Deterring Deforestation in the Amazon

New research indicates that space-age technology and good old law enforcement may account for approximately half of the avoided deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the last six years.

The Climate Policy Initiative recently published, “DETERing Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement,” authored by Juliano Assunção, Clarissia Gandour, and Romero Rocha, researchers at the Núcleo de Avaliação de Políticas Climáticas of PUC-Rio.

This rigorous policy evaluation research effort attempts to reveal a causal chain that links the space-age technology of Brazil satellite based, “Real-Time System for Detection of Deforestation or DETER with federal government law enforcement, through the Brazilian Institute for the Environmental and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) to bring about increasing numbers of fines and other law enforcement sanctions that serve to discourage and prevent deforestation activities.  This research suggests that such a causal chain, the result of a command and control public policy made possible by the creation of DETER by the Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), is responsible for approximately one half of avoided deforestation in the Amazon basin between 2007 to 2011 through improved mechanisms for detecting and targeting law enforcement activities.

To reveal this causal chain, Assunção, Gandour and Rocha show that increases in the number of IBAMA issued fines led to measurable decreases in deforestation as measured at the municipal level.  Accordingly, the authors conclude,

“The adoption of DETER-based monitoring and targeting of law enforcement significantly increased IBAMA’s capacity to identify and reach deforestation activity as it happens, thereby also increasing its ability to punish illegal deforestation (2013:4).”

Moreover, the increasing capacity of Brazil’s federal government to monitor deforestation and punish it does not measurably impact local agricultural, although it may prove to push agricultural activity toward more intensive, productive methods now and in the future.

The authors are careful to separate the positive impact of monitoring and law enforcement from the overall federal government policy, “The Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm),” enacted in 2004 to provide an integrated approach to preventing deforestation which includes DETER, but also features incentives for sustainable economic activities.

This working paper seems to highlight the increased capacity of IBAMA to target its law enforcement assets in the Amazon region through DETER to achieve remarkable results.  As the authors note, “Deforestation [in the Amazon] observed from 2007 to 2011 was 75% smaller than it would have been in the absence of fines…” levied by IBAMA.  Moreover, the authors’ research leads to the sensible conclusion that such monitoring and law enforcement activities pay for themselves and more. Accordingly,

“Assuming that IBAMA’s annual budget from 2007 to 2011 was $560 USD (value of the 2011 budget) and that INPE’s annual budget in the same period was $125 million USD (value of its 2010 budget), any price of carbon set above $0.76 USD/tCO-2 would more than compensate the cost of environmental monitoring and law enforcement in the Amazon (2013:19).”

The authors also imply that continued technological innovation to improve DETER detection of deforestation through cloud coverage could pay even larger dividends in terms of avoided deforestation, the expenses of which would be more than compensated by the international market for carbon offset credits.

The conclusions alone deserve intense policy debate in Brazil and around the world, but the methodological framework also deserves applause since it attempts to apply sturdy propositions associated with law enforcement research upon the Amazon and its five hundred plus municipalities (the level of analysis for the study).  According to the authors, DETER’s inability to detect deforestation through cloud cover creates methodological rationale for comparing rates of IBAMA fines with deforestation rates at the municipal level, a methodological innovation worth greater scrutiny and recognition.

Overall, “DETERing Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement,” deserves a close read, reflection, and a prominent role in relevant policy debates in Brazil and around the world.

Brazil at the COP 18 in Doha

The recent 18th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change once again failed to address global warming and its causes.  One impasse among others was the issue of Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries  or REDD.  Annex 1 countries have expressed interest in financing REDD activities, but with third party international verification.  Brazil, among other developing countries, has argued for external financing of REDD activities, but without external, international verification.  This impasse prevented a breakthrough in negotiations.

Read the Government of Brazil’s final statement here. Delegation of Brazil – Official Statement to COP18 Closing Plenary 08Dec12

Rio de Janeiro’s Low Carbon Development Plan

Last June, Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor Eduardo Paes and the World Bank’s Vice-President for Latin America and the Caribbean, Hassab Tuluy, launched the city’s unprecedented plan to rapidly lower carbon emissions through low carbon economic development.

The plan features both systematic energy and carbon emission audits and concerted investments in low carbon, sustainable economic activities.

Mayor Paes, re-elected this past October for a second term, pronounced “this program and other policies and programs of the city government can put Brazilian cities ahead of the rest in low carbon, sustainable development.”

This announcement paralleled the city’s hosting of the Rio+20 summit where government and civil society representatives from around the world came together to consider the past twenty years and how to move forward to confront the challenges of global warming and the need for sustainable development. 

The Plan sets out an ambitious agenda of to reduce carbon emissions by 2.3 million tons by 2020 or 20% of the total amount of 2005 emissions.

For an overview of the Plan in English, download and read Flavia Carloni’s presentation, RioLCCDP_12-06-2012, at the Sustainable Innovation Forum at the Doha Climate Change Conference.  For more information contact Flavia Carloni at:

Centro de Estudos Integrados sobre Meio Ambiente e Mudanças Climáticas

Centro Clima/COPPE/UFRJ

Centro de Tecnologia – Bloco I 2000 – Sala I 208

Cidade Universitária – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ

CEP: 21949-900 – Rio de Janeiro – RJ – Brasil

 

Biodiversity in Brazil

From SECOM and the Presidency of Brazil

PRESIDÊNCIA DA REPÚBLICA

SECRETARIA DE COMUNICAÇÃO SOCIAL

As you may be aware, the eleventh conference of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP11), closed on October 19 in Hyderabad, India, concluding the latest two-year round of multilateral negotiations to help countries ensure that “biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy plant and delivering benefits essential for all people by 2050” – the agenda of the Convention’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan.

On behalf of the Secretariat for Social Communication (SECOM) of the Federative Republic of Brazil, I would like to share with you some information about the main agreements reached at COP11.

Brazil, one of the world’s most megadiverse countries, played an active role in the COP11 negotiations, on which final documents developed addressed a wide range of topics on biodiversity preservation, including resource mobilization and protected areas.

Among the agreements announced at COP11 were:

  • Rio +20 – Agreement to incorporate the outcome document of Rio +20 (UN Conference on Sustainable Development) in the text of the decisions of the COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP11), with emphasis on the recognition that poverty eradication, changes in consumption patterns, and production, protection and management of natural resources are the basic requirements for sustainable development.

 

  • Resource mobilization – International flows of resources devoted to biodiversity will double by 2015 and will at least maintain this level until 2020. By 2015, at least 75 percent of participating countries will have included biodiversity in their national development plans and priorities, and will have adopted measures to improve financing for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity.

 

  • Gender – The final document encourages countries to continue funding activities that promote equality between men and women in initiatives to protect and restore biodiversity.

 

  • Protected Areas – The conference recognized the importance of protected areas in order to achieve several of the Aichi Targets, including target 11, which provides minimum limits of protected areas – land and sea – to each country by 2020.  The creation of protected areas will help further goals such as the recovery of fish stocks, endangered species and restoration of degraded areas.

 

  • Indigenous and local communities – Land inhabited by indigenous and local communities can be recognized as areas that contribute to the conservation of biological diversity. Working within the limits of their national legislation, countries will engage their indigenous and local communities in this process, seeking their participation and prior informed consent. Progress was also made regarding capacity-building for indigenous and local communities.

 

  • Business – The Convention’s final documents invited companies to enhance their considerations of biodiversity and ecosystem services in their business activities.  These considerations are based, among others initiatives, on the recommendations of the study The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). Countries were also encouraged to incorporate the methodology and results of the TEEB nationally. Brazil has already begun implementing the TEEB initiative – a joint effort by the Ministry of Environment, Finance Ministry, and other institutions.

 

  • Marine Waters – The Conference will send information on Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) to competent national authorities and the United Nations. The information is intended to support the adoption of adequate conservation measures by the competent authorities. Each country has sovereignty over the EBSAS located in national waters and the right to decide on implementation of conservation initiatives in those areas.

 

  • Marine Water / Fishing – The Convention drew attention to countries that implement measures to minimize the impacts of fishing activities on marine biodiversity.   Guides were adopted to recommend activities that can minimize the impacts on marine biodiversity and marine spatial planning.

 

  • Climate – The Conference kept a moratorium on geoengineering experiments related to climate change, particularly fertilization of oceans. Decisions at the Convention require that these experiments be restricted to territorial waters and should be done on a small scale.

 

For more information about what Brazil is doing on a national level to promote and preserve biological diversity,

click here and download the fact sheet: Biodiversity in Brazil

BNDES Approves R$ 358 Million for Wind Farms in Ceara

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The board of directors of the BNDES approved R$ 358 million in financing for the construction of four wind farms in the state of Ceará. The projects comprise the Trairi Project, which will have a total installed capacity of 115.4 MW and will begin operations in January 2013. The wind farms, consisting of Special Purpose Companies, are controlled indirectly by Tractebel Energia S.A. and directly by Energias Eólicas do Nordeste S.A.

The BNDES funds represent 68.4% of the total project investment. From the funding, some R$1.8 million will be earmarked for social programs for sustainable development of the area surrounding the farms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions per MWh generated in the interconnected system. The four farms will have 50 wind turbines manufactured in Brazil by Siemens Ltda.

The wind farms that are part of the Trairi Project are: Fleixeiras, with financing of R$ 97 million; Guajiru, R$ 93.6 million; Mundaú, R$ 87.4 million; and Trairi, R$ 79.9 million. The first three will have an installed capacity of 30MW and the fourth, 25.4 MW.

The BNDES’ funding for investments in wind energy has grown in recent years, which reflects the Bank’s priority in supporting renewable energy projects. In 2008, approvals for projects in the sector amounted to R$ 257 million; in 2009, they increased to R$ 1.2 billion, maintaining the same level in 2010. Last year, wind power generation projects approved by the BNDES totaled R$ 3.4 billion.

Overall, BNDES investments in power GTD sector have grown substantially in recent years, from $R 3 billion reais in 2006 to 17 billion by 2011.  This represents the bank’s investments in meeting the mounting power demand driven by industrial activity, and commercial and residential consumption.  Moreover, such a large increase in investment allows for more speculative financing for alternatives such as wind and solar; so this latest project is represented of a broader pattern of diversifying the bank’s power generation portfolio.