{"id":686,"date":"2016-02-26T14:09:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T14:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dupladinamica.com.br\/?p=686"},"modified":"2016-02-26T14:09:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T14:09:56","slug":"meet-the-man-who-turned-a-notorious-center-of-deforestation-into-brazils-first-green-municipality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/noticias-e-editais\/noticias\/meet-the-man-who-turned-a-notorious-center-of-deforestation-into-brazils-first-green-municipality\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet The Man Who Turned A Notorious Center Of Deforestation Into Brazil\u2019s First \u201cGreen Municipality\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors: <\/strong>Steve Zwick and Ciro Calderon<\/p>\n

Consumer giants like Unilever and Marks&Spencer have promised to source materials from states and regions that slash deforestation, but slowing deforestation requires buy-in at every level of society. Here\u2019s how one Brazilian jurisdiction became the country\u2019s first \u201cGreen Municipality\u201d, and why that success may prove difficult to replicate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>This is the first in a series of stories examining the emergence of Brazil\u2019s Green Municipalities: what they can achieve, what they can\u2019t, and what must happen for them to succeed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

9 February 2016 |<\/strong>\u00a0Adnan Demachki hadn\u2019t caught a good night\u2019s sleep in days \u2013 not since the riots started.<\/p>\n

The year was 2008, and the riots began on November 28 \u2013 exactly eight months after he\u2019d begun transforming Paragominas from an environmental pariah into a\u00a0Munic\u00edpio Verde,<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cGreen Municipality\u201d \u2013 although \u201ccounty\u201d might be a better way to translate\u00a0munic\u00edpio.<\/em>\u00a0Paragominas sprawls across more than 19,000 square kilometers \u2013 nearly 7,500 square miles \u2013 of forests, farms, and fields in the Brazilian Amazon, and in 2007, it had the second-highest rate of deforestation in all of Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, most people equated Paragominas with deforestation,\u201d Demachki recalls. \u201cThe only time we made the news, it was about illegal logging, murders, blood, conflicts, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Green Municipality program was supposed to end that, and for a few months, it succeeded \u2013 but now it had all gone horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

He turned on the local news: there was his City Hall in flames, his constituents battling each other in the streets, his police staring them down, and his grand plan to save the rural economy by saving the forest taking the blame.<\/p>\n

Then came the national news, and he cringed at the sight of Paragominas there as well \u2013 the torched local offices of IBAMA, which is often described as Brazil\u2019s \u201cenvironmental police\u201d, but the acronym translates as the \u201cBrazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources\u201d. Technically, it\u2019s the Ministry of Environment\u2019s administrative arm, but it does have some police powers, and it did seize those logging trucks\u2026<\/p>\n

With trepidation, he turned to BBC.<\/p>\n

Surely<\/em>, he hoped,\u00a0they won\u2019t care about an obscure local dispute deep in the Amazon.<\/em><\/p>\n

But they\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0care, and that meant it was all unraveling \u2013 all the trust he\u2019d built among environmentalists and reputation-sensitive food giants, which in turn was built on agreements he\u2019d forged among cattlemen and loggers and settlers and indigenous people. \u00a0It was all going up in smoke \u2013 along with City Hall, along with IBAMA, and along with the Amazon rainforest \u2013 and this just two months after he\u2019d won re-election.<\/p>\n

His phone vibrated.<\/p>\n

It was a text, from a number he\u2019d never seen before, requesting his presence the next morning in the charred City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d he answered. \u201cI\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he sat down to produce two documents.<\/p>\n

The first was a letter of apology to Brazil\u2019s Minister of the Environment, Carlos Minc, and to the nation as a whole, asking Brazil to forgive the people of Paragominas and reiterating his promise to end deforestation by the year 2014. It left room for signatures from 51 organizations.<\/p>\n

The second was his letter of resignation.<\/p>\n

If they\u2019re not behind this Green Municipality idea<\/em>, he thought to himself,\u00a0then I have nothing to offer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And with that, he began another sleepless night.<\/p>\n

How it Came to This<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next two days would have profound implications for Paragominas and the entire Amazon Rainforest, and the consequences are being felt to this day, but the sequence of events that culminated in late 2008 began five years earlier, when President Luiz In\u00e1cio \u201cLula\u201d da Silva took office and appointed Marina Silva as his minister of environment. The daughter of rubber tappers in the state of Acre, her appointment sparked high hopes among environmentalists \u2013 and it didn\u2019t hurt that her last name, as well as Lula\u2019s, means \u201cforest\u201d in Latin.<\/p>\n

At the time, Brazil was losing a record\u00a025,000 square kilometers of forest per year<\/a>, according to the\u00a0National Institute for Space Research<\/a>\u00a0(INPE), and it accounted for 5% of the world\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

Lula launched a US$136 crusade against forest destruction \u2013 establishing land-use controls, promoting sustainable development, and ramping up enforcement of forest laws. Marina, as her supporters refer to her, started beefing up the previously impotent IBAMA, but landowners pushed back: the\u00a0Forest Code<\/a>, they said, was vague and contradictory, making enforcement uneven and unfair. Until then, it had also been non-existent.<\/p>\n

A New Forest Code, and the Black List<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lawmakers began\u00a0updating the country\u2019s strict but poorly-enforced Forest Code<\/a>, and by 2007 they\u2019d agreed on a clearer \u2013 and in some ways more lenient \u2013 law, but one that was also eminently enforceable and came with positive incentives to comply.<\/p>\n

The old rules still applied: Amazonian landowners still couldn\u2019t convert more than 20% of their forestland to farms, but the new rule would be enforced with a combination of fines and incentives, as well as amnesty of sorts for the farmers of Paragominas, which was classified as a \u201cconsolidated development area\u201d. That meant landowners could be forgiven for exceeding their 20% limit, but only if the excess deforestation happened before 2008 and only if it didn\u2019t exceed 50%.<\/p>\n

Also in 2007, an NGO called the Institute of Man and Environment in the Amazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amaz\u00f4nia<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cImazon<\/a>\u201d) started\u00a0processing data from NASA satellites<\/a>\u00a0and publishing state-by-state deforestation rates every few weeks. The data clearly showed that some states were worse than others, and that Mato Grosso and Par\u00e1, where Paragominas was located, had the highest rates of all.<\/p>\n

On top of this, Lula asked Ibama\u00b4s environmental protection director, Flavio Montiel, to identify the municipalities with the worst records and put them on a \u201cBlack List\u201d (the favored name is now \u201cCritic List\u201d). He identified 36 municipalities that, combined, represented just 6% of the jurisdictions in the Amazon, but accounted for more than half of deforestation in 2007. Almost half of them \u2013 17 to be exact \u2013 were in Par\u00e1 state.<\/p>\n

Paragominas was second on the list, and it immediately lost access to credit and faced an embargo on new land permits, while IBAMA \u2013 together with the Federal Police and the National Army \u2013 launched an enforcement mechanism called\u00a0Arco de Fogo<\/em>, or Arc of Fire. Landowners who exceeded their tree-chopping allowance were soon being visited by armed soldiers, who often arrived by helicopter, and commandos began tossing illegal loggers out of the forest and shutting down charcoal plants and illegal sawmills.<\/p>\n

From \u201cBlack List\u201d to \u201cGreen Municipality\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Demachki had anticipated the Forest Code, and he was in the process of steering his community towards more sustainable practices, but the Black List caught him by surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already knew we had to straighten ourselves out, but it wasn\u2019t only about illegal logging,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew it was bigger than that \u2013 but how big?\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked Imazon to help him map the municipality and identify the drivers of deforestation. Not surprisingly, he found, most of it had come from the soybean boom, with the expansion of cattle not far behind. Logging made headlines, but it was minimal and mostly confined to illegal incursions into indigenous territories, primarily the forest that belonged to the Tembe people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to get off the Black List, but what were we getting into?\u201d he asks. \u201cWe wanted to preserve, but preserve what?\u201d<\/p>\n

With Imazon\u2019s land-use data, he started finding answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe identified the areas that could be preserved, the ones that were in production, and those that could be reforested,\u201d he says. \u201cThen we started reaching out to businesses \u2013 individually at first to identify conflicts and commonalities, starting with the forest sector, then the farmers and ranchers, then commerce, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over time, the groups became cross-sectoral, and there were meetings every night for three weeks straight in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent every night talking about behavior change, the way we manage ourselves as a municipality, global warming, climate change,\u201d Demachki recalls.<\/p>\n

By all accounts, it was an inclusive process, involving the heads of the various farmers\u2019 unions, the loggers\u2019 associations, the laborers who turned illegally-harvested wood into charcoal.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp to then, we\u2019d been growing by chopping the forest, so we were growing horizontally,\u201d Demachki says. \u201cMost of the farmers understood that we needed to grow vertically instead \u2013 meaning using information and technology to make our agriculture more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labor understood, too, and he promised to court new industries, like frozen-food plants and furniture factories using sustainably-harvested wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was to add more value locally instead of just exporting raw materials,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople were receptive, and even the loggers understood their business wasn\u2019t sustainable in the long term. Plus, most of what they were doing was already illegal \u2013 we were just enforcing the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Demachki convened a meeting in City Hall on February 28, 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt lasted four hours, and we emerged with a social agreement that included a zero deforestation clause,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was signed by the heads of 51 organizations, representing civil society, labor, companies, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agreement vowed to end illegal deforestation immediately and begin re-shaping Paragominas into a Green Municipality, with zero net deforestation by 2014 and 100 million new trees planted in rural areas. Each city, it said, would have 12 square meters of green space per resident.<\/p>\n

Sustainable Amazon<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the same time, Lula and the governors of the Amazon states \u2013 Acre, Amap\u00e1 , Amazonas, Maranh\u00e3o, Mato Grosso, Par\u00e1, Rond\u00f4nia , Roraima and Tocantins \u2013 launched the Sustainable Amazon Plan (Plano Amaz\u00f4nia Sustent\u00e1vel<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or \u201cPAS), \u00a0which was a roadmap for municipalities to get off the Black List.<\/p>\n

Although called a \u201cplan\u201d, the PAS is really a set of guidelines that the states agreed to follow while trying to balance growth and conservation. The idea was to impose enough regulation to slow deforestation, while leaving enough flexibility to meet the social and cultural particularities of each state.<\/p>\n

Assembling the CAR<\/strong><\/p>\n

A cornerstone of the PAS was the\u00a0CAR<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the\u00a0Cadastro Ambiental Rural<\/em>, or \u201cRural Environmental Registry\u201d, which is a national database of rural properties. Registration was voluntary, but any blacklisted municipality had to get 80% of its land onto the CAR to get off the list \u2013 and that was no easy task.<\/p>\n

To begin with, the population of the Amazon\u2019s \u201cnew frontier\u201d had increased more than six-fold between 1960 and 1970, as the government incentivized land clearing. These rural pioneers rarely gained official land title, and it was nearly impossible to tell which farmers were responsible for which rainforest destruction.<\/p>\n

On top of that, farmers often balked at getting on the CAR \u2013 an act many saw as akin to sticking your head into the lion\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n

To reach them, Demachki and Imazon turned to another environmental group: The Nature Conservancy (TNC)<\/p>\n

Overcoming CAR Resistance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lula\u2019s arrival coincided with burgeoning awareness among consumers that Brazil\u2019s soybean farms and ranches were driving deforestation. As a result, environmental pressure groups started shining a light on household brands that sourced their products from the Amazon, prompting them to pressure their own suppliers \u2013 like food giant Cargill \u2013 to begin tracking their own suppliers, of which there were hundreds of thousands.<\/p>\n

TNC had been working with Cargill since 2004 to monitor the deforestation impact of soy producers in Santar\u00e9m, in western Par\u00e1. It had learned to understand and appreciate the needs and fears of farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re basically afraid they\u2019ll get hit with a massive fine if their land is mapped and it shows they\u2019ve exceeded their deforestation limit,\u201d says Ian Thompson, Director of TNC\u2019s Amazon Conservation Program. \u201cTheir fears are normally exaggerated, and we tend to focus on the benefits of compliance: peace of mind, and access to credit and to the major markets, plus the ability to plan their production much better, because they end up with a better understanding of their own land use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demachki invited TNC to join Imazon in his offices, and Thompson recalls an incident that almost derailed the whole process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sitting in Adnan [Demachki]\u2019s office, and there was a farmer waiting there with some documents,\u201d he says. \u201cThen someone from the prosecutor\u2019s office said something to the effect of, \u2018Now, with CAR, we can levy fines on the right people and hold them responsible for their actions.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The farmer folded his documents and left.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started telling people it was a trap, and everything stopped right then,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n

Demachki then called the governor\u2019s office and arranged a public meeting, with prosecutors from the state and municipal level stating clearly and on-the-record \u2013 in front of rolling cameras \u2013 that the CAR registration drive wasn\u2019t a trap, but a way to get everyone into compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic idea was that, prior to 2008, the rules weren\u2019t clear, so if you\u2019re found to have exceeded the allowance in that period, the government would work with you \u2013 maybe arrange someone with excess forest to lease you some \u2013 but if you cleared the land after 2008, you\u2019d be in trouble,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n

Uneven Acceptance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Slowly, farmers began to join the CAR \u2013 and many early-movers said they were able to better manage their land as a result.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these guys never had maps before,\u201d says Thompson. \u201cNow, they could look and say, \u2018Well, this land is really unproductive, let\u2019s give it back to nature,\u2019 and if they were out of compliance, they could come back in quite easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demachki handily won re-election on October 4, but it was slow going, and not everyone was keeping up their end of the bargain.<\/p>\n

The loggers, for example, continued to poach timber from the Tembe indigenous territory, and the illegal factories continued to turn much of that wood into charcoal. Damachki and IBAMA clamped down on these operations, but his efforts to attract new businesses languished \u2013 largely because of the municipality\u2019s dirty reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat stigma was hard to overcome,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tensions began to build between the farmers \u2013 who saw a clear benefit to the Green Municipality initiative \u2013 and the loggers, who didn\u2019t. It escalated as IBAMA confiscated 15 truckloads of illegally-harvested timber, and it all came to a head after the November 15 Republic Day celebrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people burned the trucks, which belonged to logging companies, and the employees of these companies were completely desperate,\u201d says Damachki. \u201cThe loggers retaliated, and they were joined by the unemployed people, and in that confusion, the riot started.\u201d<\/p>\n

The date was November 28, 2008: eight months to the day after the Green Municipality agreement had been signed.<\/p>\n

Into the Lions\u2019 Den<\/strong><\/p>\n

Damachki arrived at city hall as he promised, and it was packed.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was there!\u201d he says. \u201cLoggers, civil society, people in commerce.\u201d<\/p>\n

He presented the letter that he calls his\u00a0Apology to the Nation<\/em>, and made his case.<\/p>\n

The world is watching, he said, and he implored them to reaffirm the deal they made eight months earlier \u2013 or, he warned, they\u2019d give up all hope of attracting the kind of jobs they needed.<\/p>\n

Most agreed, but the logging and labor factions balked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed unanimous support, or we would never overcome the stigma,\u201d Damachki says.<\/p>\n

He dug into his pocket and offered his letter of resignation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reprodu\u00e7\u00e3o de\u00a0Ecosystem Marketplace<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors: Steve Zwick and Ciro Calderon Consumer giants like Unilever and Marks&Spencer have promised to source materials from states and regions that slash deforestation, but slowing deforestation requires buy-in at every level of society. Here\u2019s how one Brazilian jurisdiction became the country\u2019s first \u201cGreen Municipality\u201d, and why that success may prove difficult to replicate. \u00a0This […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noticias"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecam.org.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}