Report warns that 74% of agricultural land in the region may become unviable by 2060
07/18/2024
Agriculture in jeopardy: large-scale monocultures, with intensive irrigation systems and excessive use of inputs, fertilizers, and pesticides — Foto: Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil
If the current agribusiness model is maintained in the future, with pressure on natural capital and producing major environmental impacts, the activity runs the risk of becoming unviable. Scenarios project that the viability of 74% of current agricultural land on the border between the Amazon and the Brazilian savanna (“Cerrado”) could be compromised by 2060.
This data is part of the executive summary of the “Thematic Report on Agriculture, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services” produced over three years and launched on Tuesday by a group of 100 researchers from several fields linked to 40 institutions in all Brazilian biomes.
“We want to highlight the importance of an integrated agenda between agriculture and conservation in Brazil, alerting people to the environmental liabilities generated by conventional farming,” said biologist Rachel Bardy Prado, one of the coordinators of the report and a researcher with the soil department of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) for 21 years.
Brazilian ecosystems are home to nearly 20% of the planet’s described species. The country is first in the ranking of the 17 most megadiverse nations in the world. On the other hand, agribusiness is responsible for 20% of formal jobs and 27% of the country’s GDP—or R$403.3 billion in 2020. “For the most part, it is marked by large-scale monocultures, with intensive irrigation systems and excessive use of inputs, fertilizers, and pesticides,” said the note to press.
The report mentions that crops dependent on pollinators account for 55% of the annual monetary value of national production. “This service is very important and has been compromised by pesticides, the fragmentation of the landscape, and the destruction of forests,” said Ms. Prado. “Pollination is one of the essential services, like clean water.”
“The conservation and production agendas are separate. Our proposal is for them to be shared”, she added. The biologist said what has been known for years in the country, but has not become a reality: “We have to stop seeing biodiversity as an obstacle to development. It’s the other way around. This is our great wealth, for different sectors of production and especially for agriculture.”
The summary of the report was produced by the Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Bpbes), an initiative launched in 2017 that brings together 120 university professors, researchers, environmental managers, and holders of traditional knowledge.
The summary indicates what is in the six chapters of the report: the first is about the benefits provided by nature, the second mentions the trajectory of land use. The third shows future scenarios, and the fourth practical solutions for managing agriculture and natural resources.
The fifth chapter discusses opportunities for greater social inclusion and income generation. The last is about governance, where the main successful examples of reconciling conservation and agriculture with international requirements have been consolidated.
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“We have to look at a multifunctional rural landscape. This means a landscape that can provide more than food, but all the ecosystem services essential to human well-being such as clean water, fertile soil, climate regulation, and pollination,” said the biologist.
Subsidy is expected to reach R$30.3bn in 2023, and economists advocate gradual abandonment of the model
11/29/2022
With a drop in direct job generation in recent years, the departure of large companies from the region, and an increase in the tax cost to the federal government, the Manaus Free Trade Zone is going through one of the most sensitive moments since its creation in 1967. In recent years, the effectiveness of the free trade area has been placed at the center of the debate on a reform of tax laws.
Economists critical of the model say the Free Trade Zone is responsible for Brazil’s largest tax waiver, is ineffective, and has not fulfilled its role. They advocate a gradual migration towards the end of subsidies.
The Secretariat of Federal Revenue estimates that, by 2023, the tax waiver with the Free Trade Zone will be R$30.3 billion, a figure that has been growing in recent years. This year, the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) said that the region will represent the largest tax waiver of the federal government next year – 16.1% of total tax expenditure.
Representatives of the local industry, academics, and members of the federal government in charge of supervising the region evaluate that despite the drop in job generation, Manaus Trade Zone is still key for the development of the Amazonas state and the consequent preservation of the forest.
With 41,773 registered companies — 18,054 of them only in the Amazonas state — today benefited from tax breaks, such as the Import Tax (II), Export Tax (IE), and Industrialized Products Tax (IPI), as well as social taxes PIS and Cofins breaks, the industrial hub, which represents 2.4% of the country’s industrial GDP, has been reporting a drop in the number of jobs in the last decades.
In 2012, for example, the benefited companies employed 120,000 people, according to the statistics agency IBGE, which represented 6.5% of the formal activity in the region. By the end of 2021, the number fell to 103,000, taking the index down to 4.59%. Since 2020, more than 80 companies departed from the region.
Business leaders of the region fear that a possible tax overhaul in the coming years that fails to preserve the free trade zone will result in the withdrawal of more companies. According to the Superintendence of the Manaus Free Trade Zone (Suframa), an agency linked to the Special Secretariat for Productivity and Competitiveness (Sepec) of the Ministry of Economy, more than 50% of the entire population of Manaus, or 2.25 million people, depends on the Free Trade Zone.
“The per capita income would be half of what it is today if there was no program,” said Márcio Holland, a professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), coordinator of research on the region’s impacts, effectiveness, and opportunities.
According to Mr. Holland, a former Secretary of Economic Policy at the Ministry of Finance (2011-2014), the biggest challenge of the Manaus Free Trade Zone is how to sustain the attraction of investments to the region with less dependence on tax breaks.
“As an unfolding of this challenge, Brazil needs to promote a broad and deep tax overhaul that includes the adoption of VAT [value-added tax] in consumption taxation. A good VAT, however, because it is calculated at the destination, which overturns the structure of tax incentives that bring investments to the state of Amazonas,” he said. “How to conduct the necessary reform of the Brazilian tax system and preserve the existing investments in the region is a great challenge.”
Augusto Cesar Rocha — Foto: Fabiola Abess/Divulgação
On the other hand, academics say that it is possible to replace the high cost of the region. “The attempt to induce the industrialization of the Manaus region assumed that a few years of subsidy would be enough to create a new hub, with population growth and strong relations with the rest of the national economy and abroad. This did not happen,” said economist Marcos Mendes, an associate researcher at the business school Insper. “What we have is an enclave that depends on high subsidies to survive. The Free Trade Zone cannot be extinguished overnight, but a new model can replace it over the course of a decade.”
One who agrees is economic consultant Zeina Latif, a former Secretary of Economic Development in São Paulo. “It is important to discuss a transition of the program,” she said. “The ideal would be a discussion about how to help each region exploit its comparative advantages, which is not the case with the Free Trade Zone. Trying to develop artificially proves to be not very effective.”
This year, although the tax overhaul did not move forward, there was apprehension among companies in the region from the edition of decrees that reduced the IPI rates for products that were also manufactured in the Manaus Free Trade Zone. After an appeal to the Supreme Court, Justice Alexandre de Moraes suspended portions of the decrees, because the new rules could hinder the region.
“[The new rule] shows itself equally capable of impacting the regional development model that the Federal Constitution decided to maintain, whether in its economic aspect, by compromising the ‘unequalization’ of the region as a form of compensation for the higher costs arising from the challenges faced by the local industry,” Mr. Moraes wrote at the time.
Business leaders from the Free Trade Zone link the drop in jobs in recent years to legal tax insecurity in the region. “You can’t change the rule of the game after the game starts. We need to establish the rules and keep them. This is what afflicts the business activity in the Manaus Free Trade Zone,” said Luiz Augusto Rocha, head of the board of the Industrial Center of the State of Amazonas (CIEAM).
With the expectation that the Lula administration will proceed with a tax overhaul, the business leaders of the region are doing the math and negotiating with Congress a way to mitigate the impacts and preserve the activity in Amazonas. Today, the biggest concern is with the proposal to amend the constitution (PEC) 45, of the Chamber of Deputies, which is based on the assumption that there should be no tax breaks. “It would be the death of the Manaus Free Trade Zone,” said Mr. Rocha.
Senate PEC 110, on the other hand, has its own chapter for the Manaus Free Trade Zone. This text, according to the region’s businesspeople, is more favorable, but still needs improvements: the main fear in this proposal, for the region, is the regulation, by supplementary law, of the period for maintaining tax breaks in the region — currently guaranteed by the Constitution until 2073.
“A tax reform has to consider the region. There are 25 million inhabitants in the whole Amazon, and we need to think about it strategically,” said General Algacir Antonio Polsin, current head of Suframa, appointed to the position by President Jair Bolsonaro – and an advocate of the model. During his term in office, Suframa has sought to get closer to research institutes and universities in an attempt to boost the region. Today, there are three universities and 131 research institutes in the region.
Mr. Polsin evaluates that, besides the tax issues, there are two other main challenges for the future of the region: attracting investment and the maintenance of the labor force due to the advance of technology in the industry and the change in consumption standards. “We have to take advantage of what makes us stand out, which are the products of the land. We can’t depend on the sale of commodities,” he said.
As the Ministry of Economy may be split in Lula’s administration, it is expected that Suframa (in charge of inspecting companies in the region and stimulating development) will be linked again to the Ministry of Industry. This change could broaden the dialogue of the companies with the government, the general said.
Besides the tax issues, which are directly related to economic development and the maintenance of employment, there is still the logistical challenge because of the difficulty of local industry to transport products by other means, given the dependence on the river. In the view of Augusto Rocha, a professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (Ufam), the complexity of the issue involves building infrastructures that respect and protect the environment and the people of the region, “inducing economic activities that have the magnitude to justify such investments and, simultaneously, do not cause devastating effects.”
“The industrial hub of Manaus has a set of products. The best infrastructure will be the one suitable to the set of products produced there. It will not be railroads or trains, because these alternatives are suitable for mining or agriculture. It will not be waterways, for the same reason. Thus, for motorcycles — which will be distributed throughout the country — the most appropriate alternative would be the road,” said the professor.
The main demand from the infrastructure standpoint for the region is the completion of the BR 319 highway which, in the past, made possible the connection between Manaus and Porto Velho — today, this connection is entirely made by boat, which raises the cost for the industry. This is because today the so-called “middle stretch” of the road, about 400 kilometers long, is the most critical and is not paved, which prevents the transport of goods by land. According to government data, R$1.3 billion would be needed to complete the reconstruction of the highway.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, defend that, if the road is reactivated, it would favor and consequently facilitate the deforestation of the Amazon Forest. “The environmentalists’ argument is correct, and we need them to face the issue, so we can build a sustainable model for this highway,” the professor pointed out. “If we don’t, the forest will be destroyed to the guts.”
Company is far behind competitors but vows to grow
08/23/2022
A global trade giant — second only to Walmart, the world’s largest retailer — Amazon has invested over the last two years in Brazil to expand its market share. Since 2020, the company has increased the number of distribution centers in Brazil to 12 from one, with sizes between 30,000 and 50,000 square meters. Logistics, according to specialists, is gaining more importance in retail, in view of a consumer who wants to receive products in a shorter and shorter time.
Even with the expansion, the number of Amazon units is still smaller than that of competitors, which have up to 30 centers, as is the case of Via (owner of Casas Bahia and Ponto chains). Americanas S.A. (Lojas Americanas and B2W Digital) has 25 distribution centers, while Magazine Luiza totals 24 and Mercado Libre has 10.
Many retailers also bet on the so-called “cross-docking” model — a smaller warehouse for redirecting deliveries within the chain itself, like a warehouse — or even in the use of brick-and-mortar stores as small distribution hubs, not only for their own products but also for third-party sellers, case of Magazine Luiza.
Unlike the world market, where it is the vice-leader, Amazon’s performance in Brazil is still far behind that of its rivals, according to market estimates. The Brazilian Society of Retail and Consumption (SBVC) ranking of the largest online marketplaces shows Amazon in sixth place, with R$3.832 billion in goods sold in 2021. The figure does not include third-party sales. If these other sales are considered, the estimated number rises to R$10 billion, according to consulting firm Varese Retail.
Still, those numbers are much lower than the first four in the ranking: Mercado Libre (R$68 billion), Americanas S.A. (R$42.2 billion), Magazine Luiza (R$39.7 billion) and Via (R$26.4 billion).
Ricardo Pagani —Foto: Divulgação
The leader of Amazon’s operations in Brazil, Ricardo Pagani, does not reveal investment or revenue figures but says that “important investments” have been made and that the company is just at the beginning of its operations in Brazil. Although it arrived in 2012, initially selling only digital books and Kindle e-readers, the expansion of the offer of products and categories was gradual. The hard-copy books began to be sold in 2014, then came the items in partnership with third parties (sellers) and only in 2019 Amazon began to acquire products for resale and sell devices such as Alexa. Currently, there is a variety of 50 million products available to customers, in 30 categories.
“As in other markets, Amazon is in Brazil with a long-term vision. We are building an operation in a sustained way. These are important investments made now, initially with a return of investment horizon of five to 10 years,” he said. Mr. Pagani downplayed the competition for leadership in Brazil and reinforced that it is possible to evaluate the position of each competitor in different categories. In the case of books sold through the online channel, for example, Amazon is the leader.
The investments in distribution centers, according to the executive, were planned before Covid-19 hit in Brazil but were accelerated during the pandemic.
Five of the 12 centers are in the city of Cajamar, about 40 kilometers from São Paulo, two in Cabo de Santo Agostinho (Pernambuco), one in Nova Santa Rita (Rio Grande do Sul), one in São João de Meriti (Rio de Janeiro), one in Santa Maria (Federal District), one in Betim (Minas Gerais) and the other in Itaitinga (Ceará). Each one is named after the nearest airport.
Amazon intends to continue investing in new distribution centers. The idea is also to expand the number of delivery stations, which today are five: (three in São Paulo, besides Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais). The units are responsible for the so-called “last mile,” which is the final step for the consumer, and operate in certain situations.
Logistics, says the founder and director of 360Varejo, Luiz Claudio Dias de Melo, is the next big thing, and requires high investments. A sign of Amazon’s concern with deliveries, according to him, is the recent purchase of 10% of Total Express, a logistics and distribution company.
But Amazon arrived later in this retail offensive to expand distribution centers in Brazil, notes Mr. Melo, who says the company faces “a minefield.” While it dominates the U.S. market, in Brazil it faces competitors that are bigger and ahead in terms of logistic structure: “This movement that Amazon is doing is late. The market is very busy and mined. The investments of the large operators have been happening for years”, he said.
The assessment of the late arrival is shared by the partner and founder of the consultancy Varese Retail, Alberto Serrentino, who points out an aggressive escalation of the retailer founded by Jeff Bezos. “Amazon started later, it is structuring itself, but it has been climbing very aggressively, with heavy investments, with many fulfillment centers,” says Mr. Serrentino. He refers to centers that not only receive and ship goods, but also provide other services to third parties that use its platform. The distribution centers that Amazon is setting up in the country “will provide the infrastructure and the muscle to improve the level of service and the ability to provide logistics services to sellers, which is their stronghold in the United States.”
One of the ways for the company to expand the customer base in Brazil, says Mr. Serrentino, is the Prime program, which provides free delivery for a range of products, regardless of value, and Prime Video, which is the streaming service.
Asked to comment on Amazon’s growth in Brazil, Mercado Libre, Americanas, Magazine Luiza and Via did not immediately reply, but gave indicators about the delivery times, one of the parameters in the competition for consumers.
According to the head of Logistics at Via, Fernando Gasparini, more than 15% of the company’s deliveries are currently made on the same day of purchase and more than 40% of the products arrive within 24 hours. As for Americanas S.A., 61.2% of deliveries are made within 24 hours, and 40% are made in just three hours, according to data from the second quarter of the year.
Magazine Luiza says 80% of the orders for its own products (that is, not considering the sellers) are delivered within 48 hours, and a “significant” portion within 24 hours.
Amazon itself does not disclose those figures but reveals that, through Amazon Prime, free shipping within one day is in 100 cities, and two-day shipping is in more than 1,000 cities.
*By Lucianne Carneiro — São João do Meriti, Rio de Janeiro
The restoration of forests in Brazil has been gaining supporters in the private sector and also in the public sector. Despite the long and uncertain way to go to reach the government’s goal of recovering 12 million hectares until 2030, recent initiatives like the one from newcomer re.green, the multinational packaging company Tetra Pak, the Floresta Viva program, the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), and the award-winning NGO Sociedade Chauá are in line with the objectives of the United Nations, which declared the current decade as one of ecosystem restoration. The success of actions in the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon represents the capture of more than 18 million tonnes of carbon and the reduction of the risk of extinction of more than 1.000 species, according to a study by the International Institute for Sustainability (IIS).
“We already are in a climate emergency and in one of mass extinction of biodiversity. We have less than a decade to avoid irreversible devastating consequences. Restoration at scale helps solve both crises”, says Bernardo Strassburg, one of the founders of re.green, created with the purpose of restoring at least 1 million hectares of forests, almost 10% of the national goal, which has made little progress. The initiative is ambitious and still unprecedented in the world. Its success will allow the capture of 15 million tonnes of CO2/year. The company is led by a group of specialists (Mr. Strassburg has provided consulting services to the UN, the World Bank, and Conservation International) and has names such as Armínio Fraga, Fábio Barbosa, and João Moreira Salles on its board.
re.green, which was born with R$359 million to finance the start of its operations, will recreate ecosystems in an identical compositions of those in the Atlantic Forest and Amazon, ensuring the integrity of the forest and its biodiversity. To do so, the team will collect samples in chosen areas to sequence all living organisms in that ecosystem, ensuring greater accuracy in defining the species present and, thus, the perpetuity of the vegetation. “This technique will generate a lot of science. We are talking to funding agencies. We want the areas to be a big international science playground. We know that there is still a lot to learn,” says Mr. Strassburg. The funds will come from the sale of carbon credits and environmental services.
Tetra Pak has chosen Brazil to invest in its forest restoration project, specifically the araucaria forests in the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, as a way to reach the world target of neutralizing its emissions until 2030. The option for the South region of Brazil is due to the threat of extinction of the araucaria forest, which originally occupied 200,000 square kilometers in the region. Today, only 3% of its original formation is in good condition, equivalent to about 6,000 km2.
Valeria Michel — Foto: Silvia Costanti / Valor
Tetra Pak’s goal is to create a biodiversity corridor between Paraná and Santa Catarina, reforesting 7,000 hectares. In the pilot project in Urubici (Santa Catarina), which started this year, methodologies will be tested to be replicated in the future for the restoration of the whole planned area. “Besides the restoration, there will also be payment for environmental services, both for the carbon to be generated and for the biodiversity, which is something new,” says Valéria Michel, Tetra Pak Brazil’s head of Sustainability.
Another initiative for the restoration of araucaria forest comes from the Chauá Society, headed by forest engineer Pablo Hoffmann, winner of the Whitley Award – seen as the “green Nobel” – for his work in the preservation of Brazilian biodiversity, research, and reforestation. Operating since 1997, Mr. Hoffmann and his team have built nurseries with more than 250 species (in general, projects use about 30 types).
The nursery has 210 types of plants native to the Araucaria forest alone. The work consists of mapping the plants in the fields, collecting the seeds, transporting them to the nursery, germinating them, and replanting them in the original system. “We always try to collect the maximum number of species with the greatest genetic diversity. This facilitates the perpetuation of the restoration over time. We focus on endangered species. This is the motivation for the project,” says Mr. Hoffmann.
The BNDES joined the forest restoration initiative through its Floresta Viva program, launched in 2021. The goal is to reach up to 33,000 hectares of restored area, capturing about 9 million tonnes of CO2. The match-funding program already has R$600 million (the goal was R$500 million but was exceeded in March) and 13 partner companies.
In the south of the northern state of Roraima, land costs one seventh of real state in other large centers of agricultural production in Brazil. In spite of that, when flying over it, it is possible to see areas that have been open for decades and have been abandoned due to lack of resources. They are holes in the middle of the Amazon biome.
Brasil BioFuels (BBF) will use this degraded land to cultivate palm and produce oil — which will later be transformed into 500,000 cubic meters of green diesel (HVO) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the biorefinery that is being built in the Manaus Free Trade Zone, with planned investments of R$2 billion.
Vibra Energia, formerly BR Distribuidora, will have exclusive access to this production for five years, and may renew the agreement for another five years. Leader in the Brazilian fuel market in general, the company intends to start distributing these biofuels between 2025 and 2026.
In a one hour and twenty minute flight between Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, and São Luís, in Roraima, for example, a single engine burns 320 liters of aviation kerosene and releases carbon into the air. Aviation accounts for 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions — 915 million tonnes, out of a total of 43 billion.
It was because of this demand that Brasil BioFuels raised to R$2 billion from R$1.8 billion its investment in biofuel production. Besides the production of HVO, announced in November, the extra resource will guarantee technology to produce SAF, which emits up to 90% less pollutants than aviation kerosene.
Brasil BioFuels opted to verticalize palm production in São João da Baliza, a municipality neighboring São Luís, unlike the strategy it adopted in Pará, where it has about 70,000 hectares planted and partnerships with family farmers. In the south of Roraima, the company will plant 20,000 hectares this year and intends to reach 120,000 by 2026. With this, the expectation is to capture 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
BBF grows the seeds in small pots, called pre-beds. They count on a strict control of humidity and other needs for a good development. In the nursery BBF uses irrigation but subjects the plants to temperatures and winds similar to those in the field. Then the palms are transferred to the final planting area. The cycle from planting to harvesting is about four years.
The option for the palm is mainly due to its high productivity: it is estimated that it produces seven times more oil in volume than soy. “It is a paradigm break in relation to biofuels in the Center-South. The sugarcane cycle lasts seven months, while the palm yields the whole year”, says the CEO of BBF, Milton Steagall.
The palm’s agricultural zoning allows its cultivation in areas that were deforested until the end of 2007. This means that there are 31 million potential hectares, much more than what BBF plans to occupy.
The palm oil will be transported in biofuel-powered trucks to the Manaus Free Trade Zone, where the industry has tax exemptions. “And the largest consumers of diesel are concentrated in the Amazon,” says Dionisios Vossos, from BBF’s Business Development area.
Since part of the area opening in the Amazon biome happened after 2008, BBF is studying a way not to leave holes. For this, the plan is to cultivate cocoa and sell it to chocolate industries.
It is not yet clear what the demand for these biofuels will be, but the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) already foresees voluntary CO2 reductions starting in 2025 and mandatory after 2027. Executives from Azul, Gol and Latam airlines followed the presentation of BBF and Vibra.
“It’s not just a desire to be sustainable. In a while, it’s going to be mandatory. If this work doesn’t start now, things are going to get complicated later on,” said one of these executives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
HVO has advanced at a faster pace than ethanol and biodiesel, according to Marcelo Bragança, Executive Vice President at Vibra. “It is more stable, easy to use. Technically, it can be used in any proportion. But biodiesel presents some problems after a certain level of mixture”, he says.
The government is expected to soon send to Congress a suggestion for a mandate for green diesel. The proposal will be based on decarbonization metrics, instead of a percentage of mixture, as in biodiesel. The idea is that emission reductions will be between 1% and 10%. The text is at the Chief of Staff Office and may be altered before going to Congress.
The CEO of Vibra, Wilson Ferreira Junior, is confident that the Brazilian market for these products will grow significantly in the coming years. Asked about the carbon credit market, he said only that these are gains for the future, and that the focus now is to obtain cheap biofuels.
If everything goes wrong, Vibra says it will be possible to export the surplus. The volume of HVO and SAF supplied by BBF will represent only 2% of Vibra’s demand. If the production announced by the company were to stay in the North region to replace diesel and aviation kerosene, it would only meet 25% of demand — the global market for aviation fuel reaches 360 billion cubic meters of kerosene per year.
Mr. Steagall says that the structure allows to double production, to 1 billion cubic meters, in a year and a half, if Vibra wants so. However, BBF will only expand production if new agreements are closed, since sales contracts help in obtaining credit. Brazil’s development bank BNDES was invited to visit the project.
Founded in 2008, BBF operates in five states in the North region, where it employs more than 6,000 people. The company has 18 thermoelectric plants in operation and 18 under implementation, three palm oil crushing industries and a biodiesel industry.
Vibra, in turn, is a licensee of the Petrobras brand and has 8,300 service stations in all regions of the country. The company has more than 18,000 customers in various segments, such as transportation, trade, chemicals, and agribusiness. The BR Aviation brand holds 70% of the aviation market.
The journalist traveled at the invitation of BBF and Vibra
The Amazon urbanization pattern has a dispersed population, low demographic density, only two metropolises and the absence of medium-sized cities. A great distance separate urban centers, there is lack of access to basic services such as sewage and water networks, garbage collection, power and broadband. The cities have their backs to the forest or to the rivers. The more than 700 municipalities in the so-called Legal Amazon are out of step with Brazil in all indicators. The good news is that there is still time to design urban centers in a planned and sustainable way.
Two researchers with the Federal University of Juiz de Fora — economist Flavia Chein and Igor Procópio — studied the Amazon cities in detail and produced the report “The cities in the Legal Amazon: diagnosis and challenges for sustainable urbanization”. The report is part of the series of studies on the region of the Amazônia 2030 project.
“The Legal Amazon region is historically configured as the least developed in the country and the urbanization process was not able to create sustainable cities,” says Ms. Chein, “A path was opened in the forest with the construction of roads and there was an explosion of municipalities around, but they were not able to create a network of services. This would be fundamental in the region, because the distances are very large. There is no integrated urban network”.
Many Amazonian municipalities are small, with up to 20,000 inhabitants. There are few medium-sized ones and only Belém and Manaus are metropolises. This lack of intermediary centers worsens the possibility of developing conditions for urban habitability,” says Ms. Chein.
The idea is to identify solutions and policies for a more sustainable urbanization of the region. “We still have a territory to be occupied. The occupation in the past happened in a disorganized way. The Amazon is in a different stage of occupation from the rest of Brazil. It has a demand for housing and equipment that can be designed incorporating the ecosystem”, he says. “It is not because we made mistakes in the past that we need to continue with this non-existent urban design project.”
The analysis defined what is urbanization considering the features of the huge municipalities in the Legal Amazon. “Amazonian cities are less urbanized than those in the rest of Brazil.” She explains: “If one analyzes the Amazon municipalities, most have up to 60% of the people residing in urban areas, while in the rest of Brazil the percentage is higher than 90%. What we have are scattered urbanization spots in giant municipalities, places where the populations are more agglomerated. It is there that the typical problems of a non-ordered and unplanned urbanization can be identified.”
The researchers considered two measures in the diagnosis. The first shows the percentage of the municipality’s total population that lives in an urbanized area. The second relates the total area of the municipality and the percentage of urbanized area.
Ananindeua, in the metropolitan region of Belém, is the Amazonian municipality that has the highest level of urbanization — 100% of the population lives in the urban area. But in relation to the total area of the municipality, urbanization does not reach 32%. The most urbanized municipality in Brazil, which is Belo Horizonte, has 75% of urbanized area.
“When you look at the distance from the municipalities in the Legal Amazon to the nearest metropolis, what you see are great distances. In the rest of Brazil, with many municipalities and metropolises on the coast, the distances are much smaller,” she says.
In the Amazon the distances are barriers. The scattered populations have no connection with the large centers. Another difficulty is the heterogeneity within the municipalities themselves. “From the point of view of urbanization, the Amazon cannot be treated as a single space. There are many Amazons hidden in there”, says Ms. Chein. To deal with the difficulties, the economist says that “it is necessary to have a much greater pact between the several government levels. Besides this, the role of the municipal governments is fundamental.”
“It is necessary to think of the Amazon inside the Amazon and not as something important for the world or for Brazil,” she recommends. “It is necessary to generate well-being in the cities, work conditions and access to culture for those who live there,” she says. “It is in the cities that things happen. Today we have a generation of young people in the Amazon that needs to be encouraged and recognize the region as a place that welcomes them. This starts with designing cities with sanitation, power, communication, schools, bookstores, theaters and cinemas.
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