It’s impossible not to be amazed to meet her. The voluptuousness of the Amazon thrills everyone who approaches it. Smells, sounds, flavors and landscapes. Indigenous people, riverine people and quilombolas form a whole that is difficult to separate: they are the Amazon. All the senses emerge and, suddenly, we are our real size in front of this biodiverse wonder: small and fragile.
It is difficult to understand the dimension and complexity of problems and territories at a distance. Being able to experience and hear the perspective of forest peoples, from where they live, was the best experience provided by the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (Fospa), held in Belém (PA) between July 28 and 31.
The Amazon occupies 50% of the Brazilian territory and has 13% of its population (29.6 million in 2021). Far from this territory, most Brazilians find it difficult to understand the priorities of the region and how it impacts their consumption habits. At the same time, most politicians are disdainful of the deterioration of the country’s greatest wealth.
Deforestation has doubled in the last two years and the Amazon has become a violent space, where organized crime has established itself in mining, wood, cattle and soy. In the Sustainable Development of Cities Index (IDSC-BR), the Amazon biome has the lowest average: of the 10 worst placed among the 5,570 Brazilian cities, 9 are in the Amazon.
São Félix do Xingu, with 130,000 inhabitants, emits the most greenhouse gases in the country, as a result of the huge cattle herd and deforestation in its territory. São Paulo, with 12 million inhabitants, is in fourth place. Santana do Araguaia, with 75,000 inhabitants in the interior of Pará, is the lowest ranked in the IDSC-BR, with 13 of the 17 SDGs, classified as red. That is, with great challenges to achieve. In it, 19% of the houses do not have electricity.
We are losing the Amazon to the trade in minerals, fishing, soy, meat and wood, most of which are illegal. The cycle of production and consumption of forest products still lacks a lot of supervision, increasing the responsibility of consumers (from all regions of the country and even abroad) for the future of the region. It is insanity to waste one of the greatest riches on the planet with mercantile bargains, when this region is home to biodiversity, forests and ancestral knowledge that are important alternatives for the salvation of humanity.
A structuring mistake is that Brazil, one of the countries with the greatest natural wealth on the planet, has become a large farm, and the government, along with some economic sectors, still boasts about it. As if it were a virtue, they do not realize the waste of not adding value to the products and still contaminating the soil and water with pesticides.
Faced with such a debacle, many at Fospa defended the declaration of a climate emergency in the Amazon. This is because we are reaching the point of no return, when the absorption is less than the CO2 emission. To this end, the proposal is to stop consuming Amazonian products until they can all be traced and legalized. The idea is to fight illegality that is rampant and has the encouragement of the federal government.
The recommendations also include reducing deforestation to zero and not just putting an end to net deforestation, via compensation; but advance in the demarcation of indigenous lands and comply with ILO convention 169, which recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to land and natural resources, as well as the definition of their development priorities.
The secret of a good relationship between the non-resident population and the Amazon lies in the creation of a non-aggression pact, as we are more fragile and need it more than it needs us. We cannot heat the planet by 1.5 degrees, and for that we just need to follow the recipe for successful relationships: respect, understanding, protection and independence.
A preserved Amazon absorbs carbon, produces rain and reduces the planet’s temperature. Today the Amazon is becoming a hub for commodity trading, thereby becoming an accelerator of climate change rather than a reducer. In this sense, countries that condemn deforestation should also avoid consuming untraceable Amazon products. Soy, meat and wood are bought by countries in the global North, which place themselves as protectors of the Amazon, but are, at the same time, its executioners.
All signs lead to the need to preserve the largest tropical forest on the planet, given its strategic importance for biodiversity and maintenance of carbon reserves. We are in the last decade to produce actions that reverse this situation. The importance of the next federal and state governments will be key to reversing the deplorable situation that we are experiencing today.
Avoiding global warming is the challenge we have until the end of this decade. Our affection for the Amazon will be all the greater the less we contribute to it warming the planet. Contrary to what is usual in relationships, our approach should be to generate more cold and not heat.
