In this week's News from Brazil:
Ethanol:
from hero to villain
by Maria Luisa Mendonça
Despite
the effort of the Brazilian government to convince the international
community that Brazilian ethanol is “renewable”,
there was significant
change regarding this image between 2007 and 2008.
Recently, reports
about social and environmental problems caused the European Union to
reduce its goal for use of agro-fuels, intially set at 10% by 2020.
On
July 7, 2008 the European Parliament’s Environmental
Committee approved
a reduction of this goal to 4% by 2015, when a new resolution will be
adopted based on more in-depth studies about the impact [of
ethanol].
The goal of 4% includes the use of hidrogen and electic energy in
transportation, which means an even greater reduction in the use of
agro-fuels.
During the two days of voting, the news agency
France Presse had reported on an informal meeting of ministers of
energy from the European Union and described that “what seems
to be a
stunning misreading on the part of policymakers in Brussels comes at a
point that the image of biofuels has shifted over a matter of months,
from saviors of the climate savior to climate pariah” (EU
ministers
‘discover’ biofuels not an obligation after all,
7/5/08).
According
to news from the Amigos da Terra organization, “members of
European
Parliament voted to reduce in a significant way the goals of the
promotion of biofuels in the face of growing evidence of their impact
on the price of food, on people and on biodiversity, and its inability
to combat climate change”. Even the European
Environmental Agency has
recommended a suspension of the 10% goal in the use of agro-fuels and
understands the necessity of conducting more thorough studies on their
risks.
The problems is that much of the research already
conducted left out the environmental impact of the means of production,
the use of natural resources (such as land and water) and the pressure
on natural reserves or the production of food. A report from
the
magazine Time observed that the majority of studies have calculated the
potential for the removal of carbon from agro-fuels without taking into
account the impact of monocultural planting in areas where vegetation
and the soil accumulate a great quantity of carbon.
“It is as though
these scientists imagined that biofuels were cultivated in a parking
lot,” commented the report (The myth of clean energy,
4/14/08).
One
of the most important studies about the change in the ways of using the
land and its relation to the increase in carbon emissions was published
by the magazine Science (2/28/08). The authors affirm that a
majority
of the earlier studies discovered that to substitute gasoline for
biofuels could reduce carbon emissions. These analyses do not
take
into consideration the carbon emissions that occur when farmers the
world over, respond to the high prices and convert forests and pastures
into new fields for planting, to substitute the cultivation
of grains
for that which is used for biofuels”.
The article cites the
increase of the price of soy as an influential factor in the
acceleration of deforestation in the Amazon and estimates that its
cultivation for the production of diesel results in a “carbon
debt”
that will take 319 years to compensate. According to
researcher
Timothy Searchinger, of Princeton University, “forests and
pastures
hold lots of carbon, meanwhile there is no benefit from transforming
the lands into crop fields for biofuels”.
This research shows
that the effects of the production of agro-fuels must be evaluated from
the whole cycle of the expansion of monocultural farming. In
Brazil,
we know that the sugar cane plantations advance rapidly, beyond the
expansion of the agricultural frontier of the cattle and soy
farms.
Because of this, a reliable study of the environmental impact should
include the whole farming sector.
In January of 2008, the
Smithsonian Institute of Tropical Research proved that the ethanol
produced from sugar cane and the biodiesel made from soy cause more
damage to the environment than fossil fuel. The research
raises the
alarm about environmental destruction in Brazil, caused by the advance
of the plantations of sugar cane and soy in the Amazon, in the Atlantic
rain forest and in the cerrado. According to researcher
William
Laurance, “the production of fuel, whether its from soy or
from sugar
cane, also causes an increase in the cost of food, as much directly as
indirectly” (Agência Lusa, 1/9/08).
A report from The Rights and
Resources Initiative (RRI) revealed that the actual demand for food,
for new sources of energy and wood material for the fabrication of
paper ought to cause “more deforestation, more conflict, more
carbon
emission, more climate change and less prosperity for
everyone” (BBC
News, 7/14/08, Forests to fall for food and fuel).
The release
of these studies confirms the accusations from social organizations and
shows the change in the tone of the international debate. As
the
journal El Pais observed, “diverse centers of research and
the major
part of the ecological and human rights groups are sending out daily
announcements, affirming that biofuels do not contribute to combat
climate change, that cause serious environmental impact in regions of
high ecological value, they change the price of food and strengthen an
agricultural model that exploits workers and has a high dependence on
large multinational companies” (Biofuels lose the ecological
label,
3/31/08). In Brazil, there is more than enough evidence to
prove this
impact. Just remember the popular saying: worse than
blindness is not
wanting to see.
Maria Luisa Mendonça is a journalist and coordinator for the
Center for Social Justice and Human Rights.
Source: Brasil de Fato
Conviction
of leaders is weapon to disrupt social movements
Some
groups are attempting to restrict the right of organizations and
leaders of the social movements to play their role. Recent
events have
shown an increase in the attempt by the courts at depicting [the social
movements] as criminal.
The conviction, on June 12, of José
Batista Gonçalves Afonso, lawyer for the Catholic Church's
Land
Committee (Comissão Pastoral da Terra – CPT) known
for his role in the
defense of human rights in the state of Pará, and of
Raimundo Nonato
Santos da Silva, the former regional coordinator of the Federation of
the Agricultural Workers (Federação dos
Trabalhadores na Agricultura
(Fetagri), are further examples of the partiality with which some
members of the judiciary have addressed this situation.
After
they participated in an occupation of the Office of the Superintendant
of INCRA in Marabá, in April of 1999, Batista and Raimundo
Nonato were
accused, jailed and, after the Public Ministry of Pará
proposed, in
2002, a suspension in the legal process, they were sentenced to two
years and five months in prison. Global Justice is convinced
that the
decision of the Federal Court of Marabá is arbitrary and is
part of an
effort to remove these two activists from their activities in the
social movement.
The convictions of Batista and Raimundo Nonato,
are part of a larger plan that includes Jaime Amorim, National
Coordinator of the MST, who was sentenced to four months of detention
for “criminal liability” and the decision of the
Court of Pará that
ordered three leaders of the MST in the region to pay compensation of
5.2 million reais to the Vale mining company. The trial in
the
Military Court that is accusing Roberto Monte, a human rights defender
in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, of “inciting a
rebellion” and
“attacking the Armed Forces[of Brazil]” follows the
same line of
criminalization.
As confirmed by the U.N. report writer, Hina
Jilani, in Brazil, “when human rights activists organize,
they are
accused of forming a gang and when they work together to protest
against human rights violations, they are accused of public
disorder.”
It is unacceptable that the courts, the government, the politicians and
the media would allow this to happen.
***
In solidarity
with the MST and against the criminalization of the social movements,
organizations are meeting with a representative of General Prosecutors
of the Public Ministry.
Various organizations, intellectuals and
politicians met on July 28 with General Prosecutor of the Public
Ministry of Rio de Janeiro and the President of the National Council of
General Prosecutors of the Public Ministry, Marfan Vieira. On
the
agenda was the administrative proceedings started by the Public
Ministry of Rio Grande do Sul and the trial initiated by the Federal
Public Ministry against eight leaders of the MST.
The presence
of a member of the MST was requested at the next meeting of the
National Council of General Prosecutors for the Public Ministry, to be
held on August 5, in Brasília. They also proposed
to hold a conference
called by the Council in order to discuss the topic “Public
Ministry
and the Criminalization of the Social Movements.”
Both suggestions
were welcomed by Marfan, who will take the ideas to his partners.
Several
courses of action are now possible. Among them, the
publication, of
the public report “Brazil: The Stigmatization of the MST and
its
members, elaborated by the Observatory for the Protection of Defenders
of Human Rights and Global Justice. . . . [also] an act that brings
together around 200 persons – from among organizations,
intellectuals,
politicians, activists and representatives of various social movements
– in front of the Public Ministry of the State of Rio de
Janeiro, to
show solidarity with the MST, while similar protests happen in
Brasília
and Curitiba.
Source: Global Justice, Electronic Bulletin, no. 9, August 5,
2008
