Fonte: chicagopolicyreview.org. 21/09/2016 Hannah Bent
Interessante entrevista com o André Guimarães do IPAM sobre a realidade da Amazônia Brasileira.
Interessante entrevista com o André Guimarães do IPAM sobre a realidade da Amazônia Brasileira.
André
Guimarães is the Executive Director of the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da
Amazônia (IPAM), a Brazilian NGO tasked with studying the science and policy of
deforestation in the Amazon. Trained as an agronomist at the University of
Brasília, he previously worked as Vice President at Conservation International
in the Development of the Americas division, Private Sector Liason at the World
Bank, and Director at A2R Environmental Funds. André also founded and directed
Brazil Forests, a company focused on the implementation of forest products and
environmental services, and directed Brazilian environmental NGOs BioAtlântica
Institute (IBio) and Imazon.
You have been
involved in environmental research and deforestation issues in the Amazon from
the earliest stages of interest in this area. What was that like?
The Amazon appeared on the radar
screen about 25 to 30 years ago as something that Brazilians needed to
understand and wanted to learn about. The Amazon, up to that point, was just
this big green blur on the northern part of the Brazil map. Since [that time],
scientists, civil society organizations, academics, and some government
officials started asking questions such as: What’s in the Amazon? What are the
potential benefits that the Amazon could bring to Brazil? What are the trends
in terms of development in the Amazon? What are the risks in terms of
deforestation in the Amazon? These were the basic questions.
Most of these questions have been
answered by scientists already; we know at least a little bit about the places
in the Amazon, about the risks of deforestation or loss in biodiversity, about
the importance of water cycling, and so on. The Amazon is much better known
today than it was 25 to 30 years ago. It’s really fantastic. Did we win? Not
even close. The Amazon today has different challenges and different questions
compared to 25 or 30 years ago. The questions today are more related to which
human activities are suitable or acceptable to systems in the Amazon. Which are
the crucial areas for protection? Where are the concentrations of biodiversity that
really require protected areas? These are new questions that are coming out of
recent debates.
IPAM is a civil society organization
that is about 21 years old. It has a strong science orientation, although we do
more than science, and that’s one of the main differentials of IPAM. We produce
science and test science on the ground, and then scale it up through public
policies. That’s pretty much the approach IPAM follows in all of the activities
that we have developed – whether it’s with indigenous territories, agricultural
settlements, or the Forest Code. It doesn’t matter which area we work in, we
always apply this approach—science, experimentation, influencing policy.
IPAM is a main institution in the
setup of the indigenous territory system in Brazil. About one-third of the
Amazon is protected under the system of indigenous territories today, and a
substantial portion of the work that contributed to [this] political and
government decision-making process was provided by IPAM, so this is a good
example. Another example of our work is in the agricultural settlements in the
Amazon. They occupy an area the size of France within the Amazon; there are
about 3 million people spread out across this area. It’s an important sector
because today the settlements are responsible for 35 to 40 percent of the
deforestation in the Amazon, so finding the right solution to the settlements
is crucial for settling the Amazon equation in the long run, and IPAM is
probably the NGO in a better position [to do this]—we have the science, the
information, the technological solutions for land use, and the public policies
that provide credit lines and technical assistance to this group so they can
better develop their activities and reduce the pressure on the forest, make
more money, and be happy—all without deforesting the Amazon. Those are a couple
of examples of what IPAM does.
IPAM has a
long-standing partnership with the University of Chicago Marine Biological
Laboratory, and a newer partnership with the University of Chicago
International Innovation Corps. What makes these partnerships important? More
generally, what is the importance of international partnerships in this type of
work?
This is an easy one. IPAM’s raw
material are brains. We need good brains, good intelligence, good scientists.
And not just IPAM. The environment that IPAM is involved in the Amazon requires
many different capacities to solve the problem of deforestation. The problems
of the Amazon are not straightforward. They are complex problems that require a
sociological perspective, a technological and innovative perspective, an
engineering perspective, an agronomical perspective, and an ecological
perspective. All of these angles need to be combined to provide the right
solutions for the issues we have in the Amazon—roads, dams, farms, and
conservation. All of these challenges require different visions, and IPAM
realizes it’s not our goal to have all of these capacities in-house. So the
idea is that IPAM works like an intellectual hub, bringing in different aspects
of intelligence to help solve common problems. The partnerships with the
University of Chicago and with so many other universities and science centers
all over the world is crucial for us to both learn from this process, but also
to influence the way that people think and the way that people approach the
Amazon. I think it’s a two-way street: We learn from this process and we also
teach some new stuff to undergraduate students, graduate students, professors,
and specialists, so that they can eventually use this information in the future
design of science.
Many factors
associated with deforestation, such as road development, infrastructure, and
hydropower, are also closely related to social and economic development. How do
you balance the need for conserving natural resources with development?
If I had the answer to that question,
I wouldn’t be here. That’s not just the million-dollar question, it’s the
billion-dollar question. I think that’s the question that scientists working in
the Amazon are asking right now: How can you balance development and
conservation? How can you build a road in the middle of the Amazon and keep
indirect impacts to a minimum? The deforestation in the Amazon costs money.
Chopping down trees is expensive. You have to have a motive, you have to have
money, you have to have a reason for cutting down trees. Most of the time,
these excuses come from a road. So when the government decides to build a road,
the cost of cutting down trees is reduced because you have access and the
potential income from the activity, such as ranching and agriculture, which
becomes feasible because of the proximity of the infrastructure. Infrastructure
is important for the region, and we can’t close our eyes to that. But there are
good ways and bad ways to build a road in the Amazon. The wrong way to build a
road is without asking questions, without involving society in the process.
When you do that, it’s in an expedited mode: You build the road in a couple of
years and, by the third and fourth years, the damage is already present.
The right way to build a road is to
consult first, analyze first, create protected areas so that things don’t get
out of control, invest in education, investigate the risks, create monitoring
systems ahead of time—before you build the road. Of course, that’s more
expensive and more time-consuming, but that’s the right way to do it. IPAM is
not against roads; we are not against investments in infrastructure in the
Amazon. We are against they way this process and this decision is made today.
This has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with political
intelligence. We need politicians who will negotiate with society on a longer
timeframe and process. It’s very important that the readers of the Chicago
Policy Review, who might be policymakers or be influencing policy, know
this. Good politicians and a good policy process drive sustainable investments,
including infrastructure, whereas unhealthy political debate leads to
short-term decisions and, most likely, wrong decisions.
Brazil is currently
in a place where deforestation has decreased significantly and it appears that
the country will meet its goal of reducing deforestation by 80 percent (below
the 1996–2005 average rate), yet there is still a large portion of the Amazon
being deforested every year. In some ways, Brazil appears to be “stuck.” How do
you get to zero percent deforestation? Is this even a reasonable goal?
The analogy I like to make with
deforestation in the Amazon is like going on a diet. Losing the first pounds is
easy; you eat less, do some walking and jogging, and you lose the first pounds
that you need. But the remaining pounds are the hardest ones to tackle, and
it’s the same with deforestation. Brazil has done the hard work over the last
10 to 12 years. We have reduced deforestation in the Amazon by roughly 80
percent. However, over the course of the last four to five years, deforestation
has remained in the vicinity of 5,000 to 6,000 km2 every year.
Up until this point, we have relied on command and control activities—policing,
fines, putting people in jail, sequestering lands—to reduce deforestation. Now,
we need to be creative and produce incentives for sustainable land use. The
elements that need to be put in place are a different set of tools than the
ones we have used so far. It’s much more complex and needs much broader
participation from society. Yes, we have reduced a lot, and there is a strong
probability that we will reach our goals according to national targets set in
Paris, but the question is: Is that enough? Can we be more aggressive by
zeroing deforestation forever? Technologically speaking, Brazil can produce two
to three times more beef and grains than we produce today without chopping down
a single tree. Now that’s a challenge. We need to associate existing technology
with better monitoring and provide more information to society so that everyone
can support zero deforestation, not just scientists who are engaged in the
process directly.
What advice do you
have for people studying or practicing science and/or public policy? How can
people make the biggest impact?
The way I see policy work is almost
like a translation. A good policymaker must have the capacity to learn, listen,
identify different expectations, and translate knowledge into action. That’s
the beauty of politics. Often times, that’s not what happens. Often times,
politics is protecting interests or fighting other interests. One piece of
advice that I would give to students is to learn from science ideas and
solutions, and to translate that into policy. Come as close as you can to the
work you are trying to influence. A good policymaker is not one who just reads
papers, but also goes out and sees people, touches the environment, touches
base with different groups, and listens to the real actors. So, the first
advice is: go out into the field. The best decisions are made when you really
know the object of your decision.
Another piece of advice would be for
policymakers to try to do some science, and for scientists to try to do some
policy. These are two different languages, but we need both of them. As I said,
policymakers are translators and they need to learn different languages in
order to properly translate for their audiences. I’m not a scientist by
training, but I’ve done science. I used to work as a consultant for government
agencies, passing laws and rules. So, another piece of advice I would give is
to try to do something out of your comfort zone. If you like policy, go do some
research. Learn the language that is going to enhance your personal capacity.
Featured photo: cc/(LuisCSilva, photo
ID: 70131039, from iStock by Getty Images)
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