Brazil forests in the balance: challenges of conservation with development

Abstract

Brazil contains some 3.7 million km² of tropical moist forest – almost 27 percent of the remaining global stock. Its tropical forest endowment and its importance to global biodiversity are unparalleled in the world. Brazil is also the world’s largest consumer of tropical wood products and consumes about 86 percent of its own production. Further, Brazil has been one of the World Bank’s largest borrowers, with loans totaling US$9.3 billion between 1992 and 1999 (average US$1.2 billion/year), although relative to Brazil’s annual GNP of US$760 billion, this sum is still a small amount.

The environmental aspects of the World Bank’s lending to Brazil in the 1980s were assessed in OED’s seminal 1992 study, World Bank Approaches to the Environment in Brazil: A Review of Selected Projects (Redwood 1992). This report, among others, shaped the World Bank’s thinking on primary tropical forests, including its 1991 Forest Strategy. Bank studies, however, have had little impact on Brazil’s forest policies until recently. The future of the Amazon continues to be debated, while other Brazilian forests are more threatened and need urgent attention.

The debate over the future of the Amazon, in light of Brazil’s 500th anniversary, was vigorous at the time of this review’s publication. The National Environment Council (CONOMA) approved the proposal of a forestry law in March 2000, which was to be presented to the National Congress by the Ministry of Environment. This draft law resulted from numerous meetings attended by organizations representing an array of stakeholder groups. Earlier, a congressional committee had presented an alternative version of this legislation to the Ministry. The committee’s version differed considerably from CONOMA’s. For example, according to the committee’s proposal, 50 percent of the Amazon and 20 percent of the Cerrados region would be set aside as legal reserves; according to CONOMA’s proposal, 80 percent of the Amazon would become a legal reserve and 35 percent of the Cerrados region. On May 17, the National Congress shelved the committee’s bill in exchange for a pledge from President Cardoso to oppose any reduction in the legally protected Amazon reserve area. The outcome of this debate and its consequences for the Amazon’s future are too early to predict.

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