NYtimes: In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand

NYtimes:

In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand

QUERENCIA, Brazil — José Marcolini, a farmer here, has a permit from the Brazilian government to raze 12,500 acres of rain forest this year to create highly profitable new soy fields.

But he says he is struggling with his conscience. A Brazilian environmental group is offering him a yearly cash payment to leave his forest standing to help combat climate change.

Mr. Marcolini says he cares about the environment. But he also has a family to feed, and he is dubious that the group’s initial offer in the negotiation — $12 per acre, per year — is enough for him to accept.

“For me to resist the pressure, surrounded by soybeans, I’ll have to be paid — a lot,” said Mr. Marcolini, 53, noting that cleared farmland here in the state of Mato Grosso sells for up to $1,300 an acre.

Mato Grosso means thick forests, and the name was once apt. But today, this Brazilian state is a global epicenter of deforestation. Driven by profits derived from fertile soil, the region’s dense forests have been aggressively cleared over the past decade, and Mato Grasso is now Brazil’s leading producer of soy, corn and cattle, exported across the globe by multinational companies.

Deforestation, a critical contributor to climate change, effectively accounts for 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and 70 percent of the emissions in Brazil. Halting new deforestation, experts say, is as powerful a way to combat warming as closing the world’s coal plants.

But until now, there has been no financial reward for keeping forest standing. Which is why a growing number of scientists, politicians and environmentalists argue that cash payments — like that offered to Mr. Marcolini — are the only way to end tropical forest destruction and provide a game-changing strategy in efforts to limit global warming.

Unlike high-tech solutions like capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide or making “green” fuel from algae, preserving a forest yields a strikingly simple environmental payback: a landowner reduces his property’s emissions to zero.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, said that deforestation “absolutely” needed to be addressed by a new international climate agreement being negotiated this year. “But people cut down trees because there is an economic rationale for doing it, and you need to provide them with a financial alternative,” he said.

Both the most recent draft of the agreement and the climate bill passed by the House in late June in the United States include plans for rich countries and companies to pay the poor to preserve their forests.

The payment strategies may include direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing, as well as indirect subsidies, like higher prices for beef and soy that are produced without resorting to clear-cutting. Deforestation creates carbon emissions through fires and machinery that are used to fell trees, and it also destroys the plant life that helps absorb carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories around the globe.

But getting the cash incentives right is a complex and uncharted business. In much of the developing world, including here, deforestation has been tied to economic progress. Pedro Alves Guimarães, 73, a weathered man sitting at the edge of the region’s River of the Dead, came to Mato Grosso in 1964 in search of free land, pushing into the jungle until he found a site and built a hut as a base for raising cattle. While he regrets the loss of the forest, he has welcomed amenities like the school built a few years ago that his grandchildren attend, or the electricity put in last year that allowed him to buy his first freezer.


Also, environmental groups caution that, designed poorly, programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them. For example, one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life.

“There is the capacity to get a very perverse outcome,” said Sean Cadman, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society of Australia.

Global as well as local economic forces are driving deforestation — Brazil and Indonesia lead the world in the extent of their rain forests lost each year. The forests are felled to help feed the world’s growing population and meet its growing appetite for meat. Much of Brazil’s soy is bought by American-based companies like Cargill or Archer Daniels Midland and used to feed cows as far away as Europe and China. In Indonesia, rain forests are felled to plant palms for the palm oil, which is a component of biofuels.

Brazil has tried to balance development and conservation.

Last year, with a grant from Norway that could bring the country $1 billion, it created an Amazon Fund to help communities maintain their forest. National laws stipulate that 80 percent of every tract in the upper Amazon — and 50 percent in more developed regions — must remain forested, but it is a vast territory with little law enforcement. Soy exporters officially have a moratorium on using product from newly deforested land.

Here in Mato Grasso, 700 square miles of rain forest was stripped in the last five months of 2007 alone, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, which tracks vanishing forests.

“With so much money to be made, there are no laws that will keep forest standing,” John Carter, a rancher who settled here 15 years ago, said as he flew his Cessna over the denuded land one day this summer.

Until very recently, developing the Amazon was the priority, and some settlers feel betrayed by the new stigma surrounding deforestation. Much as in the 19th-century American West, the Brazilian government encouraged settlement through homesteaders’ benefits like cheap land and housing subsidies, many of which still exist today.

“It was revolting and sad when the world said that deforestation was bad — we were told to come here and that we had to tear it down,” said Mato Grosso’s secretary of agriculture, Neldo Egon Weirich, 56, who moved here in 1978 and noted that to be eligible for loans to buy tractors and seed, a farmer had to clear 80 percent of his land.

He is proud to have turned Mato Grosso from a malarial zone into an agricultural powerhouse. “Mato Grosso is under a microscope — we know we have to do something,” Mr. Weirich said. “But we can’t just stop production.”

Even today, settlers around the globe are buying or claiming cheap “useless” forest and transforming it into farmland.

Clearing away the trees is often the best way to declare and ensure ownership. Land that Mr. Carter has intentionally left forested for its environmental benefit has been intermittently overtaken by squatters — a common problem here. In parts of Southeast Asia, early experiments in paying landowners for preserving forest have been hampered because it is often unclear who owns, or controls, property.

There are various ideas about how to rein in deforestation.

Mr. Carter has started a landowners’ environmental group, called Aliança da Terra, whose members agree to have their properties surveyed for good environmental practices and their forests tracked by satellite by scientists at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), ensuring that they are not cultivating newly cleared land. Mr. Carter is currently negotiating with companies like McDonalds to purchase only from farms that have been certified.

The United Nations program, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation or REDD, will reward countries that preserve forests with carbon credits that can be sold and turned into cash for forest owners through the global carbon market. The United Nations already gives such credits for cleaning factories and planting trees. Carbon credits are bought by companies or countries that have exceeded their emissions limits, as a way to balance their emissions budget.

Daniel Nepstad, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, has mapped out large areas of the Amazon “pixel by pixel” to determine the land value if it was converted to raise cattle or grow soy, to help determine how much landowners should be paid to conserve forest. Most experts feel that landowners will accept lower prices as they realize the benefits of saving forest, like conserving water and burnishing their image with buyers.

Mr. Weirich, the agriculture secretary, said he was skeptical about that. But he, too, senses that there may for the first time be money in forest preservation and has recently decided to be certified by Aliança da Terra.

“We want to adopt practices that will put us ahead in the market,” he said.

The initial offer Mr. Marcolini has from the environmental group is perhaps not enough to save the forest here. But, he said, if his land was in a more remote part of the Amazon, with less farming potential, “I’d take that offer and run with it.”

ClimateWire: How the World Bank Let 'Deal Making' Torch the Rainforests

Been working on this stuff for the past few weeks.

NYtimes:

The World Bank ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia, a stinging internal audit has found.

The report, detailing five years of funding from the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank, lambastes the agency for allowing commercial pressures to influence four separate loans aimed at developing the industry.

"The IFC was aware for more than 20 years that there were significant environmental and social issues and risks inherent in the oil palm sector in Indonesia," auditors wrote. "Despite awareness of the significant issues facing it, IFC did not develop a strategy for engaging in the oil palm sector. In the absence of a tailored strategy, deal making prevailed."

The report(pdf) from the office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman comes as Indonesia prepares to enter the carbon markets by protecting its tropical forests. Working in partnership with Australia, the Indonesian government currently is working to design a national carbon accounting system. Australia is building a satellite to monitor deforestation in the Southeast Asian country, according to new U.N. submissions.

Indonesia is home to the world's second-largest reserves of natural forests and peat swamps, which naturally trap carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas that causes climate change. But rampant destruction of the forests to make way for palm oil plantations has caused giant releases of CO2 into the atmosphere, making Indonesia the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet.

The audit does not address climate change or how lending for palm oil -- an ingredient in foods and a biofuel added to diesel for cars -- fits into the World Bank's new "strategic framework" for development and climate change. It also does not examine any of the specific charges or environmental accusations lodged against the firm to which the World Bank loaned money.

Rather, the report confines itself to whether the IFC abided by its own standards. On that front, the multilateral bank came up short.

IFC saw burning the trees as having 'no impact'

Specifically, auditors said, when loaning to Wilmar International Ltd. and other firms between 2003 and 2008, the IFC did not check out concerns about the companies' supply chain plantations. The Forest Peoples Programme, a U.K.-based nonprofit group that originally brought the complaint, charged that the companies illegally used fire to clear forestland, cleared primary forests, and seized lands belonging to indigenous people without due process.

The IFC, auditors noted, labeled the initial loan as a "category C" -- a listing signifying that a project has little or no adverse environmental or social impacts, and which is typically given to financial intermediaries. But by failing to examine the subsidiaries that source the raw materials, IFC ignored issues like the absence of publicly available environmental impact assessments for the subsidiary companies.

"For each investment, commercial pressures were allowed to prevail," auditors wrote. "Commercial pressures dominated."

In a written response to auditors, the IFC acknowledged shortcomings in the review process. But the lender also defended investment in palm oil production as a way to alleviate poverty in Indonesia.

"IFC believes that production of palm oil, when carried out in an environmentally and socially sustainable fashion, can provide core support for a strong rural economy, providing employment and improved quality of life for millions of the rural poor in tropical areas," it said.

Hunting for a 'sustainable' strategy

The agency vowed to develop a new strategy to guide its future palm oil investments, to be completed in about three months, and to put "renewed emphasis" on assessing a company's supply chain before lending.

Marcus Colchester, director of the Forest Peoples Programme, called that response "inadequate."

In a letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick and the board, Colchester and leaders of other nonprofit groups called on the World Bank to freeze palm oil lending, charging that IFC suffers a "systemic problem whereby the pressure to lend and to support business interests overcomes prudence, due diligence and concern for social and environmental outcomes."

They noted that the management response included no actions to address the problem of climate change being exacerbated by planting on peatlands and burning forests, and advised no discipline for staff that failed to comply with standards.

Barbara Bramble, a senior program adviser for international affairs at the National Wildlife Federation, said she believes the World Bank should help the Indonesian government at all levels change incentives for palm oil planting and refuse to invest in any company whose primary plantation is primary rainforest.

She, Colchester and even IMF officials widely agreed that there is in Indonesia an abundant amount of already degraded land that could be used for palm oil productuon. The challenge, Bramble said, is shifting national and local laws to encourage more sustainable production.

Meanwhile, the IFC indicated in a statement to E&E that the agency does not plan to give up palm oil investment anytime soon.

"IFC is aware of the environmental and social concerns associated with the palm oil sector in Indonesia. We also believe that the sector has considerable potential for job creation and economic growth," agency officials wrote. "We believe it is imperative to promote sustainable practices in the sector that will benefit the poor and preserve biodiversity."

Reuters: Kenya to plant 7.6 billion trees to check deforestation

Reuters:

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya said on Wednesday it would plant 7.6 billion trees over the next 20 years to redress decades of chopping down forest cover, the effect of which is now being felt in acute water and power shortages.

Just 3 percent of land in the agriculture-based east African economy is covered by forests that are protected by the authorities, compared with a government target of 10 percent.

"We will have to plant 4.1 million hectares in order to make a percentage that is internationally acceptable," Environment Minister John Michuki told reporters.

"You are talking about 7.6 billion trees," he said. "In my estimation, it is going to cost us $20 billion over 20 years."

That amount is nearly twice the government's annual spending, which will be about $11 billion in fiscal 2009/10.

By comparison, the authorities in Nairobi expect to spend just over $650 million this year on the country's crumbling roads, and around $400 million on energy projects.

The impact of forest destruction is being felt by Kenyans, with rivers drying up and hydro-electric power generation, farm production and tourism all suffering as a result.

Kenya's biggest forest, the Mau, has lost a quarter of its 400,000 hectares in recent years to unchecked human settlement, illegal logging and the burning of charcoal.

A report released by Prime Minister Raila Odinga last month showed that politicians had been allocated large parcels of Mau land by corrupt officials, mostly during the 1990s.

Michuki was speaking at the launch of a solar-charged mobile phone handset costing just 2,999 shilling ($39) by Safaricom, the nation's leading mobile operator.

There are some 18 million active SIM cards in Kenya. But only about 18 percent of its 36 million people have electricity in their homes. Mobile users in rural areas not linked to the national grid often have problems charging their phones.

(Reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

($1=76.65 Kenyan Shilling)

Greenpeace Report: Global Shoe Brands May Be Unwittingly Causing Deforestation in the Amazon

Evidently Nike Boots have some downsides.

The cattle-deforestation connection in the Amazon is fairly common knowledge, but a new report from Greenpeace drives home the point: Raising cattle for beef and leather is a major factor in deforestation in the Amazon, and several international shoe brands may be buying leather from deforested areas and may not even know they are doing it:



Slaughtering the Amazon lays out the startling rate at which cattle raising is driving deforestation, saying that 80% of all deforestation in the Amazon region is now due to legal and illegal cattle ranches. And that's according to the Brazilian government.

Brazil Beating Indonesia in Deforestation
In total Brazil now has the highest annual rate of deforestation anywhere in the world—which is saying something considering the rates at which Indonesia and Malaysia are chopping down forests in pursuit of more palm oil plantations. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon now accounts for 14% of total global deforestation.

All of this deforestation makes Brazil the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, when all sources of emissions (not just fossil fuel burning and industry) are considered.

Leather 'Laundering' Hides Source from Industry & Consumers
As far as the connection between shoe brands—Greenpeace singles out Adidas, Nike, Reebok, Timberland, and others—and leather from cattle raised in deforested areas is concerned, the report says that these brands may believe that they don't use leather from these sources, but the reality may be different:

Greenpeace’s undercover investigation into the Brazilian cattle industry has exposed the many convoluted steps in the complex global trade in leather and beef products from part-Brazilian-government-owned corporations Bertin, JBS and Marfrig. We have identified hundreds of ranches belonging to these companies that are within the Amazon rainforest and supplying cattle to slaughterhouses in the Amazon region. Where we were able to obtain mapped boundaries for ranches, satellite analysis reveals that significant supplies of cattle come from ranches active in recent and illegal deforestation. Trade data also reveal trade with ranches using modern-day slavery. Additionally, one Bertin slaughterhouse receives supplies of cattle from an illegal ranch occupying Indian Lands.

These slaughterhouses in the Amazon region ship their hides and beef to company facilities thousands of miles away in the south of Brazil for further processing before export. In a number of cases, additional processing takes place in import countries before the final product reaches the market. In effect, criminal or “dirty” supplies of cattle are being “laundered” through this supply chain to an unwitting global market.

Brazil Seeks to Strengthen Position as World's Largest Beef Exporter
All of this is a minimum overlooked by the Brazilian government, and at worst aided and abetted:

The Brazilian government is bankrolling a massive expansion of the cattle industry in an attempt to dominate the global market for agricultural commodities, including cattle products. Brazil already maintains the largest commercial cattle herd in the world, and is the leading exporter of beef as well as the largest exporter of tanned leather (a title it shares with China). The total value of Brazil’s cattle trade in 2008 was nearly $7 billion, more than a quarter of which came from leather. One in every three tons of beef traded internationally comes from Brazil, and the country’s government forecasts that by 2018 almost two out of every three tons of beef will come from Brazil.

Just a reminder (again), tropical deforestation is responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions—even more than from all transportation sources in the world combined.