In view of the growing deforestation in the country, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles (Novo-SP) says that the Amazon will only be preserved if "capitalist solutions" are found that give economic dynamism to the forest and generate income for the approximately 20 million Brazilians who inhabit the region.
In an interview with BBC News Brasil, Salles criticized the way in which conservation units and indigenous lands have been created in the Amazon in past governments - a strategy that, according to experts, has had a major impact on reducing deforestation rates in the forest. According to the minister, the creation of these areas led to land conflicts and denied Brazilians access to a large portion of the national territory.
Salles was appointed by physicist Ricardo Galvão as one of the pivots of his resignation from the board of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in early August. The minister had been criticizing data from the agency that have pointed to a rise in deforestation in the Amazon under the Bolsonaro government.
The deforestation alerts in the Amazon of the Deter system, by INPE, grew 278% in July compared to the same month in 2018. In June, the increase had been 88%.
The data and Galvão's resignation have expanded the spotlight on the federal government's environmental policy, which has received criticism from environmentalists, foreign leaders and even agribusiness sectors, who fear damage to the image of Brazilian agricultural production abroad.
With a law degree from Mackenzie University in São Paulo, Salles took over the Environment Ministry after he headed the Environment Secretariat of the State of São Paulo under the Geraldo Alckmin government (PSDB), of which he had been private secretary. Before that, he was one of the founders of the Endireita Brasil movement and legal director of the Brazilian Rural Society.
He left the post of secretary in the São Paulo government after the State Public Ministry accused him of adulterating a zoning plan for a protected area in the floodplain of the Tietê River, in Greater São Paulo, to favor mining companies.
Salles was sentenced for administrative misconduct and the loss of political rights for three years. If the sentence is confirmed in second instance, he will fall under the Clean Record Law and will be prevented from running for public office.
The minister appealed the decision. He denies having committed crimes and says the conviction reflects a "mistaken, prejudiced and persecutory view of the private sector.
In 2018, Salles ran for federal deputy for the New Party, but was not elected. It was his third candidacy - in the previous ones, he fought for the position of federal deputy for the PFL (current DEM) in 2006, and that of state deputy for the DEM in 2010, both without success.
Check out the main parts of the interview, granted last Wednesday (14) in the Superintendence of Ibama in Sao Paulo.
BBC News Brasil - You have been defending the need for the government to buy a service from a private image company that would serve for real-time monitoring with greater accuracy of deforestation in the Amazon. What is the progress of this proposal and how much would it cost?
Ricardo Salles - We have two systems (from INPE) working in the Amazon: Prodes, which measures annual deforestation, and Deter, which is the deforestation alert, which therefore, theoretically, serves to guide the inspection of deforestation. However, the Deter is not a diary about the same locations and the accuracy of the images is 50, 60 meters. So, it is not effectively an instrument for this. What we want to hire is a really real-time system, in which more than a hundred satellites operate at the same time, giving high-resolution images, therefore three meters (precision) daily. And it has change detection, which shows the polygon (the monitored area in the forest) that is being altered. This will guide the inspection. So, without canceling Prodes and Deter, which continue, we want to add this high-resolution image system.
Initially, (we will hire images) in an area of 1 million square kilometers that corresponds to the so-called arc of deforestation (which goes from the east and south of Pará towards the west, passing through Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Acre), where it has the highest intensity of deforestation. Of the 5 million square kilometers of the Amazon, 1 million corresponds to the arc of deforestation.
In an interview with BBC News Brasil, Salles criticized the way in which conservation units and indigenous lands have been created in the Amazon in past governments - a strategy that, according to experts, has had a major impact on reducing deforestation rates in the forest. According to the minister, the creation of these areas led to land conflicts and denied Brazilians access to a large portion of the national territory.
Salles was appointed by physicist Ricardo Galvão as one of the pivots of his resignation from the board of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in early August. The minister had been criticizing data from the agency that have pointed to a rise in deforestation in the Amazon under the Bolsonaro government.
The deforestation alerts in the Amazon of the Deter system, by INPE, grew 278% in July compared to the same month in 2018. In June, the increase had been 88%.
The data and Galvão's resignation have expanded the spotlight on the federal government's environmental policy, which has received criticism from environmentalists, foreign leaders and even agribusiness sectors, who fear damage to the image of Brazilian agricultural production abroad.
With a law degree from Mackenzie University in São Paulo, Salles took over the Environment Ministry after he headed the Environment Secretariat of the State of São Paulo under the Geraldo Alckmin government (PSDB), of which he had been private secretary. Before that, he was one of the founders of the Endireita Brasil movement and legal director of the Brazilian Rural Society.
He left the post of secretary in the São Paulo government after the State Public Ministry accused him of adulterating a zoning plan for a protected area in the floodplain of the Tietê River, in Greater São Paulo, to favor mining companies.
Salles was sentenced for administrative misconduct and the loss of political rights for three years. If the sentence is confirmed in second instance, he will fall under the Clean Record Law and will be prevented from running for public office.
The minister appealed the decision. He denies having committed crimes and says the conviction reflects a "mistaken, prejudiced and persecutory view of the private sector.
In 2018, Salles ran for federal deputy for the New Party, but was not elected. It was his third candidacy - in the previous ones, he fought for the position of federal deputy for the PFL (current DEM) in 2006, and that of state deputy for the DEM in 2010, both without success.
Check out the main parts of the interview, granted last Wednesday (14) in the Superintendence of Ibama in Sao Paulo.
BBC News Brasil - You have been defending the need for the government to buy a service from a private image company that would serve for real-time monitoring with greater accuracy of deforestation in the Amazon. What is the progress of this proposal and how much would it cost?
Ricardo Salles - We have two systems (from INPE) working in the Amazon: Prodes, which measures annual deforestation, and Deter, which is the deforestation alert, which therefore, theoretically, serves to guide the inspection of deforestation. However, the Deter is not a diary about the same locations and the accuracy of the images is 50, 60 meters. So, it is not effectively an instrument for this. What we want to hire is a really real-time system, in which more than a hundred satellites operate at the same time, giving high-resolution images, therefore three meters (precision) daily. And it has change detection, which shows the polygon (the monitored area in the forest) that is being altered. This will guide the inspection. So, without canceling Prodes and Deter, which continue, we want to add this high-resolution image system.
Initially, (we will hire images) in an area of 1 million square kilometers that corresponds to the so-called arc of deforestation (which goes from the east and south of Pará towards the west, passing through Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Acre), where it has the highest intensity of deforestation. Of the 5 million square kilometers of the Amazon, 1 million corresponds to the arc of deforestation.
Salles - The images they have are backwards. MapBiomas has sent alerts to the government that are from 2017, 2018. What does a 2018 alert do for me? It's no use. I want an image today of what happened yesterday, to guide the enforcement today. That's what we want.
BBC News Brasil - The academics who study the increase in deforestation from 2012 do not attribute this increase to limitations of the images, what they point out is the worsening in the issue of inspection, or who have stopped advancing the demarcations (of indigenous lands) and the creation of conservation units.
Salles - In my opinion, the problem has nothing to do with this. The question of demarcations is an ideological question. They want the demarcations to continue and we understand that this is not the solution. They're trying to discourage a hiring (of images) using an explanation that has nothing to do with the origin of the problem.
The inspection has only 50% of the staff (which it had before) because in recent years they have not hired due to budgetary problems, management problems. There is a resistance (to buy the images) that can only be explained by those who do not want to lose the monopoly of information. The Inpe system does not provide us with this information in the way we want and we want to have this information within the government's monitoring system.
BBC News Brasil - The former director of Inpe Ricardo Galvão told BBC News Brasil that in his administration the communication between Inpe and Ibama (responsible for monitoring deforestation) was cut off. Is Ibama accessing information from Inpe and acting on this information to contain deforestation?
Salles - Ibama continues to work as it always has. There was no impediment for Ibama to work, no order to stop carrying out inspections. This is the first fact.
According to the fact, there was also no interruption between the technical staff of Ibama and Inpe. Cenima (Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Informações Ambientais - National Center for Monitoring and Environmental Information), within IBAMA, has always spoken to INPE. They continue having the same relationship since always. However, access to Inpe's data was gained before Ibama's own. And these data began to be published in the press before IBAMA.
BBC News Brasil - But they are available in real time to Ibama. How did Ibama not have access to them?
Salles - That's not true. The Inpe system is not updated for several days. And sometimes there are retroactive updates. We have several windows during these six months in which the Inpe system for Ibama was without any update, and the update came retroactively, and came a day or two days after the press had commented that it had this update. In fact there is a question of communication and this communication seems to us to be an issue to be really resolved.
BBC News Brasil - You said that Ibama is working normally. But we have data that, although Deter's deforestation alerts have increased a lot this year, the fines have fallen drastically in relation to the last few years (the fines imposed up to the beginning of August this year are 30% lower than the average for the same period of the three previous years). What explains this discrepancy?
Salles - First, the number of infraction notices did not fall so radically. Maybe what fell was the consistency of the infraction notices. What we have criticized from the beginning is that the volume of infraction notices does not mean result metrics. So much so that only 1% of the infraction notices result in a lawsuit that comes to an end. This shows that having a large volume of infraction notices has not resulted in good public policy.
It is better to have solid infraction notices, really based on a reasoned notice and that reach the end of the process, that is, result in the punishment of those who effectively committed some environmental criminal act. Therefore, the merely numerical question is not indicative. On the other hand, we also have, in this period, a decrease, which comes from behind, of the staff, of resources of Ibama's actions. This is budgetary, it comes from 2012 to here.
What are we trying to do? It is to create mechanisms to overcome this lack. For example, the use of special per diems so that the environmental military police of the Amazon states can start collaborating with the technical staff of Ibama, and with this we have an increase in our inspection staff.
BBC News Brasil - Doesn't this lower emphasis on fines for environmental crimes contrast with a government that was elected promising to fight crime as one of its priorities?
BBC News Brasil - The academics who study the increase in deforestation from 2012 do not attribute this increase to limitations of the images, what they point out is the worsening in the issue of inspection, or who have stopped advancing the demarcations (of indigenous lands) and the creation of conservation units.
Salles - In my opinion, the problem has nothing to do with this. The question of demarcations is an ideological question. They want the demarcations to continue and we understand that this is not the solution. They're trying to discourage a hiring (of images) using an explanation that has nothing to do with the origin of the problem.
The inspection has only 50% of the staff (which it had before) because in recent years they have not hired due to budgetary problems, management problems. There is a resistance (to buy the images) that can only be explained by those who do not want to lose the monopoly of information. The Inpe system does not provide us with this information in the way we want and we want to have this information within the government's monitoring system.
BBC News Brasil - The former director of Inpe Ricardo Galvão told BBC News Brasil that in his administration the communication between Inpe and Ibama (responsible for monitoring deforestation) was cut off. Is Ibama accessing information from Inpe and acting on this information to contain deforestation?
Salles - Ibama continues to work as it always has. There was no impediment for Ibama to work, no order to stop carrying out inspections. This is the first fact.
According to the fact, there was also no interruption between the technical staff of Ibama and Inpe. Cenima (Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Informações Ambientais - National Center for Monitoring and Environmental Information), within IBAMA, has always spoken to INPE. They continue having the same relationship since always. However, access to Inpe's data was gained before Ibama's own. And these data began to be published in the press before IBAMA.
BBC News Brasil - But they are available in real time to Ibama. How did Ibama not have access to them?
Salles - That's not true. The Inpe system is not updated for several days. And sometimes there are retroactive updates. We have several windows during these six months in which the Inpe system for Ibama was without any update, and the update came retroactively, and came a day or two days after the press had commented that it had this update. In fact there is a question of communication and this communication seems to us to be an issue to be really resolved.
BBC News Brasil - You said that Ibama is working normally. But we have data that, although Deter's deforestation alerts have increased a lot this year, the fines have fallen drastically in relation to the last few years (the fines imposed up to the beginning of August this year are 30% lower than the average for the same period of the three previous years). What explains this discrepancy?
Salles - First, the number of infraction notices did not fall so radically. Maybe what fell was the consistency of the infraction notices. What we have criticized from the beginning is that the volume of infraction notices does not mean result metrics. So much so that only 1% of the infraction notices result in a lawsuit that comes to an end. This shows that having a large volume of infraction notices has not resulted in good public policy.
It is better to have solid infraction notices, really based on a reasoned notice and that reach the end of the process, that is, result in the punishment of those who effectively committed some environmental criminal act. Therefore, the merely numerical question is not indicative. On the other hand, we also have, in this period, a decrease, which comes from behind, of the staff, of resources of Ibama's actions. This is budgetary, it comes from 2012 to here.
What are we trying to do? It is to create mechanisms to overcome this lack. For example, the use of special per diems so that the environmental military police of the Amazon states can start collaborating with the technical staff of Ibama, and with this we have an increase in our inspection staff.
BBC News Brasil - Doesn't this lower emphasis on fines for environmental crimes contrast with a government that was elected promising to fight crime as one of its priorities?
Salles - The government fights a lot against crime, in all areas, including the environment. Now, the pressure of illegal activities on the Amazon is very great, and this increase, in turn, is the result of a policy that has not been able to provide an economic alternative for a region in which more than 20 million people live.
So, when you pretend that these people don't exist, you don't have an adequate public policy. And what happened over those years was exactly that. This is a question that has a reasoned explanation, exactly in the absence of economic dynamism for the Amazon region, and these are one of the factors that need to be taken care of.
BBC News Brasil - These alternatives to which you refer are actions that cause damage to the forest, such as actions of loggers, mining? What do you mean?
Salles - It is not true. All economic actions can be carried out with environmental care, with licensing. There are several countries that do activities that are potentially polluting, and do it in a correct way. So, it is not true that the activity is essentially degrading. If it is made into the correct licensing factors, into the rules, and were made in a formal way, they can follow an adequate parameter.
Now, to put all these activities on the illegality makes them go to destructive activity. Today, in the Amazon, in the last years, decades, there is a growing number of illegal mines, more than 800 illegal mines have been operating in the Amazon for years. It has nothing to do with the Bolsonaro government.
Salles - There is an annual increase in deforestation. Now, the increase in illegal activities comes at the same speed that you don't give economic alternatives to those who live in the Amazon region.
BBC News Brasil - Another factor that is pointed out as the cause of the increase in deforestation is impunity. As you said, very few fines from Ibama go to the end and generate the payment of a fine. It is hard to imagine that the vast majority of them have no basis. What are you doing to improve this collection process?
Salles - The first measure we took was to allow the shortening of the administrative process, including environmental conciliation, which works very well in the State of São Paulo. It brings the offender to have to explain himself in a hearing, and from there many times arise agreements and solutions for the liabilities, the cessation of illegal activities. There are lawsuits at Ibama that take seven years to come to an end, and it is not uncommon to see this low percentage of 1% solution. When there is no effectiveness in the administrative process, as many environmental violations can be made as you want that do not reach the end. What you need to have is a practical consequence of what you do.
BBC News Brasil - Minister, you were in Rondônia, you met with loggers there, days after an IBAMA tank truck was set on fire during an operation against illegal deforestation in the region. Doesn't this kind of attitude demoralize Ibama? Isn't there an image that it's okay to deforest, that the ministry is on their side?
Salles - Your report is completely wrong. I went to Rondônia with the IBAMA inspectors. And we went to Espigão d'Oeste to inspect the logging companies that had had their activities blocked by the SisDof (System for the Issuance of Forest Origin Documents) system. So, I didn't go to meet with the lumber company, we went to inspect the lumber companies. And we met with the loggers to explain to them how the inspection was going to be done and how important it was from then on to follow the SisDof system. So see how the wrong disseminated information causes a serial reproduction.
BBC News Brasil - But didn't you tell the loggers that they were good people?
Salles - They are people who work.
BBC News Brasil - Illegally?
So, when you pretend that these people don't exist, you don't have an adequate public policy. And what happened over those years was exactly that. This is a question that has a reasoned explanation, exactly in the absence of economic dynamism for the Amazon region, and these are one of the factors that need to be taken care of.
BBC News Brasil - These alternatives to which you refer are actions that cause damage to the forest, such as actions of loggers, mining? What do you mean?
Salles - It is not true. All economic actions can be carried out with environmental care, with licensing. There are several countries that do activities that are potentially polluting, and do it in a correct way. So, it is not true that the activity is essentially degrading. If it is made into the correct licensing factors, into the rules, and were made in a formal way, they can follow an adequate parameter.
Now, to put all these activities on the illegality makes them go to destructive activity. Today, in the Amazon, in the last years, decades, there is a growing number of illegal mines, more than 800 illegal mines have been operating in the Amazon for years. It has nothing to do with the Bolsonaro government.
Salles - There is an annual increase in deforestation. Now, the increase in illegal activities comes at the same speed that you don't give economic alternatives to those who live in the Amazon region.
BBC News Brasil - Another factor that is pointed out as the cause of the increase in deforestation is impunity. As you said, very few fines from Ibama go to the end and generate the payment of a fine. It is hard to imagine that the vast majority of them have no basis. What are you doing to improve this collection process?
Salles - The first measure we took was to allow the shortening of the administrative process, including environmental conciliation, which works very well in the State of São Paulo. It brings the offender to have to explain himself in a hearing, and from there many times arise agreements and solutions for the liabilities, the cessation of illegal activities. There are lawsuits at Ibama that take seven years to come to an end, and it is not uncommon to see this low percentage of 1% solution. When there is no effectiveness in the administrative process, as many environmental violations can be made as you want that do not reach the end. What you need to have is a practical consequence of what you do.
BBC News Brasil - Minister, you were in Rondônia, you met with loggers there, days after an IBAMA tank truck was set on fire during an operation against illegal deforestation in the region. Doesn't this kind of attitude demoralize Ibama? Isn't there an image that it's okay to deforest, that the ministry is on their side?
Salles - Your report is completely wrong. I went to Rondônia with the IBAMA inspectors. And we went to Espigão d'Oeste to inspect the logging companies that had had their activities blocked by the SisDof (System for the Issuance of Forest Origin Documents) system. So, I didn't go to meet with the lumber company, we went to inspect the lumber companies. And we met with the loggers to explain to them how the inspection was going to be done and how important it was from then on to follow the SisDof system. So see how the wrong disseminated information causes a serial reproduction.
BBC News Brasil - But didn't you tell the loggers that they were good people?
Salles - They are people who work.
BBC News Brasil - Illegally?
Salles - They don't work illegally, that's not true. That vision is wrong. They are formalized companies, they have CNPJ, they employ, they have registered employees, families to support. The activity cannot be called illegal. This ideological view of the process of timber exploitation is what has harmed the Amazon until today, because it has thrown people completely into illegality. That region of Espigão d'Oeste (in Rondônia) lives off the timber industry. If, on the one hand, they did things in the region, some did, which were illegal, for example setting fire to Ibama's truck, on the other hand several others were punished for suspending the SisDof system unduly (for the municipality). So we cannot generalize and call the entire forest industry illegal.
BBC News Brasil - The Ministry of the Environment has received criticism from parts of the agribusiness - a sector that historically has clashed with the portfolio, but for reasons contrary to those that cause the clashes today. There is an assessment that the ministry is leaning to the opposite extreme, and that this could harm exports and the image of agribusiness abroad. How do you see the criticism?
Salles - The ministry is not at the opposite end of anything. The ministry is doing things in a very balanced way. We have a very restrictive environmental legislation in Brazil and have to comply with it. The interpretation of the legislation has to be made with respect to the productive sectors. There is a very strong campaign against Brazilian agribusiness abroad, which was accentuated a lot after the signing of the European Union-Mercosur agreement.
Several groups, NGOs and the press have taken advantage of this to make a campaign against Brazil, and we will demonstrate that Brazil is fulfilling its environmental responsibilities very well. A country that has 66% of its native vegetation maintained, that has a Forest Code that no other country has, that is doing very well in meeting its goals of the Paris Agreement. In fact, European countries are saying that they will not be able to meet their targets. So, the Brazilian reality is very different. Our energy matrix is 80% clean, while European countries have a dirty thermoelectric matrix.
BBC News Brasil - You say that we are doing well in complying with the Paris Agreement, but our main goal is zero deforestation, and we are increasing deforestation.
Salles - But we are reforesting, we are changing the energy matrix, reducing emissions. Really, the issue of deforestation is a challenge. We have an Amazon region that corresponds to 48 European countries. It is a region that is difficult to monitor and that needs to find its economic dynamism in order to be successful. If we don't do this, the pressures on the forest will increase. More than 20 million people live in the Amazon.
BBC News Brasil - Still on Ibama, you say that the agency is working perfectly. But we have information that the agency's elite group, the Specialized Inspection Group (GEF), did not make any operations this year.
Salles - It's not true, an operation has just finished in Pará.
BBC News Brasil - We are talking about Ibama's elite group.
Salles - This is information from a trade unionist, who is opposed to the Bolsonaro government and has been creating all sorts of problems for the government since the beginning.
BBC News Brasil - We request this information through the Access to Information Act. The ministry refused to give it to us, said it's confidential data.
Salles - You have to see who gives the information. It's the ministry's ombudsman's office. What I can say is that the ministry continues to carry out operations, has made large operations in the south of Pará that were even reported in the press, we have made a large operation now in Rondônia, an operation that has caught all the states of the Amazon.
BBC News Brasil - But we want to know if this group is stopped.
Salles - There is no group stopped inside Ibama.
BBC News Brasil - The Ministry of the Environment has received criticism from parts of the agribusiness - a sector that historically has clashed with the portfolio, but for reasons contrary to those that cause the clashes today. There is an assessment that the ministry is leaning to the opposite extreme, and that this could harm exports and the image of agribusiness abroad. How do you see the criticism?
Salles - The ministry is not at the opposite end of anything. The ministry is doing things in a very balanced way. We have a very restrictive environmental legislation in Brazil and have to comply with it. The interpretation of the legislation has to be made with respect to the productive sectors. There is a very strong campaign against Brazilian agribusiness abroad, which was accentuated a lot after the signing of the European Union-Mercosur agreement.
Several groups, NGOs and the press have taken advantage of this to make a campaign against Brazil, and we will demonstrate that Brazil is fulfilling its environmental responsibilities very well. A country that has 66% of its native vegetation maintained, that has a Forest Code that no other country has, that is doing very well in meeting its goals of the Paris Agreement. In fact, European countries are saying that they will not be able to meet their targets. So, the Brazilian reality is very different. Our energy matrix is 80% clean, while European countries have a dirty thermoelectric matrix.
BBC News Brasil - You say that we are doing well in complying with the Paris Agreement, but our main goal is zero deforestation, and we are increasing deforestation.
Salles - But we are reforesting, we are changing the energy matrix, reducing emissions. Really, the issue of deforestation is a challenge. We have an Amazon region that corresponds to 48 European countries. It is a region that is difficult to monitor and that needs to find its economic dynamism in order to be successful. If we don't do this, the pressures on the forest will increase. More than 20 million people live in the Amazon.
BBC News Brasil - Still on Ibama, you say that the agency is working perfectly. But we have information that the agency's elite group, the Specialized Inspection Group (GEF), did not make any operations this year.
Salles - It's not true, an operation has just finished in Pará.
BBC News Brasil - We are talking about Ibama's elite group.
Salles - This is information from a trade unionist, who is opposed to the Bolsonaro government and has been creating all sorts of problems for the government since the beginning.
BBC News Brasil - We request this information through the Access to Information Act. The ministry refused to give it to us, said it's confidential data.
Salles - You have to see who gives the information. It's the ministry's ombudsman's office. What I can say is that the ministry continues to carry out operations, has made large operations in the south of Pará that were even reported in the press, we have made a large operation now in Rondônia, an operation that has caught all the states of the Amazon.
BBC News Brasil - But we want to know if this group is stopped.
Salles - There is no group stopped inside Ibama.
BBC News Brasil - Researchers Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy have a study pointing out that, once a level of deforestation in the Amazon is exceeded, there would be no more return and the forest would progressively become a savannah. This work was recently reviewed, and the deforestation limit point, which before was 40%, moved to something between 20-25% - a value very close to what we have already deforested (about 18%). Do you think there is room for more deforestation in the Amazon without there being an irreversible impact?
Salles - First point: there is no absolute truth about this. It is not because Carlos Nobre says that there are 25% that this becomes a truth. I'm not saying yes or no.
Second: our efforts, by the government, have to be in the sense of going against all and any illegal deforestation. We have a Brazilian legal framework that is very restrictive, and what is outside the law, in any circumstance, must be combated.
The goal of zero illegal deforestation must be pursued. In order to do this, the origins of this deforestation must be found. I have repeated: simply saying that zero illegal deforestation is not enough. It is necessary to find out what concrete measures contribute to achieve this result - which involves inspection, but it also needs to involve the solutions of economic dynamism for the forest,
All the alternatives that are placed - biodiversity, bioeconomy, use of the forest for development of drugs -, all of them are true, but they need to happen. We are seeing a continuous increase on Amazonian deforestation on the last seven years, and, in spite of this discussion on bioeconomy and biodiversity, the region continues being the one that has the worst indicators of Brazil.
BBC News Brasil - You spoke of the need to add value to Amazonian products. This is exactly one of the objectives of the Amazon Fund, whose donors have had problems with the current Brazilian government. One of the donors, Germany, recently cancelled an investment that would be destined to sustainable development projects in the Amazon. Can the government give up resources such as these in a scenario of so much contingency and cuts?
Salles - The Amazon has 5 million square kilometers. Therefore, in order to have a public policy that contributes effectively to the Amazon, the resources must be proportional. If each hectare of the Amazon received, per year, US$ 100, we would be talking about more than US$ 50 billion per year. This is the volume of resources that would be really necessary to have a condition to say: the Amazon is really being helped by the international community. This does not mean that the resources of the Amazon Fund are not welcome. Simply that it is a resource that is very, very much less than what is needed. (Until the end of 2018, the fund disbursed R$ 1.9 billion and collected R$ 3.4 billion in donations.)
In relation to the fund's results, we noticed that there are good projects there. And there are projects that are not delivering the promised results. As the money was donated to Brazil and to a Brazilian public bank (the BNDES), we want to have discretion that effectively involves capitalist solutions, developing a production chain that generates results on a permanent basis. We do not want to simply extinguish the fund. But we want to have more capacity to align public policies that take into consideration government resources, both financial and logistical, human resources, along with those of the Amazon Fund.
Even the possibility of resources from these countries or from any other country being contributed to specific projects that do not pass through the Amazon Fund continues to exist. Donations, aid and development projects can continue to be made. No one is opposed.
BBC News Brasil - You say that demarcations of indigenous lands are merely an ideological issue, but the Constitution provides for demarcations and they help reduce deforestation. We have a large volume, 62 million hectares, of unclaimed areas in the Amazon - areas that are very susceptible to illegal logging. Experts say that demarcating and creating more conservation units hinders this process of illegal logging, of someone going there, taking down and then claiming that possession. It is, therefore, an effective instrument for combating deforestation. Why not use it?
Salles - I don't think this is a policy favorable to the fight against deforestation on its own. It may be that in some specific cases the consolidation of a conservation unit or any other restriction, may even be demarcation, contribute. But when there is a demarcation of 13% of the national territory for only 1% of the Brazilian population, and precisely these 13% are where the greatest mineral wealth of the country is, it does not seem to me an adequate public choice to increase the demarcations over mineral reserves and place such vast territories for such a small population.
Salles - First point: there is no absolute truth about this. It is not because Carlos Nobre says that there are 25% that this becomes a truth. I'm not saying yes or no.
Second: our efforts, by the government, have to be in the sense of going against all and any illegal deforestation. We have a Brazilian legal framework that is very restrictive, and what is outside the law, in any circumstance, must be combated.
The goal of zero illegal deforestation must be pursued. In order to do this, the origins of this deforestation must be found. I have repeated: simply saying that zero illegal deforestation is not enough. It is necessary to find out what concrete measures contribute to achieve this result - which involves inspection, but it also needs to involve the solutions of economic dynamism for the forest,
All the alternatives that are placed - biodiversity, bioeconomy, use of the forest for development of drugs -, all of them are true, but they need to happen. We are seeing a continuous increase on Amazonian deforestation on the last seven years, and, in spite of this discussion on bioeconomy and biodiversity, the region continues being the one that has the worst indicators of Brazil.
BBC News Brasil - You spoke of the need to add value to Amazonian products. This is exactly one of the objectives of the Amazon Fund, whose donors have had problems with the current Brazilian government. One of the donors, Germany, recently cancelled an investment that would be destined to sustainable development projects in the Amazon. Can the government give up resources such as these in a scenario of so much contingency and cuts?
Salles - The Amazon has 5 million square kilometers. Therefore, in order to have a public policy that contributes effectively to the Amazon, the resources must be proportional. If each hectare of the Amazon received, per year, US$ 100, we would be talking about more than US$ 50 billion per year. This is the volume of resources that would be really necessary to have a condition to say: the Amazon is really being helped by the international community. This does not mean that the resources of the Amazon Fund are not welcome. Simply that it is a resource that is very, very much less than what is needed. (Until the end of 2018, the fund disbursed R$ 1.9 billion and collected R$ 3.4 billion in donations.)
In relation to the fund's results, we noticed that there are good projects there. And there are projects that are not delivering the promised results. As the money was donated to Brazil and to a Brazilian public bank (the BNDES), we want to have discretion that effectively involves capitalist solutions, developing a production chain that generates results on a permanent basis. We do not want to simply extinguish the fund. But we want to have more capacity to align public policies that take into consideration government resources, both financial and logistical, human resources, along with those of the Amazon Fund.
Even the possibility of resources from these countries or from any other country being contributed to specific projects that do not pass through the Amazon Fund continues to exist. Donations, aid and development projects can continue to be made. No one is opposed.
BBC News Brasil - You say that demarcations of indigenous lands are merely an ideological issue, but the Constitution provides for demarcations and they help reduce deforestation. We have a large volume, 62 million hectares, of unclaimed areas in the Amazon - areas that are very susceptible to illegal logging. Experts say that demarcating and creating more conservation units hinders this process of illegal logging, of someone going there, taking down and then claiming that possession. It is, therefore, an effective instrument for combating deforestation. Why not use it?
Salles - I don't think this is a policy favorable to the fight against deforestation on its own. It may be that in some specific cases the consolidation of a conservation unit or any other restriction, may even be demarcation, contribute. But when there is a demarcation of 13% of the national territory for only 1% of the Brazilian population, and precisely these 13% are where the greatest mineral wealth of the country is, it does not seem to me an adequate public choice to increase the demarcations over mineral reserves and place such vast territories for such a small population.
BBC News Brasil - Why the opposite? Why should no vacant land become a conservation unit? Isn't this an ideological position, radical on the contrary?
Salles - The problem is that we have a huge number of conservation units with serious problems of occupation and use of natural resources. And several land tenure problems. Conservation units have been created without worrying about land regularization, about territorial conflicts. We have several situations of instability with those that have already been created. Creating more conservation units or indigenous lands without resolving the liabilities that already exist is not a good policy.
BBC News Brasil - The Constitution establishes that the use of indigenous lands is exclusive to the indigenous people who inhabit them. Brazil is also a signatory to international agreements that require these peoples to be consulted on any initiative that the government tries to apply in these areas. The main indigenous organizations and leaders are opposed to the proposal to allow mining in these territories.
Salles - It is not true. I went to four indigenous lands, and the four leaders I talked to are favorable to some kind of mineral exploration in those lands.
BBC News Brasil - There are more than 300 indigenous peoples in Brazil. The main associations and leaders, such as the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Congresswoman Joênia Wapichana (Rede-RR), are opposed.
Salles - These are the NGOs and groups that use indigenous people to support their proposals. See what happened in Roraima precisely with the argument of Convention 169 of the ILO (International Labor Organization), which requires consultation with indigenous people. For seven years, the governments that passed by waited for the manifestation of the indigenous people on the construction of the Boa Vista-Manaus linion. It is not that they were against, they did not even demonstrate. They sat on the linseed until, with the crisis in Venezuela, Roraima was left without energy supply and had to burn diesel oil to generate energy. In other words, there can be no worse environmental result.
So, see how an unbalanced policy brings negative results for the entire population of the state, except for the mistake of more than 700 thousand people (there are about 577 thousand, according to the IBGE), and also for the environment, which suffers from the burning of diesel oil. These entities manipulate the Indians for their interests, for their causes, to raise money in Brazil and abroad. It is necessary to put common sense into each of the discussions, and act on balance.
BBC News Brasil - You put the indigenous people as manipulated and cite four peoples, but there is an articulation of indigenous peoples recognized as leadership.
Salles - This is not true.
BBC News Brasil - Yesterday there was a march of indigenous women in Brasilia.
Salles - There were a thousand people in a country of 200 million. They received it, they had their tickets paid for. We even asked some people who paid. There was an entity of everything that is kind behind those demonstrators.
BBC News Brasil - What is the problem with this?
Salles - Because it manipulates the opinion of these people. It pays for passage, it pays for lodging, it pays for food and it puts them there with a poster that they don't even understand what they are holding.
BBC News Brasil - They're not necessarily being manipulated, they're allying in the pursuit of their interests.
Salles - All these political leaders that you have mentioned are from the PT and the PSOL. They all lend themselves to an ideological banner.
BBC News Brasil - And you don't have an ideological flag?
Salles - I just don't say that... What was intended was to make spontaneous manifestations of the indigenous peoples. And it's not true. Suffice it to say that General (Augusto) Heleno (current Minister of the Office of Institutional Security of the Presidency) commanded the Brazilian Army in the Amazon, has much more experience in the Amazon than 99% of these NGOs that claim to be representatives of the indigenous peoples. And the report that General Heleno brings is that the vast majority of peoples do want to improve, to have a degree of economic participation. Does that mean that everyone wants to? No, but many do.
I went to four. I talked to four leaders. I can cite here: the parishioners, the poianauas, the wide belts and the other tribe that is there in the south of Rondônia.
Salles - The problem is that we have a huge number of conservation units with serious problems of occupation and use of natural resources. And several land tenure problems. Conservation units have been created without worrying about land regularization, about territorial conflicts. We have several situations of instability with those that have already been created. Creating more conservation units or indigenous lands without resolving the liabilities that already exist is not a good policy.
BBC News Brasil - The Constitution establishes that the use of indigenous lands is exclusive to the indigenous people who inhabit them. Brazil is also a signatory to international agreements that require these peoples to be consulted on any initiative that the government tries to apply in these areas. The main indigenous organizations and leaders are opposed to the proposal to allow mining in these territories.
Salles - It is not true. I went to four indigenous lands, and the four leaders I talked to are favorable to some kind of mineral exploration in those lands.
BBC News Brasil - There are more than 300 indigenous peoples in Brazil. The main associations and leaders, such as the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Congresswoman Joênia Wapichana (Rede-RR), are opposed.
Salles - These are the NGOs and groups that use indigenous people to support their proposals. See what happened in Roraima precisely with the argument of Convention 169 of the ILO (International Labor Organization), which requires consultation with indigenous people. For seven years, the governments that passed by waited for the manifestation of the indigenous people on the construction of the Boa Vista-Manaus linion. It is not that they were against, they did not even demonstrate. They sat on the linseed until, with the crisis in Venezuela, Roraima was left without energy supply and had to burn diesel oil to generate energy. In other words, there can be no worse environmental result.
So, see how an unbalanced policy brings negative results for the entire population of the state, except for the mistake of more than 700 thousand people (there are about 577 thousand, according to the IBGE), and also for the environment, which suffers from the burning of diesel oil. These entities manipulate the Indians for their interests, for their causes, to raise money in Brazil and abroad. It is necessary to put common sense into each of the discussions, and act on balance.
BBC News Brasil - You put the indigenous people as manipulated and cite four peoples, but there is an articulation of indigenous peoples recognized as leadership.
Salles - This is not true.
BBC News Brasil - Yesterday there was a march of indigenous women in Brasilia.
Salles - There were a thousand people in a country of 200 million. They received it, they had their tickets paid for. We even asked some people who paid. There was an entity of everything that is kind behind those demonstrators.
BBC News Brasil - What is the problem with this?
Salles - Because it manipulates the opinion of these people. It pays for passage, it pays for lodging, it pays for food and it puts them there with a poster that they don't even understand what they are holding.
BBC News Brasil - They're not necessarily being manipulated, they're allying in the pursuit of their interests.
Salles - All these political leaders that you have mentioned are from the PT and the PSOL. They all lend themselves to an ideological banner.
BBC News Brasil - And you don't have an ideological flag?
Salles - I just don't say that... What was intended was to make spontaneous manifestations of the indigenous peoples. And it's not true. Suffice it to say that General (Augusto) Heleno (current Minister of the Office of Institutional Security of the Presidency) commanded the Brazilian Army in the Amazon, has much more experience in the Amazon than 99% of these NGOs that claim to be representatives of the indigenous peoples. And the report that General Heleno brings is that the vast majority of peoples do want to improve, to have a degree of economic participation. Does that mean that everyone wants to? No, but many do.
I went to four. I talked to four leaders. I can cite here: the parishioners, the poianauas, the wide belts and the other tribe that is there in the south of Rondônia.
BBC News Brasil - Weren't you the four exceptions, handpicked?
Salles - I didn't choose by hand, I went where there were demands to be heard. What I think is that these thousand indigenous people taken to Brasilia by NGOs do not necessarily represent the opinion of the indigenous peoples. We need to be balanced in understanding that there are different opinions, and the reality of these 13% of the Brazilian territory for only 1% of the population has shown great conflicts, which are also the result of this biased view of NGOs and entities that continue to live at the expense of the indigenous cause to the detriment of the quality of life of the Indians, the indigenous health of the development of these peoples.
BBC News Brasil - You have been sentenced for administrative misconduct and the loss of your political rights for three years. The sentence says that you tampered with the management plan for a conservation area on the Tietê River when you were Secretary of the Environment in São Paulo. Did you learn any lessons from this episode?
Salles - First of all, I didn't adulterate anything. The first instance decision is being appealed by the court. I'm sure it will be reviewed because it's wrong. Second, it shows that Brazil really needs to be mature to discuss things and recognize that without economic development for the entire territory there is no means to take care of the environment.
There are several initiatives happening in terms of improving infrastructure, urban conditions, real estate activities, and they often run into environmental limitations that do not have the slightest technical foundation - and which are based on a mistaken, prejudiced and persecutory view of the private sector in many cases. Such as the one in the Environmental Protection Area of Várzea do Tietê.
Salles - I didn't choose by hand, I went where there were demands to be heard. What I think is that these thousand indigenous people taken to Brasilia by NGOs do not necessarily represent the opinion of the indigenous peoples. We need to be balanced in understanding that there are different opinions, and the reality of these 13% of the Brazilian territory for only 1% of the population has shown great conflicts, which are also the result of this biased view of NGOs and entities that continue to live at the expense of the indigenous cause to the detriment of the quality of life of the Indians, the indigenous health of the development of these peoples.
BBC News Brasil - You have been sentenced for administrative misconduct and the loss of your political rights for three years. The sentence says that you tampered with the management plan for a conservation area on the Tietê River when you were Secretary of the Environment in São Paulo. Did you learn any lessons from this episode?
Salles - First of all, I didn't adulterate anything. The first instance decision is being appealed by the court. I'm sure it will be reviewed because it's wrong. Second, it shows that Brazil really needs to be mature to discuss things and recognize that without economic development for the entire territory there is no means to take care of the environment.
There are several initiatives happening in terms of improving infrastructure, urban conditions, real estate activities, and they often run into environmental limitations that do not have the slightest technical foundation - and which are based on a mistaken, prejudiced and persecutory view of the private sector in many cases. Such as the one in the Environmental Protection Area of Várzea do Tietê.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-49363387
Comments
Post a Comment