Brazil: Lula defends (rainforest logging) policy from environment critics

[Robbien]

Brasilia - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended his environmental record from his own allies' criticism of Amazon deforestation during his term. "There is still much to do," he said during a national environmental commemoration. But we are getting better, were are learning, we are writing ever-more effective legislation that will allow us not only to be seen by the world, but also to raise our self-esteem by achieving something that our children and grandchildren will one day thank us for," he said.

Lula went on the defensive after the publication Wednesday of government statistics showing that Brazil lost 26,130 square kilometres of rain forest between August 2003 and August 2004. It was the second-largest 12-month loss since 1995 (29,050 square kilometres, and six percent greater than 2002-2003).

The numbers prompted the Green Party to quit the government, calling Lula's environmental policy a "disaster".

During the ceremony, Lula announced the creation of five forest reserves totaling 2,610 square kilometres.

He also defended his policy of creating reserves for native peoples, which was criticised for requiring non-Indian homesteaders to leave the 17,500 square kilometre tract near the border with Venezuela and Guyana.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=122&art_id=qw111665646410B624

[DS1]

1. ASSHOLE!

[imenja]

3. this is a first/"third" world issue

Lula's primary goal is to produce a kind of economic development that can work to ameliorate the tremendous poverty in Brazil. It's a far more complex issue than we in the industrialized world acknowledge. Brazilians feel that environmentalists reflect the same neo-colonial impulse that characterizes most relationships between the industrialized and developing world. One time when I was in a Brazil, a shopkeeper called out to me "tell Sting the Amazon is ours." His comments reflected a wider resentment of Western interference in Brazilian domestic matters. After destroying our own forests, the West has now decided that Brazil should preserve what we ourselves aren't willing to do. The West not only insists on using the lion's share of resources of the world, the US over 40% of the world's energy supply, but then bourgeois Americans and Europeans, from the comfort of a societies based on absence exploitation of natural resources, they then seek to limit Brazil's use of its own resources. Out of a population of 180 million, half of all Brazilians live outside the money economy, without access to regular employment and many without adequate nutrition. The solution to the problem, I think, lies in sustainable development: development that provides jobs yet sustains natural resources.

I think if you thought more carefully about the issue, about the tremendous poverty that afflicts a country like Brazil, you would not call Lula an asshole--not to mention the man's long and proud history resisting dictatorship and class exploitation in Brazil. It's also worth keeping in mind that we in the West help set the terms for world environmental policy. If Bush had not so callously pulled out of Kyoto, ignored other international movements for conservation, and reversed protections in our own country, we might be able to establish some moral leadership on this issue. As the issue stands now, however, Western condemnations of Brazil ring hollow. More than that, they reflect a kind of bloated privilege that we in the West are too myopic to question. We expect Brazilians to fore go economic development that can feed millions of while we insist on driving SUVs, hummers, and otherwise squandering much of the world's natural resources.

[DS1]

4. "tell Sting the Amazon is ours."

It may be found in Brazil, but the Amazon is ours. It's everyone's, we need it, despite the poverty you talk about. It's a long term thing. We're not perfect, but this reasoning sounds like cutting it down out of spite more than anything else.

Sorry, poverty be damned, it's a short term issue, and it'll work itself out eventually. Cold, but that's how I see it.

[imenja]

6. I find that shocking

poverty be damned? This is precisely the sort of attitude that disturbs Brazilians and nearly everyone outside of the United States. First of all, poverty in Brazil is not a short term problem. It is a product of colonialism, slavery, dictatorship, and long term capitalism accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few--and most of the world's wealth ends up in the US. Your very ability to so callously dismiss the miserable poverty that afflicts countries like Brazil comes from a privilege that is responsibility for their impoverishment.

The solution is not the typical American one that you present here--who gives a damn about anyone but ourselves---but to promote environmentally sustainable economic development. It also means we as Americans need to do our own part. You and I use on a daily basis far more energy and naturally resources than any Brazilian does. We waste wantonly, while Brazilians use everything.

I tend to think your comments reflect an unfamiliarity with life outside the US and what that poverty is really like, unless of course you really don't care about anyone but Americans, which I don't think is the case. I think if you had traveled to places like Brazil, and seen malnourished people, missing arms and legs, sometimes both, begging in public squares for scraps of food, seen some of the many millions of street children that beg and steal just to get by, you would not make such heartless comments like "poverty be damned."

[bobdobbs6]

14. Yo

The people cutting down the rainforest are not the poorest of the poor. They are agrobusinessmen/criminals looking for a quick buck. The products are often sold for export.

The Brazilian government is just choosing to look the other way and the Brazilian elite is one of the worst around.

[imenja]

23. the people cutting them actually are poor

the one's who profit from it are wealthy.

Your argument that the Brazilian government is just looking the other way: Do you actually know anything about Lula? Do you know anything about his background and what he has done in office? It seems pretty obvious to me you are operating from stereotypes rather than actual knowledge.

Its easy for bourgeois imperialists to make the easy and uninformed generalizations you have echoed here. My point is that the issue is far more complicated that you acknowledge. If you want to know who profits from deforestation and global environmental devastation look in the mirror. The US sits at the top of a global economy that benefits as the expense of tremendous poverty around the world. All of us as Americans benefit in some regard; even the poor here are prosperous by global standards. Environmental solutions need to be global to be effective. Bush demonstrated his disregard for that by pulling out of Kyoto. Americans use the lions share of the world's natural resources and 890% more energy than Brazil. The primarily responsibility and thus solution for environmental conservation lies in this country--with each of us as individuals and with our government.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

29. The government here is poor too. We don't have money for law enforcement.

Not for the police in the big cities, and not for the Amazon.

Lula knows this, everybody knows this, he's just trying to make it look as if the government is in charge and doing things, like all politicians do.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi bobdobbs6!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Chicago Democrat]

10. Its not yours, or "ours" its Brazilian's land. If you like so much. BUY IT

See my post #9

[Robbien]

5. Thanks for the different perspective

As a tree hugging, bicycle riding, bleeding heart liberal, logging is an evil greedy act against the planet. But I now see how on a national basis Brazil believes Americans are hypocrites in their condemnation.

[ashiebr]

7. My friend.............

if you think there are no Brazilians who insist on driving SUVs, hummers, and otherwise squandering much of the world's natural resources, then you don't know Brazil. Did the Brazilian Green Party just get it wrong then?

The real problem in Brazil is the disparity of wealth. There is plenty to go round, but its just concentrated in a few hands. Many of them politicians.

I agree with you that the solution lies in sustainable development. But cutting down the rainforest to plant Soya, like Mr Maggi, is not what I would call sustainable.

[Chicago Democrat]

11. Those type of Brazilians are at most 5% or 10% of the population

Negligable, compared to US populations use of resources. You know that 90% of Brazil lives in extreme abject poverty, some of the worst in the world.

[ashiebr]

18. Oh bull.......................

This is just ridiculous. Brazil has some of the richest people in the world and some amongst the poorest. But most - yes most - are in neither of those categories.

To quote the CIA fact book: "Exploiting vast natural resources and a large labor pool, it is today South America's leading economic power and a regional leader. Highly unequal income distribution remains a pressing problem". That same book suggests that 22% live below the poverty line.

Brazil is a long way from being perfect but it is nowhere near as bad as some of you seem to think. Right at this moment, I'm watching Placebo on MTV via cable and using my broadband conection. And I ain't rich!

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[imenja]

21. US uses 890% more oil than Brazil

My point is that the issue is far more complicated that most in this country acknowledge. Lula is not a shill for the wealthy. He is a longtime socialist who is trying to do something about that disparity of wealth. The environmental issue is tied up with neo-colonialism. Most in this country have no awareness, and in fact simply do not care, about the kind of problems facing countries like Brazil. Those are precisely the same attitudes that prompted Bush to withdraw from Kyoto. We insist those in the developing world should make sacrifices we are selves are not willing to make. The Amazon is necessary for the world's oxygen supply because the industrialized West has felled most of it's forest. We could, after all, propose reforesting millions of square acres in this country. We could turn Chicago, New York, Miami, and the entire West of the United States into forest land. Of course we consider that absurd. Why should we sacrifice our economic comfort when we can insist that Brazilians and others in the developing world forestall economic development so that we can continue to use most of the world's natural resources without giving up anything?

The US uses 890% more oil than does Brazil. (http://www.hallcountry.com/rankorder/2174rank.html
The numbers are not even close.) Any solutions to deforestation and pollution need to be global. Anything else is simply another demonstration of American imperialism--whether it be at the hand of the US military, US corporations, or bourgeois environmentalists.

[sandnsea]

27. Sounds like Montana

That's exactly what loggers in rocky mountain states say. In Montana particularly, "Montana is not a zoo". We definitely have to start promoting sustainability wherever possible instead of just saying no with no other option for people to earn a living. It's as true here as it is in Brazil.

[lenidog]

2. Why the hell would you homestead anyone in the middle of the

rainforest? From what I understand is that the soil sucks so you really can't grow crops and even if you do in five to ten years the topsoil washes away so you have to start all over again somewhere else.

[Gregorian]

8. Deforestation is GOOD. End of discussion.

Look, how much bullshit can we deal with? We have conservative spin in our own country. A media that is just a cheerleader for the corporations. Money for wars, but not for suffering people. At some point it really appears to be hopeless. I'm a pacifist, or I'd have said that several bullets could rid the world of a few diseased humans who are intent on killing everyone. As it stands, I don't think we have the ability to survive these monsters. I've done the best I can. It's all I can do, short of sacrificing my life. Boycott consumption. That's all.

[Chicago Democrat]

9. Interesting...Lula is a Populist progressive, to the left of Kucinich...

Environmentalism is a foreign concept I guess to the average Favella dweller. Can you blame them?

We are the ones who have destroyed this planet. Instead of condemning what is only nature and sensible (to them), why don't the Environmentalist of the world SIMPLY BUY THE RAINFOREST. Why should Brazil PAY ANYTHING AT ALL for OUR PAST DESTRUCTION.

While the West knocked down its virgin forests, Brazil did not. Now ours are all gone and DUer condemn them for doing the same thing we did. The height of Arrogance.\


I say the 300 Billion for Iraq could have bought the entire Rainforest and made Brazil a economic wonderland. Its all about priority folks and money. Our US economy is about $7-8 Trillion per year, how much is the future of life worth to us? How do you get the political will to do a Mcarthy plan to save the Rainforest.

Pretty damn hard.. Would be like the hype (and lies) before the Iraq War.

[humus]

12. buy biodiversity

THE SOLUTION: PROFITS WITHOUT PLUNDER
The problem and the solution of the destruction of the rainforest are both economic. Governments need money to service their debts, squatters and settlers need money to feed their families, and companies need to make profits. The simple fact is that the rainforest is being destroyed for the income and profits it yields, however fleeting. Money still makes the world go around . . . even in South America and even in the rainforest. But this also means that if landowners, governments, and those living in the rainforest today were given a viable economic reason not to destroy the rainforest, it could and would be saved. And this viable economic alternative does exist, and it is working today. Many organizations have demonstrated that if the medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, oils, and other resources like rubber, chocolate, and chicle (used to make chewing gums) are harvested sustainably, rainforest land has much more economic value today and more long-term income and profits for the future than if just timber is harvested or burned down for cattle or farming operations. In fact, the latest statistics prove that rainforest land converted to cattle operations yields the landowner $60 per acre; if timber is harvested, the land is worth $400 per acre. However, if medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, rubber, chocolate, and other renewable and sustainable resources are harvested, the land will yield the landowner $2,400 per acre. This value provides an income not only today, but year after year - for generations. These sustainable resources - not the trees - are the true wealth of the rainforest.

This is no longer a theory. It is a fact, and it is being implemented today. Just as important, to wild-harvest the wealth of sustainable rainforest resources effectively, local people and indigenous tribes must be employed. Today entire communities and tribes earn five to ten times more money in wild-harvesting medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, and oils than they can earn by chopping down the forest for subsistence crops. This much-needed income source creates the awareness and economic incentive for this population in the rainforest to protect and preserve the forests for long-term profits for themselves and their children and is an important solution in saving the rainforest from destruction.

When the timber is harvested for short-term gain and profits, the medicinal plants, nuts, oils, and other important sustainable resources that thrive in this delicate ecosystem are destroyed. The real solution to saving the rainforest is to make its inhabitants see the forest and the trees by creating a consumer demand and consumer markets for these sustainable rainforest products . . . markets that are larger and louder than today's tropical timber market . . . markets that will put as much money in their pockets and government coffers as the timber companies do . . . markets that will give them the economic incentive to protect their sustainable resources for long-term profits, rather than short-term gain.

[XemaSab]

13. Welcome to DU Humus!!!!!!

Not to be confused with "the extra M is for garbanzo" hummus.

To people who think this is okay:

I've been playing with Keyhole lately and it's STAGGERING the amount of rainforest destruction. Look at the air photos and judge for yourself hhow much they have cut down.

[newyawker99]

31. Hi humus!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[bobdobbs6]

15. brazil would never sell it

they are already paranoid that the us will invade it. the average brazilian has little respect for it. they often spout that they can't figure out why brazil is poor with the resources it has. and then they figure the solution is to exploit it more.

the brazilian elite and the brazilian people are very short-sighted. perhaps even more than the united states.

[Dirk39]

20. AFAIK Lula isn't to the left of Kucinich...

he's just one more a**hole, who is doing the opposite of what he promised after being elected.
He is even working with the IMF- and Worldbank-Terrorists.


"At the third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2003 President Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva spoke to the forum in Porto Alegre, just weeks after assuming the presidential sash. Hopes ran high that Lula and the Workers Party he founded would carry out deep seated reforms and challenge Washington’s neo-liberal strangle hold on Brazil’s economy. The crowd cheered wildly as he announced that his number one priority would be the end of hunger in Brazil

At this years Social Form the crowd still seemed fond of Lula, repeatedly chanting an adapted soccer ball chant, “ole, ole, ole, Lula, Lula.” But there was a palpable sense of disillusionment with Lula in the stadium. While he endorsed progressive international policies such as standing up to Bush on the war in Iraq, his government’s economic policies in the main have followed the neo-liberal policies of his predecessors, appeasing foreign capital and the big banks.

Even the anti-hunger program is in trouble, providing little other than meager welfare handouts while agrarian reform, the real key to ending malnutrition in Brazil, is languishing. His old allies, the Landless Workers Movement, are at odds with Lula pressuring him to keep his old promises. To up the pressure, 200,000 landless members have camped out on high ways to make the public aware of their desperate plight. When Lula announced that he was flying off to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum the next day, the gathering of the rich and the powerful, Lula proclaimed he wanted to be “a bridge” between the two forums. The word “traitor” rippled through the stadium as some people booed. Outside the pavilion where Lula spoke a scuffle broke out between former members of the Workers Party who were protesting. Twenty people were arrested."

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BUR502A.html

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[imenja]

26. to the left of Kucinich

that's funny. Considering our political spectrum is so narrow and so far skewed to the right, that a good chunk, probably most, of political parties around the globe are far to the left of Kucinich. Lula is ideologically socialist, but has adapted to the unfortunate realities of international capitalism is order to become elected and lead Brazil with what is an absolutely necessary cooperation of the financial elite.

I agree with the thrust of your post that we as Americans need to focus on our own role in the global environment. You're absolutely right that our own environmental devastation and funding priorities reduce any moral high ground we might take on this issue. Rather than buying the rain forest, however, I think sustainable development is a better option. It helps meet some of the economic needs Brazilians have for development and job creation. We, of course, could always reforest our own country--but Americans would never imagine such a solution when we insist on relying on the rest of the world for oil, natural resources, and now oxygen.

[AP]

16. Wedges.

[davidinalameda]

17. can the government do anything about the deforestation

I'm just wondering because a lot of it done by individuals that are clearing land for homesteading and farming

but if they can do something, then they need to

there are groups that are buying the land to keep it from being destroyed

do a search and send some money

[Darranar]

19. Lula is too moderate and too slow-moving for me...

But then again, I'd never want his position, and would be hard-pressed to accomplish even a small portion of what he has.

He should get on with the land reform - that would probably considerably help matters, and strengthen his support among many.

[imenja]

24. question

I'm wondering what you base your conclusion on. Do you live in Brazil, are you Brazilian? I agree that land reform is an important reform, and he has done too little on it. But the landed elite are enormously powerful. They are a difficult group to cross, as Goulart discovered in 1964.

[Blue_Tires]

25. sure.....

make a little $$$$ now, and damn the consequences later...

(even though I admit this is a VERY sensitive political issue, and the amazing disparity of wealth with its attendant problems have to be dealth with somehow)