Who owns the Amazon?
People pass by a mural on an underpass Feb. 1, 2020, in Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brazil. The mural, which was painted in the fall of 2019, was controversial because it showed young climate activist Greta Thunberg. Her image was later painted over with parrots.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Cuiab谩 and Alta Floresta, Brazil
When local artists this fall painted a portrait of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on the underpass of a notorious highway that slices across the Amazon, the backlash was swift. As one of the most recognized figures in the international environmental movement, the teen鈥檚 portrait was so covered in graffiti that authorities had it painted over.
Today, as trucks carrying soy and corn rumble down the BR-163 in the town of Sinop at a gateway of the Amazon, the mural now depicts red and blue macaws. They may be perched tranquilly in the flora, but they stand as a symbol of fraught Amazonian politics.
Ever since settlers carved out the rainforest and turned this state, Mato Grosso, into one of the world鈥檚 agricultural powerhouses, tension between development and preservation has persisted. But the gulf has widened since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro came into office with a pro-development stance on the Amazon that critics say is emboldening legal and illegal deforestation. At the same time, mounting urgency around global warming has many looking to the preservation of the world鈥檚 largest tropical rainforest as a global, high-stakes battle.
Why We Wrote This
After rampant wildfire in the Amazon inflamed global debate over the fate of the world鈥檚 largest rainforest, can incentives cool tensions between development and preservation?
Yet current polarization threatens to alienate some of the most important players in the Amazon: conservation-minded farmers who say their preservation work is underappreciated聽and crucially underfunded.
鈥淭he people say, 鈥楾he forest is not bringing me anything. It has no value. Everyone says it is important, but we don鈥檛 see it,鈥欌�� says Fernando Sampaio, the executive director of the PCI Institute 鈥� which stands for produce, conserve, and include 鈥� in the state capital Cuiab谩. The group is devising statewide carbon market strategies to incentivize conservation at a time when clearing remains far more profitable. 鈥淪o that is the question, how can we create a kind of economy where these environmental assets, like standing forests, are able to generate opportunities for them?鈥�
The BR-163 passes Cuiab谩 as it cuts through the state of Mato Grosso, across the Amazonian biome at Sinop, and finishes at the Amazon River, where products are loaded for export. It was built in the 鈥�70s by Brazil鈥檚 military dictatorship to settle the vast territory; the last of the paved portion of the highway was completed in November, helping fill the commodities demand, mainly to China. Today the highway is a constantly nerve-wracking drive around and between heavy trucks.
Brazil鈥檚 leading producer of soy, cattle, and cotton, Mato Grosso has spent lots of time in the limelight as environmental pressure has grown. In the decade between 1995 and 2005, its expanding cattle ranches and soy farms were the main driver of deforestation in the Amazon. While the rates have dropped by 80% since 2005, many fear a new era of vulnerability.
That concern was at the center of a diplomatic spat between President Bolsonaro and France鈥檚 President Emmanuel Macron this summer. The latter raised alarms over fires in August and demanded more protection of the rainforest. Mr. Bolsonaro shot back, calling out France鈥檚 鈥渓amentable colonialist stance.鈥�
Many here appreciate Mr. Bolsonaro鈥檚 point of view. M谩rio Wolf is the owner of Fazenda Gamada, a large-scale soy, feed, and cattle farm in Nova Cana茫 do Norte. He came here in 1975 at the age of 24, when it was so remote that their only means of communication was sending letters on buses to Cuiab谩. He cut through thick rainforest to clear his first 100 hectares of farm.聽
He considers himself a conservation-minded farmer but is tired of the stigma, especially as laws 鈥� among the strictest in the world 鈥� have tightened around him. 鈥淔rom the outside people say the Brazilian farmer is a destroyer of nature. We are the best preservers in the world,鈥� he says, wearing a straw hat and bluejeans behind the wheel of his mud-splattered pickup truck on a recent day.
In accordance with Brazil鈥檚 Forest Code, his farm is 50% pristine forest, and wildlife abounds. An owl sits perched on a fence post; a coati scurries across the road into a soy plantation; macaws fly overhead. When talking about this summer鈥檚 dispute between Presidents Macron and Bolsonaro he stops his car and his voice rises. Why, he asks, isn鈥檛 Mr. Macron scolding Australia as wildfires rage? 鈥淭he world wants the Amazon for itself but doesn鈥檛 want to pay anything for it.鈥�
He is working with a group called Alian莽a da Terra, which has worked with PCI and promotes sustainable farming through a membership platform called Producing Right that guarantees buyers, like supermarket chains, the highest environmental and labor standards.聽
The PCI Institute sees a vibrant carbon market as a way to amplify that kind of incentive to the residents across this state. Current initiatives include monitoring illegal deforestation, intensifying production on cleared pastures, and fostering sustainable production.
More than 60% of the forest remains intact in Mato Grosso. But 41% of preserved forest lies on private property 鈥� an estimated 7 million hectares of which could be legally cleared, says Mr. Sampaio. That鈥檚 tempting to residents as demand for soy is projected to grow by 65 million metric tons by 2029, 50% of that expected to come from Brazil,聽according to projections from the Dutch banking firm Rabobank.
鈥淸Residents] bear all the costs, and are producing a benefit for climate and biodiversity that is for everyone else. But they don鈥檛 have any compensation for that. That is what makes them angry,鈥澛爃e says. 鈥淚f you go to Texas and tell a farmer that they have to dedicate 50% of their property for conservation, that鈥檚 unthinkable.鈥�
The PCI Institute is receiving financing from some European countries for their emissions reduction work. But they are also eyeing a new standard that was approved by the California Air Resources Board in the fall that could potentially include them in a carbon offsets market down the line.聽
The Tropical Forest Standard takes a more jurisdictional approach than other big carbon offset models. Rather than focus on single projects, encompasses entire states or countries.
It鈥檚 a framework that could inspire projects that meet, in California鈥檚 view, global best practices. It鈥檚 already helped foster subnational cooperation, such as the Governors鈥� Climate & Forests Task Force, which includes 38 states and provinces, including Mato Grosso, since the network formed in 2009.
If successful, the PCI strategy could keep in Mato Grosso鈥檚 trees, says Daniel Nepstad, founder of the California-based Earth Innovation Institute, which supports both the PCI strategy and the Tropical Forest Standard. 鈥淚 think that we鈥檝e sort of lost the support of conservation-minded farmers for the forest issue,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd this is the first real concrete sign that policy and this network that was launched in 2009 could translate into real incentives for these states and for the farmers in those states.鈥�
Steve Schwartzman, senior director of tropical forest policy at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, says the Mato Grosso strategy has similar win-win potential to the amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1963, which reduced sulfur dioxide emissions even as production grew. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 really the holy grail of emissions reductions,鈥� he says.
The Tropical Forest Standard, the PCI, and even carbon offsets are not at the front of minds in and around Mato Grosso. They are abstract notions and feel far off. But historic baggage is very much alive 鈥� as is the need for solutions to the current cycle of shaming and blaming, argues Andre Pagliarini, an expert on Brazilian politics at Dartmouth College.聽
鈥淭he best way for the international community to deal with the issue of the Amazon in Brazil, perhaps ironically, is to talk in some ways less specifically about the Amazon,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut about sustainability, about the commitments that all countries have to each other in fighting climate change, to diffuse the potency of the Amazon as an issue.鈥澛�
Otherwise would-be allies could be lost. Or as Mr. Nepstad puts it: 鈥淎 lot of them went to the Amazon because they weren鈥檛 making ends meet, and they鈥檙e there because they love wildlife, they love forests, they love being in the countryside.鈥�
鈥淚f we make them into villains,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hey will become villains.鈥�
Set off a potholed dirt-track road, where wooden planks traverse brooks, stands the Fazenda Rio da Mata. At 5,000 hectares, the cattle and soy farm belongs to the family who founded Alta Floresta; the first outpost of the town sits inside the property. Four thousand hectares are preserved here, running all the way to the edge of the Teles Pires, one of the most important rivers in the Amazon.
Jos茅 Ailton Faris, the supervisor here, says his parents, like so many others, came from the south, as poor Brazilians lured by cheap land and the hope of better lives. He supports President Bolsonaro like many here, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that he wants the forest destroyed. In fact, he says he鈥檚 worked here for 20 years because of the farm鈥檚 preservation ethos.
He trudges through thick forest of a莽ai, banana, jatoba, and Brazilian nut. 鈥淭his,鈥� he says, looking up at the canopy, 鈥渋s for the world.鈥�
鈥淎nd,鈥� he adds, 鈥渋t鈥檚 the responsibility of the world to preserve.鈥�
This story was produced with support from an聽Energy Foundation grant to cover the environment.