The Brazilian Amazon is experiencing the world’s most rampant deforestation. While complex solutions are being proposed to address this crisis, including paying landowners to preserve forests (REDD) and providing financial incentives to state governments, there’s another powerful force at play: Brazil’s agriculture faction.
Brazil’s economy has been stagnant since 2015, with occasional glimmers of hope fading quickly. This stagnation is largely attributed to China’s dominance in manufacturing, fueled by cheap exports that undercut Brazilian industries. The ruling PT party, aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, has shown little inclination to challenge these practices, leading to a decline in Brazil’s industrial and manufacturing sectors since 1980 and further eroding the economy.
This leaves agriculture as the primary driver of the Brazilian economy, granting the agriculture lobby significant influence over policy decisions.
Brazil’s agricultural sector has experienced significant growth, averaging 8% annually from 2000 to 2020, with a remarkable 15.1% growth in 2023 and a projected 8.37% growth for the coming year. Despite the availability of millions of hectares of unused land in central Brazil (the MAPITOBA region) suitable for agricultural expansion, there remains a push to deforest approximately 1 million hectares of Amazon rainforest annually.
This Amazonian deforestation is driven by more than just agricultural expansion. It involves a web of corrupt practices, including bribing government officials and manipulating land titles to facilitate illegal land grabbing. This destructive cycle perpetuates social inequalities, as the powerful exploit the vulnerable for their own gain.
We’ll see news reports of politicians in Brasília boasting about reducing “illegal deforestation” by some percentage, most of these reports ignore legal deforestation. The reality is that deforestation remains a major problem, already impacting weather patterns throughout Brazil. And Brazil’s policies are exacerbating the issue.
Agriculture is the primary driver of the Brazilian economy, a major export, and a significant source of tax revenue. This gives the agriculture lobby immense power. While the government might talk about sustainability, they are unlikely to take decisive action to halt deforestation in the Amazon.
Politicians often boast about reducing “illegal deforestation,” but a closer look reveals a critical distinction: they differentiate between “illegal” and “legal” deforestation, which, as of 2023, were roughly equal in scale. This destruction is driven by several factors:
- Right of Usage: The Brazilian Forestry Code allows landowners to utilize 20% of their land, including for logging. This results in the government issuing cutting licenses for vast areas – known as legal deforestation.
- Subsistence Farming: Impoverished individuals are permitted to deforest land for subsistence farming up to a certain limit, currently around 100 hectares. While this may seem insignificant on an individual level, the cumulative effect of many (200,000 to 300,000) small-scale clearings contribute substantially to deforestation.
- Corruption and Weak Enforcement: Corruption and weak enforcement of existing laws enable large-scale deforestation and land grabbing. Those with power and influence can exploit the system, while the original landowners often become the targets of legal action. Ethical prosecutors are working to address this, but the problem persists.
- Government Agencies targeting Environmentalist: Ibama the land agency that has specifically been tasks to protect the Amazon has targeted environmentalists in the past with fines to railroad them. Policia Federal has started investigations against environmentalist to target them.
- Land Claim Laws: Laws that allow individuals to claim and gain title to land in the Amazon incentivize deforestation. People are drawn to the region with the goal of acquiring large tracts of land, often for conversion to lucrative farms. This process further contributes to the destruction of the rainforest.
The solutions proposed to combat deforestation in the Amazon are often fragmented, ineffective, and fail to address the root causes of the problem. While these solutions might work in small, isolated areas, they are unlikely to have a significant impact on the broader issue of deforestation, given the powerful influence of the agriculture lobby and their allies within the government.
The Brazilian military, concerned about foreign influence in the Amazon, also supports development, further complicating the situation. With the soybean export market expanding and utilizing Amazonian River ports, there seems to be no end in sight for the destruction of the rainforest.
Here’s a breakdown of the current solutions and their shortcomings:
- REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)
This market-based mechanism aims to incentivize forest preservation by allowing companies to earn carbon credits for preventing deforestation. However, REDD has faced several challenges:
- Infiltration by those responsible for deforestation: Cartels, land grabbers, and illegal loggers have infiltrated the REDD market, becoming owners and investors in some of the largest REDD developer companies in Brazil.
- Exploitation by international groups: Some international groups, including those with ties to criminal organizations, have entered the REDD market, secured credits, and then abandoned projects.
- Targeting legitimate developers: Idealistic developers from Europe and the USA who attempt to implement impactful REDD projects that challenge the status quo often face retaliation, including false accusations and legal harassment.
- Lack of government support: The Brazilian government has not fully embraced a national jurisdictional REDD system that could potentially halt deforestation by placing all land under REDD and pre-negotiating carbon pricing with international governments. This is likely due to opposition from the powerful agriculture lobby.
- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
While some NGOs have successfully trained indigenous groups to protect their lands, their overall impact is limited.
- Limited Scope: NGO efforts often focus on specific areas or communities, lacking the scale to address widespread deforestation.
- Lack of Political Influence: While some NGOs lobby for preservation, they often lack the political influence to effect meaningful policy changes to counter the Agriculture factions in the government.
- Status Quo Bias: Some charities and NGOs may be inadvertently incentivized to maintain the status quo, as their funding often depends on the continuation of the problems they aim to address.
- Government Employees
Government agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing environmental laws in the Amazon are often underfunded and lack the resources to effectively combat deforestation (and are corrupt and bought off)
The world needs to recognize the severity of the situation in the Amazon and demand more effective solutions that address the root causes of deforestation, including corruption, weak governance, and the influence of powerful economic interests.
The reality is that if politicians in Brasília want to claim a reduction in deforestation to the international community, they can simply pressure the groups responsible for most of the destruction to temporarily halt their activities. However, this is a temporary fix, not a solution. A sad truth is some of the politicians in Brasilia are directly involved in the destruction.
A true solution for the Amazon doesn’t require vast sums of money, but rather a commitment to implementing and enforcing effective policies. Here are some key steps:
- Strengthen and revise existing laws:
- Amend the Forest Code to mandate the preservation of all (100%) of forested land within the Amazon biome, eliminating the 20/80 or 50/50 rules that allow for deforestation that allows for legal deforestation.
- Offer to buy out landowners in the Amazon, providing fair compensation for those who sell their land to the government for preservation. This could involve utilizing foreign funds and turn these areas into reserves.
- Change the law, to restrict subsistence farming to a maximum of 5 hectares, not 100
- Eliminate the right to invade and claim land in the Amazon. This is the main factor driving deforestation. The government issues new titles for individuals in forested areas since 2013. They changed the rule to require that the area is not forest, however this only resulted in individuals deforesting before claiming title.
- Implement a law where landowners with titles in the Amazon lose their entire property to the government if they engage in deforestation.
- Pass a law that confiscates entire properties if they are deforested.
- Pass a law to eliminate the rules that allow legal deforestation, such as state and municipal government giving out cutting licenses.
- Pass a law that states forest is to be preserved.
These legal changes would protect existing forests and discourage illegal land grabbing and deforestation.
International Pressure
To convince Brazilian politicians to take decisive action, a combination of incentives and pressure may be necessary:
- The Carrot: International donors could provide funding to buy out landowners in the Amazon.
- The Stick: International countries, particularly those in Europe, could impose trade restrictions and withhold agreements until Brazil implements meaningful change. There is a Brazil and European Union Trade agreement being negotiated: Until Brazil changes its laws in relation to deforestation, the EU should stand firm against signing the agreement.
The Urgency of Protecting the Amazon
The Amazon rainforest is a vital ecosystem that needs to be protected. Scientists fear that if deforestation continues at its current rate, it could reach a tipping point, leading to ecological collapse with dire consequences for Brazil’s agricultural sector and global climate patterns.
It is time for Europe and the USA to pressure Brazil to implement sensible laws to halt the destruction of the Amazon. Trade agreements and tariffs should be leveraged until Brazil enacts meaningful change.
