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Interview with Marina Silva: Five Reasons to Oppose Changes to the Brazilian Forest Code
March 14, 2012
by Lorenzo MoralesThis week the Brazilian Congress was scheduled to vote on a bill to amend the country’s forestry code. It is a bill that has evoked passionate debate.
But yesterday, yet again, that vote was delayed after a congressional shake-up in which President Rousseff replaced her coalition’s leaders in each chamber. Since last November, the vote has been delayed for a variety of reasons including criticisms from the scientific community, environmental experts and a subtle political international pressure. No new date has been scheduled as of the publication of this post.
Dating back to 1965, the current forestry code is credited with saving huge swaths of the Amazon rainforest. The proposed modifications, while originally intended to increase protection of forested areas, was changed in its drafting to allow areas to be farmed even if they were illegally logged before July 2008.
For the ruralistas, the powerful Brazilian agribusiness sector, it is a more realistic code for a key sector that represents 22 percent of Brazilian GDP. For environmentalists, such as former presidential candidate Marina Silva, it will foster deforestation by reducing conservation areas and granting amnesty to those who cut down trees in the past.
Brazil, the world´s leading beef producer and second soya exporter after the U.S., has become a powerful global food supplier. The consequences of the new forest code could be felt not only domestically, but also abroad.
Last week I met Ms. Silva in her new office on the second floor of a shopping mall in the north of Brasilia. She told me why she is fighting the new proposal and the reasons she is campaigning for President Rousseff to veto the new code if it is approved.
Morales: Why do you oppose the new Forest Code?
Tags: Brazil, Climate change, Environment, Marina Silva
Silva: Since 1965 we have a law to protect forests in Brazil. The new forest code reverses the logic: it is a law to facilitate farming.
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Climate Change Bedfellows: Colombia vs U.S.
December 7, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesI came to Durban, South Africa, as a journalist to cover the UN talks on climate change, the main point of which is to figure out how to reduce our carbon footprint. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases are the byproducts of our modern lifestyle and the principal cause of surging temperatures in the planet. So far, there hasn’t been much success.
I was born in Colombia; my tropical country is rich in forests, biodiversity and water sources—making us a key pillar in stopping global warming. Colombia has large tracts of carbon-capturing trees and our emissions are pretty low (0.31 percent of the world total). We are a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, and here in Durban, we support a second term of commitments.
In Durban I share a room with Jeff Lowenstein, a colleague from the U.S. He comes from the opposite corner of the world when it comes to emissions. The U.S. is the second largest emitter (after China) and the main polluter of CO2 per capita (17.7 tons annually). The rest of the world, excluding China, South Africa and the EU, emit less than 3.4 tons per year. The U.S. never signed the Kyoto Protocol and appears to be pushing for it to die quietly in Durban.
Tags: Climate change, Colombia, Environment
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Colombia: The Mysterious Death of Father José Reinel Restrepo
October 13, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesThe killing of a priest who spoke out against an open-pit gold mine project by a Canadian company is spraying unrest in the community.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is pouring into Colombia. In the last six months FDI was $7 billion—equivalent to 91.4 percent more than in the same period last year, according to new figures released by the Central Bank. Most of the money (64 percent) is going to oil and mining exploitation.
Despite the unprecedented possibilities of development and the promises of a better life for the communities located in coal, gold or copper areas or places with millions of barrels of oil and gas, the sudden arrival of new and powerful actors has generated unrest, distrust and fear.
This is the case of Marmato, a small village in the department of Caldas located on top of a “Montaña de Oro,” or Gold Mountain. Home of indigenous, Afro and mestizo artisanal miners for centuries, the recent arrival of the Canadian company Medoro Resources (it merged in July with Gran Colombia Gold) has prompted social conflict. Medoro has been buying land and mining titles for a plan to develop large-scale, open-pit gold projects to extract its estimated 9.8 million ounces of gold and 59 million ounces of silver.
Tags: Colombia
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Un año de Santos y su cruzada anti-corrupción
August 1, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesUno de los hechos más notables del primer año del gobierno del presidente colombiano Juan Manuel Santos ha sido su impetuoso interés por destapar escándalos de corrupción en las oficinas del Estado. En poco tiempo, Santos—que se posesionó el 7 de agosto de 2010—ha desenmascarado multi-millonarios desfalcos a las arcas públicas y ha puesto en evidencia sofisticadas redes de fraude que involucran a empresas privadas con altos funcionarios del gobierno, ex-funcionarios y mandatarios locales.
Para demostrar que esta batalla está muy arriba en la lista de sus prioridades, Santos ha salido a los medios en tono solemne a anunciar operaciones anti-corrupción de gran calado. Los anuncios se han vuelto tan frecuentes que a la prensa le queda poco tiempo para asimilar un caso cuando ya sus titulares apuntan hacia otro nuevo.
Hace apenas dos semanas, el 12 de julio, el Presidente Santos, acompañado de la Fiscal General de la Nación y el comandante de la Policía Nacional, reveló un millonario desfalco a las arcas públicas en la DIAN, la oficina nacional de recaudo de impuestos. 17 personas enfrentan cargos por el robo, desde 2004, de cerca de 1 billón de pesos (unos 568 millones de dólares), en devoluciones fraudulentas del impuesto a las ventas, IVA. “Este es apenas un bracito de un gran pulpo,” dijo Santos.
El 2 de mayo, el presidente, en otra puesta en escena similar, anunció el primer gran golpe contra una anillo de corrupción en el sistema público de salud, en el que se detectó que cerca de 600.000 millones de pesos anuales (unos 340 millones de dólares) habían sido robados o pagados de manera fraudulenta a contratistas privados por servicios de salud que nunca fueron realizados o por medicamentos que nunca fueron suministrados a los pacientes.
Tags: Colombia, corruption, Juan Manuel Santos
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Colombia’s Massive Floods and the Reasons Behind Them
May 20, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesColombia is going through one of the most severe rainy seasons in decades. In twelve months of downpours, more than one million hectares (2.47 million acres) of productive land have been flooded, roads have been erased by mudslides, and big and small cities have been isolated and heavily damaged. So far, 428 people have died and 77 are reported missing, according to official figures. About 2.9 million people (6.4 percent of the total population) have been directly affected in 28 of the country’s 32 departments, according to the National Statistics Department.
“This is the worst natural tragedy in the history of the country, considering the number of people affected and the extension of the catastrophe,” said President Juan Manuel Santos. “It’s something like when Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago, but this time we are talking about a whole country.”
The government estimates that this unprecedented rainy season, caused by the La Niña/El Niño weather phenomenon, could cost some 2.5 percent of the GDP. This is comparable to the destructive power of the country’s three most damaging natural disasters of the last 30 years: the earthquake in Armenia in 2001 (1.86 percent of GDP), the volcano eruption in Armero in 1985 (0.29 percent) and the earthquake in Popayan in 1983 (0.45 percent). But this time it’s all happening in one year.
Unpredictable forces of nature are in play in Colombia’s current disaster. No one can be blamed for that. But as national and local authorities wash their hands of responsibility, they persist in sponsoring policies and projects that alter (and sometimes destroy) the mechanisms that can both trigger or turn off such forces.
“Deforestation, the destruction of the páramos (high-mountain wetlands) and humedales (savanna wetlands) has profoundly altered the water cycle in our country and has led to the aggravation of floods, which have created favorable conditions for landslides,” wrote Manuel Rodriguez Becerra, a former environment minister. He is one of the most vocal critics of how the country is bartering its ecological assets for the short-term revenues of environmentally-unfriendly industries such as mining.
Tags: Colombia, Environment, Juan Manuel Santos
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Colombia’s Barriers for Youth Labor Market Access
April 7, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesOn the last days of year 2010, the Colombian Congress passed a rather unnoticed and little commented law to stimulate youth employment. Despite its simplicity, Ley 1492—also known as la ley de formalización y generación de empleo—carries an ambitious goal: reducing Colombia’s pervasive youth (ages 15 to 24) unemployment. Last year it reached 24 percent, and despite projections of GDP growth around 5 percent, it is expected to rise in 2011.
The core of the law can be synthetized by two basic strategies: encouraging young people under 28 to create companies through special state-financed loans and using fiscal discounts to reward companies who hire a young labor force.
Tags: Colombia, Youth
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Chasing Illegal Miners in Colombia
February 7, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesAn unfortunate series of events last week turned my last blog post (Colombia’s Readiness for the Mining Industry) into a warning that has now become reality.
On February 1, five miners were killed in an explosion at La Escondida coalmine, near Sutatausa, a small town north of Bogotá. According to official reports, the explosion was caused by the accumulation of gases—mainly methane—in the tunnels. Floresmiro Olaya, the only survivor of the explosion, said to a local newspaper that the mine lacked proper ventilation, the tunnels didn’t have shelters in case of a collapse (like the one that saved the 33 Chilean miners) and no inspection was conducted by authorities. The families of the killed miners announced they will sue the government for poorly enforcing safety measures in the mine.
This tragedy came only a week after another explosion killed 21 miners in a coalmine in Sardinata, Santander, in the northeast of Colombia. It, too, was apparently caused by a buildup of methane gas.
Tags: Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, mining
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Colombia’s Readiness for the Mining Industry
January 18, 2011
by Lorenzo MoralesPolitical institutions tend to respond slowly in adapting to challenges. Longstanding problems typically arise and evolve long before policymakers and government officials are able to identify them. And when they do, they are generally ill-equipped to devise proposals to solving these problems. One of the more telling examples is happening in Colombia—where not only the mining industry is impacted but strategic assets like water are being put at risk.
Colombia is the largest coal producer in Latin America, and after Venezuela and Brazil, the third-largest for crude oil. The exploitation of gold, silver and rare earth minerals such as coltan (a combination of columbite and tantalite) is growing exponentially. Must of this activity is driven by foreign direct investment (FDI); between 2008 and 2009 alone, the percentage of investments in mining projects out of all FDI skyrocketed from 17 percent to 43 percent—from $1.8 billion to $3.1 billion. The figure is expected to further increase in 2010.
But environmentalists are concerned about the booming mining sector. “Mining is a high-risk industry growing in Colombia at an exorbitant rate while national environmental institutions that are meant to regulate it are in their weakest shape in 15 years,” notes Guillermo Rudas, a researcher at the Universidad Externado de Colombia. Rudas’ study maps the evolution of land with mining titles and land requested for mining in the last 20 years. He notes that from 2002-2010 areas with mining titles boomed from 2.8 million acres to 21 million acres. Despite this trend, Rudas notes that the budget relative to GDP for Colombia’s environmental agencies was three times larger in 1994 than in 2010.
This fiscal disconnect takes a serious and unique toll. Despite its relatively small size, Colombia is ranked among the most biologically diverse countries in the world. Its rich ecosystems range from tropical rainforests to high-altitude moorlands to the open sabana valley of ponds and wetlands. This means that the success of the mining industry has a lasting imprint on Colombia’s ecology. Mining involves heavy machinery, enormous need of water, extensive soil removal and tree removal, massive usage of toxic chemicals, and opening new roads in naturally-protected areas. It also poses unprecedented health risks to workers and local populations.
Colombia needs clear legal frameworks, reliable information, strong regulations, and well-financed environmental institutions. But none of these seem to be happening.
Tags: Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, mining
