Thursday, July 2, 2009

How To Cover Ugly Pipes

Deforestation and carbon credits

Seeing REDD in the Amazon

Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print
edition
Saving rainforests needs BOTH property rights and payments

Still Pictures

FORESTS lock up a lot of carbon. Cutting them down accounts for around 20% of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases. On paper, halting deforestation should be the simplest way to cut emissions. Achieving a similar reduction by building wind turbines or nuclear-power stations, or by mandating more fuel-efficient cars and buildings, would take years and cost billions. In practice, however, halting deforestation is hard: much of the world’s rainforest has already succumbed to loggers and farmers. That is because it is difficult to align the interests of people who live in forests (now 20m in the Brazilian Amazon) with those of the rest of humanity.

The best way of doing so involves a mixture of two ideas: establishing clear property rights over land and paying its owners not to cut down trees. If these policies are to work anywhere, it will be in Brazil, which possesses 60% of the world’s greatest tropical forest. Brazil has powerful motives for preserving the Amazon. Deforestation does terrible damage to the reputation of a country that is a pioneer in renewable energy. It also puts at risk the Amazon rain factory that enables Brazil to be one of the world’s biggest agricultural exporters.

Brazil now has a sophisticated system for monitoring deforestation from satellites and aeroplanes. It has set aside some 40% of the Amazon as national parks or Indian reserves. It has laws that restrict deforestation in the rest. The problem is enforcing those laws over a vast area where many of the inhabitants dislike the rules (see article). The first step is a proper land registry to confirm who owns what. Some 15-25% of the Amazon is private property, which is supposed to be kept 80% forested (though often is not). Most of the rest is nominally federal land, but in practice is up for grabs: title deeds are forged, people are killed and deforestation accelerates because of competing claims. Some farmers even clear trees as a way to solidify land claims: fines from Brazil’s environmental agency can create a paper trail that acts as proof of ownership.

A law approved this month by Brazil’s Congress aspires to end this mess—but at a price. It would grant title to all landholdings up to 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) occupied before 2005 in the Amazon, comprising an area the size of France, and ban further land claims. The law entrenches injustice: it risks rewarding people who used violence to obtain land, including large landholders who occupy almost 90% of the area under discussion. Brazilian greens want to limit the measure to smaller plots, and to ban their resale for ten years.

Yet that risks defeating the object. Better for the government to complement this attempt to end battles over privately owned land with a decision to take the rest of the Amazon into public ownership, as parks or reserves. Countries with rainforests also need to have due regard for their preservation and for the Indians who live in them when allowing mining and oil exploration. The lack of such procedures was behind a bloody clash in Peru this month (see article).
Lay down that axe and you will get cash

At the moment it makes economic sense to cut down trees: those who do so can sell the timber and turn the land into farms or ranches. So the second idea for saving forests lies in changing economic incentives by paying people not to chop down trees—an idea known in the ghastly jargon of climate-change diplomacy as “reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation” (REDD). Since many rich countries felled their forests as they developed it seems fair that they should pay some of the cost of this.

There are difficulties, though. One is that “avoided deforestation” is hard to define and quantify. Another, raised by officials in Europe who have chosen not to include REDD in the European carbon-trading scheme, is that the carbon market would be flooded with deforestation credits that will push down the price. Companies would then buy cheap credits and continue doing business as usual rather than cutting their own emissions. Further tricky issues abound: who should have the right to sell credits? How should the money be split between central governments, local governments and indigenous people? And should the money be paid in perpetuity?

REDD schemes will require careful monitoring to ensure that forests really are left intact and that carbon credits for an area are not claimed more than once. Murky goings-on in Papua New Guinea, one of the leading advocates of REDD, highlight such worries (see article).

Even so, it is worth trying, simply because avoiding deforestation is so effective in slowing carbon emissions. So REDD deserves a place in the world climate treaty to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December, to replace the Kyoto treaty when it expires in 2012. As with other forms of carbon credit, today’s voluntary and experimental REDD schemes will need to be replaced by more rigorously accredited and monitored schemes. But they have a chance of working only if the countries in which they operate define forest land rights clearly. Brazil’s flawed attempt to do this is a step forward.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Without Clothes In Fashoin Tv

The Indians, a small radio, no light. The trench in the Amazon by Don Mario

Originario di Ascoli Piceno, padre Bartolini è da trent' anni jungle

An Italian priest against deforestation, "In Peru we were the first to move 'The world' s found now, with the massacre, but our rivers are already polluted by oil, our children have blood lead and animals die every day

RIO DE JANEIRO - In the week will appear in court. Incitement to revolt, perhaps even terrorism. Hours to ascend the river to Yurimaguas, accompanied as usual by friends campesinos. May even, he says, to be expelled from Peru, after 31 years of missionary work and social, because here's residence, but is an Italian citizen. Father Mario Bartolini, 70, Ascoli Piceno, is a charismatic figure of the movement of Indians and peasants, who is challenging the government in Lima. The reach to Tarapoto, where he attends a convention: in the village of a thousand souls, of which he is pastor, Barranquita, there 'is just a radio telephone and electric light for all. Prefer to speak English, 'Italy is a distant memory. "There have been the 'last time to hug my mother before she died." And then, "even the 'Europe is responsible for the crime of colonialism, the tragedy of these people." Don Mario, the Passionist Congregation, is a priest in the trenches in the forest. His pulpit is a small radio station, Voz de Cainarachi Barranquita and started the first battle resistance to the decrees of exploiting the 'Amazon of the government of Lima, which resulted in the massacre of Indians and policemen Cagua. It has been repeatedly denounced and threatened with death. But it has no intention of stopping. His enemy is the group Romero, of giant 'agribusinesses in Peru, he managed to get himself assigned by the government 30,000 acres of virgin forest in the territory of his parish to clear and then replace the trees with oil plants for the production of biodiesel. "A sort of dress rehearsal to the destruction of 'the Peruvian Amazon, so we were the first to move." "The world has discovered in Peru these days, with the massacre, but our rivers are already polluted by oil, our children have lead and cadmium in blood and every day I see animals die and flee from the forest to destruction. " Father Mario does not believe a word of what the government said the massacre Cagua. "They control all the media and the conscience. The Indians are a peaceful movement, have no firearms and were only defended by the police. They say that Alberto Pizango (leader of the revolt, ed) and fled to Bolivia, just throw everything in politics, to say that the Indians are behind Morales and Chávez. " And the policemen had their throats slit by the protesters? "It's not true at all. Our only defended themselves. All nonsense, an excuse to impose 'Peruvian Amazon state of emergency and curfew. " To history of development of jobs in the forest that was created with the new investment does not believe his father Mario, "Do not you ever seen. The regions where there are the multinational oil and wood are the ones with the highest rates of poverty, disease and marginalization. The government is working 's agreement with the United States to change our laws, clear rules of the Constitution that speak of forest protection and indigenous peoples. " Throw the breath, says he has to go, it expects a group of farmers from a nearby region, have a serious problem as Barranquita. "The Catholic Church? It is with me, here in our region also hierarchies are close to the poor. Indeed, we are the 'only force that is opposing the lies and corruption. The money is buying everything, I open the newspapers and they describe me as a man possessed criminal, and they sent someone to write death threats on the walls of the parish. But I will not move from here, they can arrest me or kick me from Peru, I know, but it is a risk that I face. " "My people do not have any - continues -. The white elites of the coast, the same fellow of the Indians and campesinos, call them perros, dogs, second-class citizens, unnecessary obstacles to their ambitions. " You truce at this time, the roadblocks were removed, the movement of the Indians want to sit at a table, discuss. "But the government will stay there? I have my doubts. The fight must continue tutti i fine when the decree sull 'Amazzonia verranno ritirati. Terre degli Indian Queste sleep, dall 'inizio della Storia and it devono per restare ever. " Rocco Cotronei Nella foresta

Cotronei Rocco


Pagina 23 (8 giugno 2009) - Corriere della Sera