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Barbara J. Fraser. Nov 10, 2002
Interview: Ecologist Philip Fearnside
One way to encourage sustainable use of rainforest is to
demonstrate the value of preserving it compared to the value of
other land uses, such as agriculture. Experts speak of the
"services" the forest provides — including its role in the
hydrological cycle, biological diversity and absorption of carbon or
avoidance of the release of carbon dioxide that would result from
burning and clearing.
Credits for avoiding carbon dioxide release came under discussion
in negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, as carbon
dioxide is a principal factor in the greenhouse effect. Ecologist
Philip Fearnside, a US-born research professor at the National
Institute for Amazon Research Institute, based in Manaus, Brazil,
has worked for 26 years on Amazon issues. He spoke by phone with
Latinamerica Press associate editor Barbara J. Fraser.
How do you calculate the value of environmental
services?
In the case of Amazonia, I talk about three classes of services —
maintaining biodiversity, maintaining the water cycling functions of
the forest and avoiding global warming. The carbon [global warming]
part has progressed by far the most in terms of international
negotiations. Biodiversity is further behind. The biodiversity
convention has made some progress on agreeing about who has rights
to biodiversity, but it doesn’t have [incentives] for countries to
maintain forests to preserve biodiversity.
I’ve been working on quantifying in terms of willingness to pay.
[Other people are] trying to figure out what the damages would be of
losing different services — if you lose a forest, you lose watershed
functions and other things. In global warming, you have a certain
carbon stock. In the case of Amazonia, you have a water cycling
function. But the value of the damages is much higher than what
people are actually willing to pay.
Which countries are most advanced in the area of
environmental credits?
Costa Rica and Bolivia are very anxious to have credit for
carbon. Colombia is also interested. Costa Rica’s the most
advanced.
Why is placing a value on the hydrological cycle so
important for Brazil?
A substantial amount of the south-central part of Brazil — São
Paulo and places like that, where most of the country’s agriculture
is located — depends on water that comes from the Amazon rainforest.
It’s also important for hydroelectric dams in that part of the
country. Brazil’s population is very unevenly distributed, very much
along the coast, and the Amazon is sparsely populated. But those
other places, which have much more political weight than Amazonia,
also depend on [Amazonia]. If you cut down the forest and turn it
into a cattle pasture, you’re going to have less water [in the
south-central area]. In the last year, there was a lot of rationing
of electricity in Brazil because there wasn’t enough water in the
hydroelectric dams (LP, June 11, 2001). That sort of problem
is going to get worse if you keep on with deforestation.
How has Brazil incorporated water cycling into national
policy?
Brazil has made a lot of official statements about how
deforestation is to be forbidden or reduced, but it hasn’t actually
happened. You have to be able to take some political risk. It would
be worth much more than timber and even soybeans if you could get
credit for avoided deforestation. Roughly 200 tons of carbon are
avoided for every hectare of forest if you don’t deforest it. At
US$20 a ton, that’s about $4,000 a hectare. That land is selling for
$30 a hectare. [With a credit for avoided deforestation] you
wouldn’t get huge amounts of money, but you would get more than you
would by cutting down the forest.
How do you begin to place a value on biodiversity for
credits or tax incentives?
[Instead of] figuring out what all of these medicinal compounds
and so forth are really worth, I try to figure out what people are
willing to pay to maintain forests. There is a law of diminishing
returns; people will pay a lot for some small areas, but you can’t
extrapolate that to huge areas like the Amazon. I’ve used a number
from political scientists who are writing about this; it’s about $20
per hectare per year.
There are other factors, though, like continuity of the
forest areas, aren’t there?
If you cut down the last hectare of Atlantic forest, you have a
tremendous loss of biodiversity, even though the impact on global
warming is the same as cutting down a hectare in the Amazon. But in
the Amazon, where you’ve still got a lot of forest left, for each
hectare that you cut down now, you don’t lose as much
biodiversity.
Given the current situation, are incentives for avoiding
deforestation feasible?
Some people think that deforestation is basically out of control.
[But] in the last year, information from Mato Grosso has been
showing a response to government programs to control deforestation.
What makes that program so successful?
They have a satellite monitoring system, and they’re advancing on
getting all the properties into a geographical information system so
they can see what areas are licensed to be cleared and which aren’t,
where the clearing was, how many hectares were cleared illegally,
and so forth, by property, not just totaled by state. And then they
go out and catch people who are doing it illegally. It’s set up so
you don’t have corruption and political influence, which is at least
as important as the mechanics [of the system].
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