Comm: "The Amazon forest is like a coalmine above ground.

"It stores vast amounts of carbon and plays a double role in the problem of global warming.

"The burning of the Brazilian Amazon is estimated to put 200 to 300 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.

"Carbon is a principal cause of global warming.

"On the other hand, Amazonian replanted forests, like this, could play a key part in the international negotiations about carbon control. For planted forests are an efficient method of absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere.

"The international conference in the Hague about the Climate Convention collapsed over this issue.

"Some developed countries caused the break-down by argueing that - instead of polluting industries reducing the carbon they were putting into the atmosphere - they should have the option of paying to plant forests that would absorb the same amount of carbon.

"These were called carbon credits.

"This programme takes the complicated idea of a carbon credit away from the Hague negotiations, and tries to discover what it means - in the terms of one specific industry in one region of Amazonia.

"Under the cloud lies the richest mineral area on earth.

"This is our test case - the region of Carajas in Brazil's eastern Amazon.

"The iron ore of Carajas is the richest in the world, and there's enough to last 400 years.

"The plant was capable of processing 90,000 tons of iron ore a day. It's the next stage - which converts this ore into iron - that involves forests and carbon credits.

"In February 1985, the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the mining company of the Brazilian Government, inaugurated the railway that would transport its iron ore."

(Loudspeaker): "Ladies and Gentlemen, the arrival of President Joao Figueiredo."

President's Speech: "The Carajas railway confirms the technology and enterprise of our people. Within 3 years it will carry 35 million tons. It will enrich our country with $700 million a year. Industries will develop. New companies will be founded along the railway, contributing to the occupation of the vast spaces of Amazonia."

Comm: "To a song specially composed for the inauguration, the wealth of Carajas began to flow.

"And as the traffic increased over the years, so the vast and virgin forest began to vanish.

"It was this which makes the corridor along the Carajas railway a good test case. Land close to the line rose in value, and was cleared. And even in the middle of the virgin forest, factories began to appear.

"They were pig iron companies from the south, persuaded by large tax incentives to invest in Amazonia. For the government hoped to create a great industrial region in the corridor along the railway, and licensed a score of factories to convert iron ore into pig iron. The first 3 factories began to go up in 1987.

"They were built around old fashioned blast furnaces burning charcoal, though modern furnaces, burning coke, are more efficient.

"But these factories were intended to compete on the export market - where prices were very low. So they cut costs by using cheap fuel - charcoal made from the free trees of the Amazon forest.

"The first blast furnace of the COSIPAR company alone would consume wood equivalent to 21 square kilometres of forest a year. The company's profits largely depended on this very cheap source of fuel.

"Every 13 tons of pig iron - roughly one of these scoops - consumes half a hectare of virgin forest.

"And since most of the nutrients of the Amazon forest are in its trees which are burnt, so every scoop deprives half a hectare of much of its nutrients. 20 years of pig iron export will convert the deforested areas into a wasteland.

"In March 1988, the first Carajas blast furnace was inaugurated by the Governor of Para."

Governor's Speech: "It's easy for people who are already developed, like in Sao Paulo, to support ecologists.

"There, they've already destroyed everything, created slums where you can't even breathe.

"And now they're developed, they give us lessons in Amazonia."

"'Look! Don't touch this forest.'

"'Ave Maria, you mustn't touch it!'

"They even get groups in other planets - for the rest of the world seems another planet to us in Maraba - to send telegrams asking the Governor not to touch the forest.

"No. This Governor will touch the forest.

"He has to touch it."

Caption, Helio Gueiros, Governor of Para: "By the year 2,000, the Company Vale do Rio Doce had increased its production of iron ore to 50 million tons and the railway was carrying a whole variety of other cargo - including passengers.

"From these passenger trains, it's obvious that the virgin forest along the railway has been stripped bare. Much has become large ranches, and much is abandoned pasture returning to secondary forest.

"So, today, the pig iron factories face running out of wood, and hope that the Climate Convention will permit carbon credits - allow foreign polluting industries to pay them to convert these abandoned pastures into planted forests."

M. Seq. Cosipar Factory: "Since its inauguration, the COSIPAR factory had increased production to 28,000 tons of pig iron a month. The management hopes that payments for carbon credits will help produce the wood needed to make the charcoal that's being fed by this conveyor belt into the blast furnace."

N. Int. Francisco, The Manager: "Charcoal is made today from the left-overs of the sawmills which are cheap because the principal product of the sawmills is the cut wood. So the left overs are sold to the charcoal-makers cheap.

"Today, charcoal costs around $75 a ton. But to make charcoal from planted forests would cost around $100 a ton.

"We believe that pig iron would have to increase in price $20 to $30 for us realistically to keep the foundry operating on planted forests."

Comm: "But if carbon credits contribute, let's say $25, towards the price of charcoal, would that help?"

Answer: "It would help a lot, because the price of pig iron is very low on the international market, which forces us to interrupt many programmes of reforestation."

Francisco Almeida, Superintendant of Operations, COSIPAR: "COSIPAR was therefore producing 4 1/2 million seedlings of eucalyptus a year and its their growth into trees which will absorb carbon out of the atmosphere.

"The cuttings were for their own planted forests and were also given to the sawmills in return for their reject wood, like these rejects being loaded into a COSIPAR truck.

"However, the sawmills were increasingly running out of virgin forest to supply the wood for the main part of their business.

"So, in the year 2,000, COSIPAR, at last, started to replace the virgin forest that their factory consumed.

"In 7 years, these plantations will have produced around 115 tons of eucalyptus per hectare, half of which will be carbon absorbed from the atmosphere."

Comm: "Antonio Mendes is COSIPAR'S plantation manager."

Comm: "How old is this eucalyptus?"

Antonio Mendes: "One and a half years."

Comm: "How many hectares did you plant then?"

Antonio Mendes: "1,000 hectares."

Comm: "And this year what did you plant?"

Antonio Mendes: "1,300 hectares and the forcast for next year is 3,500."

Comm: "How much will you plant yearly after that?"

Antonio Mendes: "3,500 hectares."

Comm: "The aim is to be self-sufficient within 7 - 8 years."

Part 2

Seq. Charcoal Centre: "After planting forests for the next 8 years, the COSIPAR company's charcoal centres, like this, could then produce over 200,000 tons of charcoal a year entirely from planted forests.

"Instead of reducing their own carbon emissions, polluting industries could then pay COSIPAR for the carbon dioxide which their forest absorbed out of the atmosphere.

"The price will vary according to supply and demand in the carbon market which will probably be created by the Climate Convention.

"At the National Institute for Amazonian Research, Dr. Philip Fearnside has studied how this will work."

S. Int. Fearnside: "It's not something that you can say the price will be X because no-one knows what it will be. It depends on that balance between supply and demand. But in terms of planning, for example, the United States government has to plan how much money they expect to spend on this. And they use a range from $5 to $35 per ton of carbon with a mid-point of $20 per ton of carbon. Now that makes a tremendous difference when you're talking about charcoal, because charcoal is mostly carbon - around 70% or so of the weight of charcoal is carbon."

Dr. Philip Fearnside, Ecologist, National Institute for Amazonian Research: "No-one knows what the price will be, but calculating at a median price of $20 per ton of carbon captured, it's estimated that COSIPAR could earn about $2 million a year from payments from carbon credits.

"That's enough to make charcoal from replanted forests economically viable as a fuel for pig iron."

Comm: "In the Carajas corridor of the Amazon forest, this is a concrete example of what carbon credits might mean. But they are controversial.

"Carbon credits would help rich countries avoid responsibility for their own pollution.

"Whilst none of the pollution of developing countries is even taken into account in the Climate negotiations.

"There's also controvery about using foreign species of trees as in this COSIPAR eucalyptus plantation. Next to it is the alternative - a virgin Amazonian forest part-managed by Maraba's Zoobotanica Foundation."

Int. Dr. Jorge Bichara: "Here, you can see a stump of a tree which has been cut for sale and that another Amazonian tree has been replanted, here, next to that stump.

"With these methods it's perfectly possible to exploit a virgin forest, rationally, forever, without destroying either its vegetation or fauna.

"So, we ought to capture carbon with our virgin forests, and not pay incentives to cut down virgin forests to plant eucalyptus or other foreign species."

Caption: Dr. Jorge Bichara Neto, President,Fundacao Zoobotanica de Maraba: "The Brazilian virgin forests preserved by Dr. Jorge's Foundation cannot earn carbon credits under the present stage of the Climate convention.

"It seems crazy. But for a virgin forest to earn carbon credits, it must first be cut down and burnt - thus adding to greenhouse gases - and then replanted.

"Tropical forests store much more carbon than eucalyptus. But the Climate Convention does not allow carbon credits to be paid for protecting this natural storehouse. Accordingly the yearly burning of Amazonian forests continues - releasing carbon equal to half the total
worldwide emissions which the Climate Convention is pledged to reduce.

"So, in the Brazilian Congress, a deputy from Amazonas introduced a bill in favour of carbon credits."

Int. Dep Euler Ribeiro: "The Amazonian Parliament which met in July approved my projected law and sent it to Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia to reproduce in those Congresses the same legislation as in the Brazilian Congress.

"The aim is that the Amazonian countries should have a unified policy giving them strength at the international level of First World countries."

Euler Ribeiro, Federal Deputy: "The Brazilian Foreign Ministry is against carbon credits for standing forests, but the Minister of the Environment is more open."

Int. Minister of Environment: "The government as a whole has still not defined its position, but, clearly, admits discussion on reforestation - on forests in growth.

"About this there's already a consensus within the government. What's still under discussion is how to consider standing forests.

"With regard to this, there's great controversy. I can say here that the interest of the Ministry of the Environment, is always to give importance to forest products."

Jose Sarney Filho, Minister of the Environment, Belem Conference: "In the city of Belem, there was a conference, last October, for organizations trying to preserve the Amazon forest."

"What's of great concern - in this discussion about the forest - is the Brazilian government.

"The countries of Latin America are in favour, but the Brazilian government maintains a position against.

"Until now who has spoken for Brazil is just one Ministry and a few other people.

"If today there's a wider discussion with more actors, it could really have a very great influence on this question."

Fabio Feldman, Executive Secretary, Brazilian Forum on Climate Change: "The problem in relation to Climate Change is that it's completely absent from the Brazilian agenda.

"The people have followed this debate from a distance. So the first objective is to mobilize the public and to ensure that the Brazilian position in these international discussions reflects what Brazilian society thinks itself.

"The conclusions of the conference were read out. They defended carbon credits for virgin Amazon forest, opposed the position of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, and were delivered to the President of Brazil when the Brazilian Forum for Climate Change was set up."

(President speaking): "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to this meeting on climate change.

"The aim of our meeting is to debate the question of our Brazilian Forum for Climate Change, and the mechanism this provides for Brazilian opposition within these discussions."

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil: "In the spirit of stimulating the participation of the public, I will to pass to you, Mr. President, a document recently produced by citizens organizations in Amazonia.

"The document presents proposals for the preservation of environmental resources related to forests and biodiversity in our country.

"I'm satisfied this document could be the basis for the continued deepening of this discussion."

Jose Sarney Filho, Minister of the Environment: "In other capitals, like Brasilia, there are equally intense debates about carbon credits. But however the climate negotiations end, there's no doubt that the right kind of carbon credits "Uirapuru" could stop the incineration of the Amazon forest.

Comm: "Every year the Brazilian burning produces about half the total worldwide emissions which the Climate Convention has pledged to reduce. But because Brazil is a developing country, this is ignored.

"Yet if carbon credits were paid for storing carbon, virgin forest would be worth much more money than can now be earned from clearing it. Whilst replanted forests like this, could save the "Uirapuru" region of the Carajas railway from the insatiable Leviathan which has been devouring it."