• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, April 19, 2021
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

What Will it Take for Brazilian Farmers to Decrease Fire Use in the Amazon?

Rachael Garrett by Rachael Garrett
08/27/19
in Opinion
A laborer stares at a fire that spread to the farm he worked on next to a highway in Nova Santa Helena municipality in northern Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon basin in Brazil

A laborer stares at a fire that spread to the farm he worked on next to a highway in Nova Santa Helena municipality in northern Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon basin in Brazil. Photo: Joao Laet, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Since his election nearly one year ago, Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has sought to undermine the health and integrity of one of the country’s most valuable resources: the Amazon rainforest. Bolsonaro has pit environmentalists against farmers, claiming that efforts to protect the Amazon are hurting the country’s agricultural sector and inhibiting development.

razilian President Jair Bolsonaro delivers a speech
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Mauro Pimentel, AFP

Based on this rationale, he has attempted to undermine the ability of his government to monitor forest loss, fight forest fires, and enforce its own environmental laws. His destructive actions include firing the director of the space agency, gutting the budget of the environmental ministry, and lying about the magnitude and sources of deforestation and forest degradation.

In recent months, the international community has watched worryingly for signs that deforestation and forest degradation are growing again in a region once lauded for its leadership in fighting deforestation.

The worst fears appear to be coming true with news of a surge in forest fires. Even if such fires are in line with trends from the last 20 years, they are worrisome. They mean that recent progress toward slowing Amazonian forest loss is receding.

Amazon Wildfires

Despite Bolsonaro’s recent claims, forest fires are not a ploy by environmental NGOs to make his government look bad. Forest fires are started principally by farmers. Some are started in primary forests to clear and claim ownership of the land. Others are started on existing agricultural areas to manage vegetation regrowth because farmers lack access to machinery and fertilizers.

When fires “escape” from the areas where they were set, as they often do, they can destroy valuable investments on the farms of the people who set the fires and the properties of their neighbors. Such investments include perennial tree crops, livestock, and farm infrastructure.

Escaped fires also cause recurring damage to the health of native trees, making forests more susceptible to wide-scale dieback. These deforestation processes can, in turn, reduce local rainfall, which is bad for the very crops and pastures that farmers rely on for their income.

Finally, such fires cause reductions in the carbon storage of the Amazonian forest, which leads to increases in carbon emissions to the atmosphere and additional global warming. The combination of global climate change and local ecosystem degradation could result in irreversible changes to the climate in Brazil and massive losses to the agricultural sector.

Protecting the Forest

Changing the behaviors of the people who live in the Amazon is essential to any long-term effort to protect the forest. But farmers are unlikely to respond to international efforts to decrease their fire use without support from farmers’ unions and governments.

As support and capacity for conservation by public governments in forest-rich countries waxes and wanes, environmentalists have encouraged the countries and companies that import food and other products from the tropics to step up their efforts to stop deforestation. Such efforts include the exclusion of farmers that deforest from international supply chains and payments to farmers and communities for conservation.

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in June 2019 was 88 percent higher than in June 2018. Photo: Raphael Alves, AFP

Sadly, many farmers don’t have the financial capacity to change their behavior in response to these incentives. They don’t have enough money to buy tractors or fertilizers and invest in higher value, fire-free land uses, such as fruit or horticultural production.

Even when farmers do have the capacity to change their behavior, doing so might be “irrational.” That is, the threat of escaped fires from their neighbors makes any investment in an alternative (flammable) production system a large financial risk. These conditions result in a vicious cycle, whereby poverty traps farmers into environmentally degrading behaviors that further exacerbates their poverty.

Overcoming this situation requires cooperation and coordination among large groups of farmers, and in turn, the involvement of local governments.

Sustainable Farming

The international community needs to work in partnership with multinational companies and local governments and farmers’ unions to provide financial resources for improved agricultural technologies, alongside strict conservation requirements.

There was worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral was on fire. Why is there not the same level of outrage for the fires destroying the #AmazonRainforest? pic.twitter.com/VbSda5PYAK

— WWF UK (@wwf_uk) August 21, 2019

These efforts need to enable large groups of farmers within the same area to simultaneously eliminate fire use and adopt more sustainable practices.

Contrary to what Bolsonaro claims, this could start Amazonian farmers on the pathway to more permanent economic growth and improved wellbeing, while also preserving the forest. In such a way, farmers and environmentalists can become partners toward achieving protection of the world’s largest tropical forest.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Rachael Garrett

Rachael Garrett

Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy, ETH Zürich

Related Posts

Conversion therapy has affected hundreds of thousands of individuals in the US.
World

More Than 300 Religious Leaders Urge Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’

by Staff Writer
December 16, 2020
Carrefour
World

Brazilians Outraged Over Death of Black Man Beaten by Carrefour Security

by Staff Writer
November 20, 2020
Indigenous people from the Parque das Tribos community mourn at the death of Chief Messias of the Kokama tribe
Environment

Pandemic and Persecution: The Double Threat Facing Brazil’s Indigenous

by Delaney Murray
August 26, 2020
President Donald Trump wearing a mask during a public visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Opinion

Addressing COVID-19: Why Effective Leadership and Depoliticized Responses Matter

by Elizabeth Hume and Conor Seyle
July 29, 2020
US President Donald Trump speaks as he departs the White House, on May 5, 2020, in Washington, DC en route to Arizona, where he will tour a mask factory and hold a roundtable on Native American issues
Opinion

A Cult of Personality Can Derail Democracy

by Saad Hafiz
July 15, 2020
EU Proposes Huge Aid Plan as Virus Hammers Latin America
World

Pandemic Could Push 45 Million in Latin America Into Poverty: UN

by Staff Writer
July 10, 2020
Next Post
A Syrian refugee family in Jordan

Lebanon 'Forcibly Deported' Nearly 2,500 Syrian Refugees: Amnesty

An ambulance in Caracas

Venezuela Nurses Turn to Side Jobs to Survive Economic Crisis

Recommended

António Guterres

World Running Out of Time to Tackle Climate Crisis: UN

April 19, 2021
Myanmar

Japan Urges Release of Journalist Arrested by Junta in Myanmar

April 19, 2021
Raul Castro

CIA Planned to Assassinate Raul Castro in 1960: Declassified Documents

April 17, 2021
Myanmar, Buddhists

Myanmar’s Junta Releases 23,000 Prisoners in New Year’s Amnesty

April 17, 2021
Blogger Roy Ngerng

Singapore Activist Crowdfunds $108,000 to Pay PM Libel Damages

April 16, 2021
cyber security

Figuring Out SolarWinds Hack as US Sanctions Russia

April 15, 2021

Opinion

A candlelight vigil in Garden Grove, California, after the shooting that left eight people dead in Atlanta, including six Asian women

American Nightmare: The Asian-American Experience

April 17, 2021
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson delivers a speech, 2016

The Hippocratic Oath Stops at the Arkansas Border

April 8, 2021
Erdogan Threatens to Open Europe Gates for Refugees

Turkey’s Latest Crackdown Spells Dangerous New Normal for Human Rights Defenders

March 29, 2021
President Biden speaks about the Colorado shootings at the White House.

US Gun Violence: Biden, You Need to Do Something. Now

March 26, 2021
COVID Stimulus Checks: Does Victory Include Abandoning the Most Vulnerable?

COVID Stimulus Checks: Does Victory Include Abandoning the Most Vulnerable?

March 25, 2021
A couple wearing facemasks to prevent the spread of coronavirus watch the sunset from Elysian Park in Los Angeles, California, last month.

Why We Should Expect a Roaring ’20s 2.0 for Our New Normal

March 16, 2021
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post