenant with the Family Farming National Program (PRONAF), is being accessed to eradicate the illiteracy among these peoples.
Of every 15 people that live in the Amazon, two live on favors, charity and other means, for not having any kind of
income. The companies that operate in the Amazon, like Rio do Norte, the Albrás-Alunorte complex, Vale do Rio Doce
and others are extremely selective and discriminating when hiring workers from the area. From the Amazon, they hire
only non-qualified workers and some intermediary staff, totalizing 80% of their lower and medium staff. From the
Southeast they bring their higher staff, usually recruited in the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, which integrate around 72% of the company’s directive and technical staff.
Child work
In Brazil there are 3.8 million children and adolescents, between 5 and 14 years old, exploited as workers, of which 2.7
million are out of school. The reasons are countless: unorganized families, poverty, drug traffic, child prostitution, etc.
In many cases, the parents themselves exploit the children. In Southeast Pará, the coal-pits that provide for the cast
iron plants employ children and adolescents in the furnaces, where they are exposed to temperatures that reach 500 oC, with a 14 hour day’s work, beginning at 6 AM. A 12 year-old boy (M. C. S.) fills a furnace in the morning and
empties another in the afternoon. At the end of the day, he receives R$ 2,00. In five days he completes the truckload,
which is sold by his boss for R$ 880,00. He cannot study nor play. He feels dizzy, his eyes flame, his arms and legs are always burned. He breathes smoke and soot the whole day.
Slave work
From 1964 to 2001, 521 field workers were killed in the South of Pará. From 1997 to 2001, a Labor Station found 2039
slaved workers in the large estates of this same state.
In March 2002, some non-governmental organizations were in the UN’s headquarters, in Geneva, to accuse Brazil of
negligence towards these cases of slavery. In 2001, only, there were 968 cases of people working in a closed regime
in 16 farms in the South of Pará. The NGOs Pax Christies, Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), Food Information and
Action Network also denounced the killing of laborers by armed militias, ordered by farmers, during conflicts for land
possession. The farmers grabbed many of these lands. According to Father Henri Burin de Roziers, from CPT,
Xinguara (Pará), the criminal lawsuits against farmers do not proceed, the fines are not paid and everything is settled
with the signing of a “Term of Conduct Adjustment”, that is, the criminal farmer is not effectively punished. From all the
44 fines imposed in 2001 by the Labor Office, none of them was paid. Until the present day, only one farmer was
arrested for the crime of slavering laborers. His name is Max Cangussu and he is from the south of the state of Maranhão.
Great Projects
The five large projects – Iron from Carajás, Aluminum from Trombetas and Barcarena, Cellulose and Kaolin, from Jari
Florestal, and Tucuruí Power Plant – implanted during the military dictatorship, consumed investments of US$ 13
billion. Meanwhile, there were not enough resources to complete the Transamazônica and Cuiabá-Santarém roads that
are destroyed in large sections. There is not enough money either to build Tucuruí’s floodgates. These works are more
important for the Amazon people. It is important to remember that the emphasis on the building of roads is another
lack of sensibility towards the Amazon’s vocation, a region consisting of water and forest. Its natural transportation
access was not used and the devastation of the world’s largest green area was stimulated. Although US$13 billion
were invested in huge projects, Pará still has the worst life condition for its population: 32% of its economically active
people earn less than one minimal wage. There are no health offices, doctors nor schools in the countryside of the
Amazon. Our economy is a mere exporter of prime products. We are a large warehouse for Brazil and the world.
Minerals are not transformed into products, although we have abundant energy and water, besides other input. Our
energy is transferred to other countries in aluminum ingots and to other regions of Brazil through transmission lines.
Our wood is not transformed into furniture. It leaves the country as raw material, sawed only. The taxes on energy
consume benefit other states. The exportation of our products is tax-free, due to Kandir Law, which penalizes other
exporter states. Projects that used to employ 40 thousand workers, like Tucuruí, now employ only 300 people. Those
thousands of discarded people now live in slums and beg in the suburbs of the big cities. The big capital’s projects in
the Brazilian Amazon are enclaves. The region’s riches are taken away, few people are employed, and profits are sent
to their main offices, leaving behind poverty and pollution in large scale, and all the resulting social problems.
What development is this? For whom is it? Where is social justice? The richer profit from the pillage of our riches.
Belo Monte Power Plant
Belo Monte is designed to be the fourth biggest power plant in the world. Its maximum production will reach 11
thousand megawatts, and, in average, more than 4 thousand MW. Nevertheless, the discharge will not offer working
conditions during some months of the year. The government hides the fact that, to ensure its working, they will have to
build other dams, in the upstream of this one, in the same Xingu River. Civil society is mobilized. In March 2002, 5000
people, approximately, discussed the effects of the dam complex, under the coordination of the Movement for the
Development of Transamazônica and Xingu (MDTX). Dozens of NGOs took part in the meeting. Debates have shown
that the building will destroy the environment, it is contrary to the interests of the region’s people, and it will repeat the
same ecological disasters that occurred in Tucuruí (Pará) and Balbina (Amazonas), even though the government insists on saying otherwise. At the present moment, the building was halted by the Public Ministry, due to
irregularities in the elaboration of the study of environmental impact and the disrespect to the Federal Constitution.
Nevertheless, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso affirms that it will start on October 2002. This is a hard battle to be fought by the Amazon people alone.
Militarization
The System for the Vigilance of the Amazon (SIVAM) will start its partial operation on July 25, 2002. On its
inauguration it will still be incomplete, only to prove that it has fulfilled its five-year deadline. It cost 1.4 billion dollars.
That is, there was a liquid transfer of resources to the Pentagon’s satellite company, Raytheon, after a troubled
agreement that disturbed the relationship between Brazil and France. It includes the Amazon Protection System
(SIPAM), which is still to be concluded, and it has three airplanes. The entire project was designed under the
sponsorship of the national security doctrine. It should be a scientific project, but, in fact, it is a military project. Its
partners are: the National Institute of Spatial Researches (INPE), the Brazilian Company of Agricultural Researches
(Embrapa), the Amazon Development Agency (former SUDAM), IBAMA, the Federal Police, and the National Security
Coordination. The Amazon is treated as a military issue. In 1985, the Calha Norte Project was created, under the
concept of “hot border”, which was reinforced by the US incursions in Colombia and Guyana. The Calha Norte intends
to consume 1.6 billion reais to cover half of the nine thousand kilometers of border. The other half belongs to PROFAO
(West Amazon’s Borderline Strengthening Program), which is still in the paper. In the seventies, the Amazon was
mapped by the RADAM project (Amazon Radar). The cartographic part was the only profitable thing. All the surveys on
the land potentialities, its protection and conservation were not trustful. It could not avoid the Amazon’s irrational
exploitation. That was a scientific program, although we were under a military dictatorship. Now, we are under a civil government, however it is developing a military program that is much more enclosing.
Indian peoples
The greatest problem of the Indian peoples is the conflict for land possession. From all the 586 communities contacted
in Brazil, 330 have their land situation ratified, but even so they are not free from invasions. There are 102 million
hectares that are subject to the action of homesteaders, lumber dealers, miners and farmers. The land possession is
the insurance of the Indian people’s survival and reproduction and also of protection of the Amazon’s biodiversity. The
Indians are the greatest experts in the forest riches and the only ones who know how to rationally deal with them. The
cultural shock is still intense. The Indian leader Paulinho Paiakan is a justice fugitive, because he raped a student –
Silvia Letícia – in Redenção (Pará). He committed a crime and, of course, he must be arrested, but there is an
autonomy issue between peoples that must be respected. Paiakan is not a Brazilian, but he is considered so,
because he is “acculturated”, an expression that is a prejudice in itself. The Indian population registered by the census
has now 550 thousand people, belonging to 225 tribes – 358 thousand live in Indian territories and 192 thousand are
urban inhabitants. From all the 1300 languages that existed 500 years ago, now there are only 180. The Constitution of
1988 made it possible for the Indians to create their own associations, once the Article 232 insures their civil rights,
not treating them as “relatively incapable”, as it was in the Indian Statute of 1973. In the regions of Alto Solimões, Alto
Rio Negro, Manaus and Roraima, from 10 associations in 1980, there are now more than 180. In Mato Grosso there
are 47 associations. In the seventies and eighties, the rights of the Indian peoples were approached by charismatic
Indians, like Chief Mário Juruna and Indian Raoni. In the seventies, the major concern was the disappearance of
populations. Today, there is demographic growth in most of the tribes. Discussions now go beyond land demarcation, approaching the issues of health, education and intellectual property of the Indian knowledge.
The dependency of some peoples on the State tutelage has significantly diminished, because through partnerships the
Indian associations are able to deal with financing agencies in some projects. The National Health Foundation
(FUNASA) states that there is a reduction in the number of Malaria cases in indigenous areas in the Legal Amazon. In
2000, there were 26.838 cases. In 2001, there were 13.313. The deed was achieved through sanitary measures, like
early diagnosis, timely treatment, epidemiological watch, family register, investment in health equipment and
personnel qualification. In 1996, the National Survey by Household Sampling (PNAD) found 150.891 Indians who had
left their tribes to live in cities. Today there are almost 200 thousand Indians. They come to the cities in search of
health, education, and work resources, but usually they start living in invaded areas, under precarious conditions, without finding what they were looking for.
It is harder for an Indian to find a job than for a non-Indian. Out of his village, the Indian loses his condition of a FUNAI
protected person. The tendency is to forget or deny his identity, due to prejudice. It is almost impossible to return to
his village, because he may not be accepted after his leaving. In September 2001, there was the “Belém City Indian
District Congress”, in which they claimed for some affirmative actions from the public power, in behalf of their ethnic
members. After some months, the results of such Congress, in the form of social policies, cannot be seen.
Biopiracy
A university in Pennsylvania and another one in Michigan both have blood samples of the Yanomami, taken from
researchers James Neel and Napolen Chagnon, according to journalist Patrick Tierney, in his book “Darkness in
Eldorado”. In April 2002, the University of Cornell, in New York, received Yanomami leaders, taken there by
anthropologist Terence Turner, to participate in the seminar “Tragedy in the Amazon: Yanomami voices, academic
controversy and ethics in research”. On that occasion, the Indians claimed that their fellow’s blood was returned to
them, to be thrown in the river, in order to please the spirit of Xapori, their shaman. It is an ethic problem regarding the
improper appropriation of genetic patrimony. Since 1992, the Biodiversity Convention seemed not to leave the paper.
On that year, in Haia, Holland, the 182 signatory countries approached the agreements on the access of labs and
bio-technology companies to genetic resources, distribution of benefits generated by the researches, fight against the introduction of species alien to the ecosystems, etc.
The ministers made public a declaration on the sustainable use of the forests, the need of researches to understand
the ecosystems and decelerate the losses in biodiversity. In these ten years, the balance is negative. Not only forests,
but swamps, savannas and fields were degraded. Genetic resources were removed and synthesized in labs of the First
World, without establishing agreements to ensure to the communities that hold the traditional knowledge the due
participation in the researches’ resulting benefits. For the time being, Brazil has only a Provisory Measure on the
issue. According to attorney Paulo de Bessa Antunes, author of “Diversidade biológica e conhecimento tradicional
associado” [Biological diversity and associated traditional knowledge], it is difficult to register the traditional knowledge
as the patrimony of populations that hold such knowledge. He suggests the creation of a databank involving the
Environment Department (MMA), the Indian National Foundation (FUNAI) and the National Institute of Industrial
Patents (INPI). Some Indian communities are working with INPI since 2001, but these initiatives are just the beginning
of a long path. On April 19, 2002, the Xavantes were in INPI, demanding that medicinal formulas made with herbs they
use be patented. Some labs have pirated that knowledge of herb and plant manipulation and used it as the base for the
production of cosmetics and medicines. The INPI is waiting for the National Congress to regulate the issue. There are
five projects, including one from Senator Marina Silva (PT-Acre), on Brazil’s natural genetic patrimony.
Acre and Amapá already have their own legislation on the access to biodiversity. The other states have not awakened
yet. The Government established the “Genetic Patrimony Management Council” to fight the biopiracy. But, according
to Senator Marina Silva, the council excluded the NGOs that acted in that matter. In the occasion, the WWF-Brazil,
the Social-Environmental Institute (ISA) and other entities protested because the interested communities and
researches were out of the Council. That is a nonsense, because CONAMA (Environment National Council), the major
organism of environmental policy, has representatives from all the involved sectors. With that step, Brazil is not
respecting the directives of the Biological Diversity Convention (CDB). The Federal Police created the Coordination for
Repressing Environmental Crimes, in the end of 2001. It has made apprehensions of smuggled fish, woods, and wild
animals. It has also made several arrests, and it shall fight the biopiracy and the transgenics. The Federal Police are
concerned with the action of gold prospectors in the borderline of Mato Grosso and Pará, because of the river pollution.
In the end of 2001, between Pará and Maranhão, the police apprehended four thousand tons of wood, thirty-seven
vehicles, interdicted sawmills, made arrests, and started fifty-one inquiries. In the Abufari Biological Reserve, in Amazonas, the police officers apprehended boats smuggling pirarucu and other fish, besides almost four hundred
turtles (one turtle weighing seventy kilos feeds forty people with fourteen different dishes). Six Swiss men were
arrested in Guarulhos, in March 2002, when loading 500 insects, captured in the woods of Manaus and neighboring districts, together with their working equipment. That’s the Federal Police’s routine.
Sustainable development
Concepts
Sustainable development is, according to Isaac Sachs and others, the development that occurs in an ecologically
balanced, socially fair and economically viable way. The great difficulty is to put that definition into action and ensure, in practice, the program’s fulfillment.
There is a very common confusion regarding the concepts of preservation and conservation of the Amazon’s
biodiversity. The first means the intact conservation of the forest, keeping it the way it is. The second deals with the sustainable management, that meets, mainly, the longings of those peoples who live in them.
A biological reserve
is created for preservation. Its use is exclusively for scientific research. The idea is to keep it the way it is for the future generations.
An extractivist reserve
is created through the initiative of the people who live in the area. It supposes the participation of all the involved people, in the most democratic way possible. Their aims are:
- To stimulate the permanence of the extractivist families within the reserve and similar areas.
- To ensure the conservation of ecosystems.
- To ensure the sustainable use of natural resources.
- To promote and publish studies and researches aiming at new products and processes related to extractivism.
The reserves are established with stewardship plans and zonings according to the economic activity. There are use
and non-use zones; that is, there are preservation zones and conservation zones inside the reserve. There are zones for agriculture, for extractivism, for wood extraction and for ecotourism.
The national forest
allows that the extractivist populations dwell in them, but its main objective is to show that the
wood extraction is possible in a sustainable way. This area is registered under the name of IBAMA. It does not exist to
ensure the land to the extractivist population, as it happens in the reserve that carries this name. Inside a Flona,
INCRA grants a use cession, and not a property bond. That will avoid that the inhabitants sell the land. In the
extractivist reserve, the resident is granted a property bond. One kind of area for environmental preservation is the APP
– Area for Permanent Preservation –, which includes, according to Law 4771/65 (Brazilian Forest Code):
- Forest and vegetation formations for the protection of hydric resources, soil, fauna, flora and fragile environments.
- Areas around lagoons, lakes, natural or artificial reservoirs.
- Areas on the top and slopes of hills and mountains, as well as mangroves and sandbanks.
Since last year (2001), ruralists, crustacean cultivators, owners of reservoirs destined to the electric power generation,
are trying to reduce the size of these preservation areas to increase their businesses. On March 20, 2002, CONAMA (Environmental National Council) issued two resolutions to regulate the matter.
PPG-7
The Rainforest Protection Pilot Program (PPG-7) depends on the Brazilian Government’s counterpart to cover the
management and participation costs of the civil society’s organizations. In its second phase, which will start in December 2003, it will deal with six action lines:
- Territorial ordering and ecological-economical zoning;
- Municipal environment management and sustainable local development;
- Science and technology for sustainable development;
- Public and community management of protected areas;
- Sustainable production, and,
- Prevention and environmental control of land burning and deforestation.
Tax Incentives
There is a study made by Paulo Haddad and Fernando Rezende, both from the Planning Department, under the title
“Instrumentos econômicos para o desenvolvimento sustentável da Amazônia” [Economic instruments for the
sustainable development of the Amazon], published in February 2002. In this study, the authors propose a new policy
of tax incentives, where the companies that develop sustainable economic projects in areas of environmental
protection in the Amazon will be exempted of income tax for ten years. They will also be able to deduce up to 50% of
their owed income tax to invest it in projects approved by the Amazon Development Agency (ADA), successor of
SUDAM, which was not implanted until the present moment. Regarding this subject, the delay in the implantation of
ADA brings with it some potential problems. SUDAM’s more than 500 active projects may promote judicial demands,
due to the suspension of the approved releases, diminishing the amount of tax incentives the government is retaining in
these last two years of SUDAM’s burial. In May 2002, President FHC issued a decree regulating the implantation of
ADA. In it, the Federal Revenue will examine the demands for tax exemption. Let’s wait for the actions. The Amazon is
being penalized due to the retaining of resources, considering that it is a region with insufficient savings. The
mentioned economists proposed in their work the exemption of the Output Tax (IPI) for products with environmental
certification. The states and districts are asked to create benefits related to the Turnover Tax (ICMS) and the Service
Tax (ISS), to stimulate the sustainable development in the region. There would also be changes in the Rural Territorial
Tax (ITR), exempting projects where means of production environmentally correct were applied. Districts in areas of
environmental protection would create an ecological ICMS. The states would be responsible for adding a parcel for the
preservation of the forest in the share-part owed to the districts. That is, they propose great changes in the tributary
system, aiming at incorporating the environmental issue. But the logic of the tax incentive system is still the gathering
of income tax from companies. According to journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto, ADA’s philosophy should be to work with the
budgetary management, from a plan of operational development, elaborated with the Government and the civil society’s participation.
Final word
I thank you all for your attention during this speech. I am really interested in listening to all the questions and critiques
from the audience. I would like to discuss the Methodist Church’s commitment with the challenges of the Amazon, in
our conexional perspective. During the debate, maybe we can focus some points that were not mentioned.
Thank you very much.
Addendum
Ø Some issues that were focused by journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto, regarding the report from the Forum of the
Eastern Amazon’s Non-Governmental Organizations – FAOR, (April/2002).
The Amazon is the country’s residue, both for the right and for the left. The militaries are the only ones who have a
united view about the region’s development, through the doctrine of national security, in which the forest is a
complicating factor. The SIVAM project deals with the Amazon as if the region was in a state of war. The Amazon is
an extremely complex bioma whose sustainable use demands the utmost knowledge and technology. We are underestimating the importance of knowledge. We need to create more intelligence nucleus. We lack the praxis of
systematizing the local experiences and watching them along time. It is essential to create a critical mass, a public
opinion. The civil society, in general, does not have a view of the Amazon’s development. It allows itself to be charmed
by micro-projects, about which it sometimes make great war horses. And most of these projects are accomplished
outside the market. The alternatives for the region not only must be treated as party or political matters. The important
is the practical viability of these alternatives. The forest, the light and the water are the definition elements of the
Amazon’s characteristics. The civil society must seek the knowledge, the reality of these characteristics. The MST,
for example, has the South colonist’s view. None of these settlements, here in the region, would be a long-term one,
because they are not adapted to the local reality of the Amazon. The extraction of mahogany, an example of the
destruction in the São Paulo fashion, does not suffer the necessary opposition from the civil society. Another example
that has not moved anyone is the sale of more than 100.000 hectares, now through ITERPA, demanded by the area’s
buyer. Nobody is shocked with the fact that we are the only ones in the world who still enrich minerals using charcoal.
Another example is the building of the Monte Belo dam, in the big turn of Xingu. We are not shocked with a project
that means a retrocession and that makes no sense if analyzed in economic terms. A basin committee was not created, according to the water legislation.
Finally, speaking of violence, Chico Mendes knew he was going to die, but he didn’t want to. It was a pathetic thing,
but the people around him knew that too, and they let it happen. A martyr was created.
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