Sustainable Development

The image of the Amazon, besides that of its exuberant ecosystem, is associated with environmental problems such as forest fires, deforestation, illegal wood exploitation, practices which, among others, characterize the economic model adopted in the region since the seventies. Little is known of the other side of this scenario, which reveals the appearance of recent initiatives -by the government, NGOs, and productive segments- oriented to reverting environmental degradation in the region. These are options which value productive alternatives and new technologies, generate income and ensure better living conditions for regional society and imply smaller environmental impacts. These actions are based on a growing awareness of the importance of the principles of sustainable development.

The implementation of these principles is one of the greatest challenges for Brazilian society and Government. The Ministry of the Environment has been facing this challenge and, through its Amazon Coordination Secretariat and the collaboration of various institutions, has been uniting efforts around a development model that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially fair. This becomes viable by creating productive opportunities that respect nature -including conferring value on environmental services -and improve living conditions of regional society.

The objective of one of the Secretariat's main lines of action is to revert the predominant model, based on the set of interventions with great environmental impact and low social and economic return. We want to change this picture. In order to do so, expressive progress has been achieved backed by the Amazonian population's growing awareness of sustainable development possibilities. Under Minister Jose Sarney Filho's guidance, the Secretariat has been carrying out a series of actions, still on a pilot scale, that demonstrate the potential of the sustainable use of natural resources in the Amazon.

Expanding the scale of action is one of the main guidelines of the Secretariat's Work Plan for the 2000-2003 time period. It demands consider- able effort, since it aims to correct imbalances and distortions accumulated over decades. To achieve this, the Amazon Secretariat has adopted a strategy of formulating political pacts among government, civil society and the private sector, to define the basic guiding principles of an economic model for the region. At the same time, it is compatible with environmental conservation and the hope of various socio-economic sectors for generating jobs and income. Thus, the Amazon Coordination Secretariat created local offices throughout the Amazon to ensure that actions are taken in harmony with the region's stakeholders. Furthermore, new projects on important topics were established, such as the recovery of degraded areas and the management of urban environmental development.

Partnerships with state and local governments, productive segments and other entities were developed through an unprecedented and comprehensive discussion process of deforestation alternatives, involving social, economic and political actors of the region. This effort, denominated Positive Agenda for the Amazon, led to the signing of an agreement by the representatives of the productive and social sectors and public institutions of each Amazonian state for the sustainable development of the region. As we observe the result of this process, we notice the enormous convergence of conditions to establish a solid basis of understanding that will enable Amazon development policy to be adjusted to neither exclusively environmentalist nor predominantly developmental, but the result of a negotiation in which all the social actors participate.

While there is widespread awareness that the protection of the forest is an environmental service, it is still not recognized as such, and for this reason, it is not rewarded or compensated in any way which benefits the populations which help protect the forest. Sectors which operate outside the law also wish to see their activities legalized and certified, which means incorporating them into the formal market, and thus their tax contributions into the region and into the country. This applies to a huge volume of wealth and allows these sectors to become partners in monitoring the activities that degrade natural resources, keeping them within acceptable limits. The lesson here is that protecting the Amazon's natural resources can no longer be seen as an obstacle to overcoming economic difficulties in the region, but an opportunity for its development on a new basis.

Regarding instruments and means to support these ideas, we should high- light the direction in which the Amazon Coordination Secretariat is executing the programs and projects. The Secretariat carries out its actions through five major programs {Environmental Management; Pilot Program to Preserve Brazilian Rain Forests -PPG 7, Agroextractivism, Brazilian Molecular Ecology Program for the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in the Amazon -Probem, and Green Tourism/Proecotur) in the nine states of the legal Amazon. These programs of exceptional thematic and geographic scope, presented in detail throughout this publication, have been adjusted to the above objectives and strategies. Their implementation establishes and consolidates partnerships with the main institutions present in the region and provides opportunities for international, government and private financing agencies, whose participation in the region up to now was segmented and partial, to reach new levels of performance.

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by Mary Helena Allegretti
Amazon Coordination Secretary


Positive Agendas

For the first time in Brazilian history, the federal and state governments, the productive sector and Amazon society have come together to establish a pact for alternatives to deforestation. It is called the Positive Agenda for the Amazon, resulting from a negotiation process which began in 1999, in response to the high deforestation rates in the region. In March of that year, Minister Jose Sarney Filho suspended deforestation authorizations for four months as well as those that had already been issued. Afterwards, as a result of legitimate appeals from the region, the Ministry of the Environment, through its Amazon Coordination Secretariat, invited several sectors for consultations and discussions on the issue with a view towards easing restrictions.

The process involved members of congress, state governments, private entities, representatives of the timber and livestock sectors, non-governmental organizations and rural worker social movements, family farmers, extractivists, fishermen and indigenous groups. Each sector had the opportunity to suggest alternatives to reduce the deforestation rates in the region, as well as changes they found necessary to systems in force. Shortly after, at a public hearing convened by the Chamber of Deputies' Amazon and Regional Development Commission (CADR), consensus was reached in a document signed by the Ministry of the Environment and the institutions of each state, synthesizing the commitment to the sustainable development of the Amazon.

After the public hearing, it was decided that the initiative would be repeated in each of the Amazon states, envisioning the creation of a Positive Agenda for the entire region. The process was launched by the Amazon Coordination Secretariat, which went on to promote seminars in each state until April 2000. The documents, resulting from the nine seminars covered several issues relating to development with a smaller environmental impact and greater social equality. The state agendas represent formal commitments between pub- tic and private agents involved in the development of the Amazon.

Later, with the same broad participation, each of the region's nine states chose ten priority actions as input for a Positive Regional Agenda. This input was consolidated into a single document that was negotiated and approved at a Positive Regional Agenda Seminar, in July of this year .The seminar, with representatives of all concerned states and sectors, was convened by the Ministry of the Environment and the Chamber of Deputies' Amazon and Regional Development Commission.

From this point on, several far-reaching out- comes are expected, involving federal, state and local levels, both in the Executive and Legislative branch, with the participation of the productive sectors and civil society. In the National Congress, the Commission (CDAR) should take the Positive Regional Agenda for the Amazon into account in its deliberations.

In the Executive Branch, the Executive Committee for Joint Action in the Amazon was created, and a technical cooperation agreement was signed on June 28, 2000, during a Regional Seminar, by BND ES (Brazilian Social and Economic Development Bank) , Banco do Brasil, Banco da Amazonia, the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of National Integration, Superintendence for the Development of the Amazon and Superintendence for Manaus - Suframa. This Committee is one of the main initiatives to prevent resource dispersion, duplication of efforts and to promote greater convergence among the actions of the various public actors responsible for most of the investments in the Amazon.

The regional and state Positive Agendas pro- vide a democratic strategy for Amazon sustainability; the environment is no longer perceived just as a restriction and comes to con - tribute to the construction of a sustainable development program for the region.


Environmental Management

The Brazilian environmental legislation is sufficiently comprehensive to set guidelines for the occupation of national and Amazonian territories. The problem resides in the non-compliance of this environmental legislation and the precariousness of the State's power to inspect and enforce. For this very reason it is essential that environmental management be decentralized and participatory, involving state and local governments, civil society and non-governmental organizations.

It is also essential to ensure harmony between environmental and economic sector policies, and even among the different secretariats of the Ministry of the Environment. This concern is leading to the development an Intersectoral Coordination Project to influence public policies, to internalise sustainability criteria to generate/induce economic activities with negative environmental and socio-economic impacts in the Amazon region.

Urban environmental management is an- other concern. The objective of the Urban Environmental Development Project for the Amazon is to enhance the management role of cities in the sustainable development of the region. The direct beneficiaries are residents of the targeted towns, particularly the populations of the periphery, who generally reside in areas that lack sanitation and appropriate infrastructure, and where occupation of urban land has been largely unplanned.

The Project to Recover Altered Areas of the Amazon has a clearly defined target: the economic, sustainable re-incorporation of part of the 550 thousand sq. km. of the al- ready deforested areas of the region (14% of the forest canopy), recomposing the legal re- serves and permanent preservation areas that were cleared. It should be noted that about a fifth of this altered area has been abandoned. In a more advanced stage, we have the Project to Expand and Consolidate a System of Protected Areas , aiming meeting Brazil's commitment to the international community of protecting at least 10% of the country's rain forests. Today, less than 4% of the Amazon forest is under formal protection {established protected areas) and, even so, a large part is yet to be implemented, with no basic personnel infrastructure and management plans.

The creation of protected areas in the Amazon, foreseen in the project, will be carried out after the macro zoning of the region, when new areas for indirect and direct protection of biodiversity and water resources will be identified. The first stage will be carried out from 2001 to 2004, requiring resources of around US$ 68 million, already approved by the Brazilian Government and by the Global Environment Fund of the United Nations (GEF): US$ 30 million from GEF, US$ 20 million in grants through international cooperation agreements (US$ 5 million from the WWF and US$ 15 million from the Pilot Program to Preserve the Brazilian Rain Forests), and US$ 18 million as counterpart funds from the Brazilian Government.

Resources will be used to create new protected areas, to demarcate existing ones, develop management plans, regulate tenure, monitor the environment, provide infrastructure, etc. At the end of a ten-year period, somewhere around 60 protected areas will have been created, which together will protect 28.5 million forest hectares. These areas, in addition to the 30 federal areas existing in the region, will place 41 million hectares under protection, corresponding to 10% of the Amazon Biome.

Extractivism

Indians, river dwellers and extractivist populations have co-existed with the forest for decades, ensuring their subsistence with extremely low environmental impacts. This reality has been changing over the past few years because of the predatory occupation of the Amazon. The traditional inhabitants of the region have been pushed outwards towards the periphery of the towns and the forested areas are slowly being degraded, generating consequences with high environmental impacts.

The Program to Support Extractivism provides technical and financial support to the extraction, production, processing and commercialization of forest products, sustainable practices by rubber tapers, nut collectors, and river dwellers, small family farmers and indigenous peoples.

The Amazon Solidarity Program was created to promote the economic and social ascension of the rubber tapers of the Amazon. It employs specific mechanisms to encourage the multiple use of the forest. In 1998, R$ 4.3 million were allocated to projects to support sustainable extractivism in the Amazon, by means of actions led by the Ministry of the Environment, in coordination with the communities concerned. In 1999, R$ 8 million.

The Program to Support the Development of Extractivism (Prodex) with resources from the Banco da Amazonia (BASA), is an initiative of the Federal Government to provide credit lines to mini and small extractivists of the Northern Region and their families. The producer is entitled not only to financing but also to technical assistance. The program allows for the introduction of agro forestry systems in traditional extractivist areas, and supports the production of basic food crops.

Along the same line of supporting extractive activities in the Amazon, some important projects of the Pilot Program should be mentioned: Extractive Reserves (Resex), Project to Protect Indigenous Lands and Populations of the Legal Amazon (PPTAL), and the Demonstrative Projects for the Indigenous Peoples (PDPI).