[EN] The win-win situation hidden behind the Amazonia fires – part 2
How much are preservation and “green” capitalism false solutions worth? Tree burned by the fire alongside BR-367, between Rio Branco and Bujari. Photo: Douglas Freitas / Friends of the Earth Brazil Have you read the first part of the story? Here: The win win As if these direct strikes against the forest and the Peoples living there were not damaging enough, it is also important to be aware of the initiatives that present themselves as “environmental” solutions in the Amazonia. It may be that they are actually more an expression of capitalism and forestry profiteering. According to a member from the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and a researcher specialised in the financialisation of Nature, Lindomar Padilha, the fire that glows in the Amazonia constitutes a win-win logic for those who are land speculators. For Lindomar, when starting the fire, if the agribusiness agents are unable to implement the cattle raising and later soybean plantations and other commodities, they still have another possibility to make money, including through international funding, which is the discourse of environmental compensation to reforest that which they, themselves, have destroyed. And with this scheme of winning at all costs is the logic of financial capitalism. Specifically when we are talking about carbon credits and the carbon market, highlights Lindomar. He explains, “The markets linked to the Green Economy, at the heart of it all, work as a type of commodity, called ‘credits’, ‘carbon credits’. As in the case of any type of merchandise, when there is a lot, it is cheap. When it is scarce, the price climbs”. Due to this concept, it is necessary to pressure the territories, and that is where fire starts to play a role. “When the jungle burns, the market linked to the REDD+, that of the ‘carbon credits’ ‘says we are selling, we need to make more of a market for compensation, more of a REDD+ market to compensate for the threats that we see in the Amazonia”. So the fires result in an overvaluation of these credits, or shall we say the right to pollute”. To begin to understand, REDD+ is a set of economic incentives for those who avoid greenhouse gas emissions resulting from deforestation or forestry degradation. Broadly speaking, corporations that pollute in excess purchase REDD+ carbon credit from communities or institutions that take care of standing forests. These forests, theoretically speaking, capture carbon from the atmosphere and, supposedly, compensate the pollution caused by the polluter. Sign found at the Chico Mendes Extractivist Reserve, Xapuri, locality of intense sustainable forestry management. Photo: Douglas Freitas / Friends of the Earth Brazil REDD is another capitalist mechanism to appropriate and speculate upon the forest. In the Friends of the Earth publication: “REDD+, the Carbon Market and Cooperation California-Acre-Chiapas: legalising dispossession”, we describe the Acre case, which applies REDD+ through the Acre State’s Incentive System and Environmental Services (SISA), and the varied problems that the communities that have implemented the program have experienced and continue to experience. Not only is it a false environmental solution, as it does not provoke an alteration in the modes of production of the companies and countries that pollute. It also transfers to the South the responsibility to compensate for pollution caused by the North. In June 2018, Indigenous Peoples and communities that live in and work the forest came together in Sena Madureira, Acre to denounce these false solutions proposed by Green Capitalism in response to environmental and climatic depredations. You can read the declaration resulting from this encounter, here. As one of the principal examples of how prejudicial for the communities and the territories is REDD and the carbon credit system, Lindomar highlights the complete loss of tutelage over the territory. To explain this, he compares it to what happens in the real estate market. Through his perspective, the Acre Government is offering the preservation areas as a guarantee for those who will honor the commitments made by the Californian corporations or the German public bank, KFW, owners of the credit in the region. “The State government mortgages the Amazonia forest in the Acre territory. This is a drastic step because you are blocking the process of agrarian regularization, especially for the traditional communities, such as Indigenous Peoples and Extraction reserves. It is as though we are going to say that to demarcate an indigenous territory, we need California and KFW’s authorisation. The market is voracious and there are various, gigantic international entities that are participating in the process of mortgaging off the Acre territories. And without a single explanation to the communities: ‘Look here my good friend, when you accept these REDD and REM mechanisms, you are mortgaging off your life, your own home and your land’. They are going take away your home from underneath you, all we need is a crisis in the financial market and with that they will take away your land, you can be sure”. And to top it all off, the Federal Chamber of Deputies just approved a project to benefit ‘ruralists’ who “preserve” the primary forest, as a Payment for Environmental Service (PSA). Now does this sound interesting? Well the Apurinãs, the rubber tappers and the quilombolas who have always preserved the forest forever and all they are requesting is just the right to the consolidated land, without being invaded. Where is their valorisation? This proposed decree, made by a ‘ruralist’ deputy, would provide that rural producers will receive financial compensation for preserving primary vegetation. This could boost the number of invasions upon land that still has standing forests. And it does not stop there, this payment system for environmental services could be paid to those who plant eucalyptus mono-cultures, with the argument that they are reforesting. Sadly, eucalyptus as a possibility for reforestation is still being discussed in the UN. “The mono-culture does not fit within the concept of an ecosystem because an ecosystem responds to a group of elements that are interrelated. So it is a deceptive idea to adopt a discourse
