The Amazon rainforest is in a trap: the elements that reflect the failure of its unstructured occupation are also the key to solutions for the territory. The largest region in Brazil reveals the worst social indices and the highest rates of violence at the same time as it has a demographic bonus, open land with enormous potential and forest – three fronts of development, well-being and wealth. The paradox of the Amazon is that its large number of young people suffer without economic options, 90% of the deforested areas are unproductive, and the forest is only valuable on the ground. Despite its riches, the Amazon rainforest has serious poverty problems.

The diagnosis of the difficulties is as complex as the size of the area. The Amazon rainforest occupies 60% of the Brazilian territory but has 13% of the population. It accounts for only 8% of the national GDP and emits more than 40% of greenhouse gases. It is a very polluting economy: it emits little carbon and generates little wealth.

Diagnosing, analyzing and searching for ways out of the three overlapping crises in the Brazilian Amazon – the social, the environmental and the Amazonian ones – are the focus of an ambitious project for the region’s economic development. “Amazônia 2030” began two years ago, has already concluded 39 of the 50 studies commissioned and involved 60 researchers from universities in the region, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), business school Insper, and many other institutions in the country. It is being considered as one of the broadest and most profound diagnoses of the Amazon ever made, and is funded by the Institute of Climate and Society (iCS).

A synthesis of the results will be presented this week at an event at Princeton University, in the United States, to an audience of 100 people, 70 of whom are Brazilians. In the audience or on stage will be names such as Tasso Azevedo (MapBiomas), Suely Araújo (Climate Observatory), Armínio Fraga (Gávea), Guilherme Leal (Natura), Márcia Castro (Harvard), João Moreira Salles (Serrapilheira and Moreira Salles institutes), Ilona Szabó (Igarapé), Sérgio Rial (Santander), Candido Bracher (Itaú Unibanco and Mastercard boards of directors), Roberto Waack (Amazon Concertation), and indigenous leaders such as Txai Suruí and Juma Xipaia, among other names connected to the Amazon.

Juliano Assunção — Foto: Divulgação

The project’s mapping of knowledge gaps about the region and proposed solutions also intends to inform the electoral debate. “This is our finishing point: to have a set of concrete proposals for this year’s elections, both presidential and state governmental, drawing attention to the importance of the Amazon,” says economist Juliano Assunção, one of the coordinators of “Amazônia 2030.”

“Everything that is thought about Brazil is different in the Amazon. It is as if there were two countries, with very different social, environmental and economic realities”, says agricultural engineer Adalberto Veríssimo, an associate researcher and co-founder of Imazon, one of the main research and strategic action centers in the Amazon, and another coordinator of the project.

“The Amazon experiences a demographic bonus. The region has many young people, while the rest of the country is aging. Youth is the way to achieve economic growth, at least the chances are good,” summarizes Mr. Veríssimo. The fact is that the dynamism of the labor market is much more precarious in the North region. “Young people find the work environment difficult, with low quality and many people working informally. There is a huge discouragement,” he says.

The historic deforestation of the Amazon has not resulted in jobs and opportunities for young people. In the nine states of the Legal Amazon region, people aged between 18 and 24 find it much more difficult to enter the job market than in the rest of the country. In this age group, 42% of young people are unemployed in the Amazon, compared to 29% in the rest of Brazil.

“Among young people, in the Amazon, there is discouragement,” Gustavo Gonzaga, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), a labor economics specialist and author of the study, told Valor at the time of its release. “There is a concept, in labor economics, which is called the scarring effect,” said the specialist. These are people who start their careers, fail to engage in the labor market, and become discouraged. “This discouragement causes them to get involved in drug trafficking, in crime, and has health implications, cases of depression.”

“If the demographic bonus has its positive side, we have not managed to take advantage of it. The Amazon is the most violent region in Brazil,” says Mr. Assunção, who is also an associate professor at PUC-Rio and director in Brazil of the think-tank Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

Adalberto Veríssimo — Foto: Divulgação

“An important and evident agenda for the development of the region is that of young people. It is necessary to take advantage of this demographic bonus that today has become a kind of burden,” says Mr. Veríssimo.

Violence in the region, which had relatively low rates until the early 2000s, began to grow and exploded with the illicit environment of land grabbing, illegal extraction of gold and wood, and drug trafficking. The immense territory and the little presence of the state helped to spread conflicts.

The homicide rate in the Amazon in 1999 was about 70% of the rate in the rest of the country. Today it is 60% higher than in the rest of Brazil. Data from the study by economist Rodrigo Soares shows that the difference in homicide rates between the Amazon and the rest of Brazil was 12,610 more homicides in the region between 1999 and 2019, in municipalities with less than 100,000 inhabitants. “This upward trajectory of violence in the Amazon does not reveal any possibility of cooling at this time,” Mr. Assunção acknowledges.

The amount of open and unproductive land is another bottleneck for development in the Amazon. Of the 83 million hectares already deforested in the region, around 70 million hectares are underused or totally abandoned. “Only 10% have good productivity. There is a lot to recover,” says Mr. Veríssimo, who calculates this amount of land at something equivalent to the combined area of the States of Minas Gerais and Paraná. “It is a fallacy to say that it is necessary to open up forest areas to produce food. What is needed is to recover what has been lost,” he summarizes.

In the areas of lost forests there is room for forestry, pulp and paper industry projects, native forest and agroforestry planting, room to improve livestock and grain production, area for oil palm plantations. “And there’s still some area left. This means growing without deforesting,” says Mr. Veríssimo.

He recognizes that the land environment is a knot that needs to be undone and says that Congress cannot complicate the picture any further. “The right to property is important in the legal ordering of the territory,” he continues. In the Amazon, two thirds of the land are in the hands of the federal and state governments, and one third belongs to private parties.

In the Amazon, 30% of the lands are undesignated areas. They are public lands, not all of which are covered by forest anymore, already with deforested areas. “The undefinition is a good opportunity for the advance that takes place over the territories. Therefore, the role of the Brazilian government, especially the federal government, is important,” he continues. “The private sector has no way to solve that,” Mr. Veríssimo says.

“When governments or the Congress ease rules so that recent occupants who have deforested can have title to the land, there is a huge incentive for more encroachment on forests. What is worsening is the right to property instead of encouraging good land use,” summarizes Mr. Veríssimo.

There is a third fundamental element in the mosaic of development options for the Amazon – the millions of hectares covered with forest. “The problem is that we still haven’t learned how to make money with the forest, which is not an economic vacuum. We haven’t realized its potential because we haven’t seen the forest as a strategic resource that puts Brazil in the economic vanguard,” he continues. “We have done a lot of things wrong in the past and now our task is to make very good use of these areas.”

In the Amazon the population is small for the size of the region. “The development strategy for the Amazon has to be a coherent and consistent state policy. It is a non-transferable task of the state that has to create a lawful environment and organize the territory,” says Mr. Veríssimo. “We don’t have 30 or 50 years to have a clear vision of how to develop the region. We won’t be able to conserve the forest if the region continues to be poor and contaminated by illegality,” he continues.

“Amazônia 2030” does not bring immediate solutions but outlines several paths to develop the region. Illegality discourages investment in the Amazon. Developing an agroforestry economy is a huge opportunity, the researchers recommend, and reduces the pressure on the forest. Another study points to the need for infrastructure in the region. “The Amazon needs infrastructure, but one that does not increase deforestation,” says Mr. Assunção.

Another agenda to be stimulated is the digital-based economy. The region is far behind in broadband telephony. “Putting quality broadband in place would allow young people, who are disconnected from the local job market, to be, for example, programmers. They could seek another economic space unrelated to his physical surroundings,” suggests Mr. Veríssimo.

Improving the digital environment in the region would also help provide better healthcare to remote populations with teleconsultation systems. The same could happen with education.

“What needs to be understood is that deforestation is not a factor for economic growth in the Amazon, and hasn’t been for a long time,” says Mr. Veríssimo.

Together with Mr. Assunção, he will present on Thursday a summary of the project’s studies in Princeton. The event, which will take place at Princeton’s campus in New Jersey, is organized by the Brazil Lab at Princeton University. On Thursday the event is open, with broadcasting on the Brazil LAB YouTube channel.

Source: Valor International

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