[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PRESERVING THE AMAZON: A SHARED MORAL IMPERATIVE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, CIVILIAN SECURITY, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
September 10, 2019
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Serial No. 116-60
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-563PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Jason Steinbaum, Staff Director
Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
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Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, and Trade
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey, Chairman
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida,
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas Ranking Member
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota TED S. YOHO, Florida
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan JOHN CURTIS, Utah
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas KEN BUCK, Colorado
JUAN VARGAS, California MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
Alexander Brockwehl, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
INFORMATION FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED FROM CHAIRMAN SIRES
Statement for the record submitted by Chariman Sires from former
Congressman Henry Waxman....................................... 2
OPENING STATEMENT
Opening statement submitted for the record from Chairman Sires... 6
WITNESSES
De Bolle, Dr. Monica, Director, Latin American Studies Program,
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute For International
Economics...................................................... 12
Nepstad, Dr. Daniel, President and Executive Director, Earth
Innovation Institute........................................... 21
Millan, Bill, Chief Conservation Officer and Director of Policy,
International Conservation Caucus Foundation................... 30
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 49
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 50
hearing Attendance............................................... 51
ADDITONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Amensty International letter submitted for the record from
Chairman Sires................................................. 52
PRESERVING THE AMAZON: A SHARED MORAL IMPERATIVE
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
Civilian Security and Trade
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Albio Sires (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Sires. Good morning. This hearing will come to order.
This hearing, titled ``Preserving the Amazon: A Shared Moral
Imperative,'' will focus on the fires taking place in the
Brazilian Amazon to highlight the global importance of the
Amazon and the role we in the United States should play in
helping to combat climate change and protect the rain forest.
Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit
statements, questions, extraneous materials for the record,
subject to the length limitation in the rules.
I would like to submit a statement for the record from my
friend and former colleague, Henry Waxman of California.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. I will now make an opening statement and then
turn it over to the ranking member for his opening statement.
Good morning, and thank you for being here today as our
witnesses on this hearing. I convened this hearing because
protecting the Amazon is vital for the health of our planet.
The Amazon rainforest is the most biodiverse region in the
world. It contains approximately one-fifth of the world's
surface fresh water supply.
The water released by the Amazon's plants and rivers impact
climate throughout South America and can affect precipitation
and the severity of droughts.
The Amazon also stores billions of tons of carbon dioxide,
a portion of which enters the atmosphere when deforestation
occurs, potentially accelerating global climate change.
For these reasons and many more, the fires currently
burning in the rainforest are an issue that should concern all
of us. While the fires have helped draw attention to what is
happening in the Amazon, we know that they are just one symptom
of the much bigger problem of deforestation.
Scientists generally agree that the Amazon could reach a
tipping point if current deforestation trends continue. This
scenario would jeopardize the many benefits the Amazon provides
to our climate and would threaten millions of plants and animal
species the rainforest ecosystem supports.
The goal of this hearing is to understand the causes and
scope of the problem and explore solutions to preserve the
Amazon.
Today, we will hear experts' analysis of Brazil's
environmental protection policies, challenges to their
implementation, and recommendations about what more needs to be
done.
I deeply value our relationship with Brazil and appreciate
the Brazilian government's historical commitment to balance its
promotion of economic development with efforts to preserve the
environment.
In looking for a path to success we can look to Brazil's
recent past. From 2005 to 2014, deforestation in the Brazilian
Amazon declined by over 70 percent during the same period the
Brazilian economy grew and nearly 30 million people were lifted
out of poverty.
In other words, well-regulated economic development efforts
have gone hand in hand with successful environmental protection
programs in the past.
There is no reason why this cannot be achieved again. I
believe the United States has a role to play in supporting
Brazil on this issue and I urge my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle to work together in fulfilling our global leadership
role.
We must also support the indigenous communities that live
in the Amazon whose right to live on their ancestral lands for
generations to come depends on the health of the rainforest.
Preserving the Amazon is not just the right thing to do.
This is an issue that directly affects our own constituents
because the health of the Amazon rainforest ultimately impacts
the water we drink and the air we breathe.
Unfortunately, the United States cannot be a leader in the
environmental if we do not return to policies of acknowledging
the scientific reality of global climate change.
I strongly criticized the Trump Administration's decision
to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement not only because
it ignored overwhelming scientific evidence but also because it
has undermined our credibility on the world stage and hurt our
national security interests.
This should not be a partisan issue. If we do not take the
threat of climate change seriously, our children and
grandchildren will never forgive us for failing to meet the
moral demand of our time.
Today, I look forward to a bipartisan discussion about how
the U.S. Congress can advocate for the necessary policies to
combat climate change and work with the Brazilian government to
protect the Amazon.
Thank you, and I know turn to Ranking Member Rooney for his
opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sires follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rooney. Thank you, Chairman Sires.
I think this hearing on the shared moral imperative of the
Amazon is very important. The media is focused on the Amazon in
recent weeks because of the fires there.
The fires have broadened public awareness of the unique
ecological importance of the region and its global impact. I
personally have spent much time there. I have traversed it from
Iquitos, Peru to Manaus, Brazil and have navigated the Napo in
Ecuador.
In Brazil, the Amazon biome constitutes 2.1 million square
miles of rainforest, 40 percent of the world's, so the world
has a vested interest in preserving the Amazon rainforest.
It contains nearly one-half of the world's carbon, which is
in many ways an essential defense against global climate
change.
Recent concerns over deforestation and fire hot spots in
the Amazon are legitimate and credible. However, this year's
number of fires registers as the eighth highest in the last 20
years and 2018's was the twelfth highest.
While not the highest number of fires in hectares of
deforestation, they are still unacceptable. The governments of
the region have the responsibility to enforce the laws and take
the necessary measures to preserve the Amazon.
Laws and regulations enacted by Brazil since 2004 have
reduced deforestation and placed regulations on legal burning
and land-clearing practices.
Within the Amazon biome, private property owners are
mandated to conserve at least 80 percent of their lands' native
vegetation.
Further, Brazil's commitment to the 2009 Copenhagen
Agreement has reduced deforestation by 73 percent since its
peak in 2004. that is a 2.28 gigaton reduction in CO2
emissions.
Brazil also invested in monitoring technology and data
bases to detail events in the Amazon while also investing in
renewable resources to achieve 45 percent usage of renewable
energy.
Further, just last week, leaders from Brazil, Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Surinam held a regional
summit in Colombia to discuss regional measures to protect the
Amazon.
The United States and the international community must also
work with these countries to advance conservation of the Amazon
rainforest.
The United States provided over $20 million in foreign aid
assistance for natural resource and biodiversity conservation
in 2017 and 2018, and created the partnership for conservation
of the Amazon Biodiversity Program, which conserves the Amazon
through management and monitoring of protected areas.
It also considers the critical role of the private sector
in developing public-private partnerships aimed at conservation
and sustainability for existing communities within the Amazon.
Through USAID, the Forest Service works with the Brazilian
government on sustainable forest management and biodiversity.
In Fiscal Year 2019, Congress appropriated $11 million
through USAID to be used for environmental programs.
International cooperation is essential to preserving the Amazon
rainforests but will only be effective if the host governments
are committed to meeting conservation goals.
As a representative from southwest Florida whose district
includes the Everglades, I have a thorough understanding of the
importance of preserving our watersheds.
Data shows that what happens in the Amazon affects us in
Florida and throughout the United States from rain patterns in
the Midwest to the sargassum grass washing up on the beaches in
the Caribbean, Cancun, and the Gulf of Mexico now, and the
algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.
These blooms, which severely threaten tourism-based
economies in Florida and the other coastal areas, are partly
caused by nutrient runoff from the Amazon.
I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress as
well as international partners in the Brazilian government to
seek reduced burning, reduced deforestation, and reduced
outflow of polluted water through the Amazon watershed.
I look forward to hearing the testimoneys and opinions of
our important witnesses today.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Rooney.
I will now introduce Dr. Monica de Bolle. She is the
director of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies, Latin American Program and holds the Riordan Roett
Chair at Johns Hopkins.
She has also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of
International Economics. She previously worked as the director
for the Institute for Economic Policy Research in Brazil and as
an economist at the International Monetary Fund. She holds a
Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics.
Welcome.
We will hear from Dr. Dan Nepstad, the president and
founder of the Earth Innovation Institute. Dr. Nepstad has
worked in the Brazilian Amazon for more than 30 years,
publishing over 160 papers and books on regional ecology and
public policy.
Before founding the Earth Innovation Institute, he was a
senior scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, a lecturer at
Yale University, and co-founder of the Amazon Environmental
Research Institute.
He was also a lead author of the fifth assessment report by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He holds a Ph.D.
in forest ecology from Yale University. Thank you for being
here.
Finally, we will hear from Mr. Bill Millan, chief
conservation officer and director of policy at the
International Conservation Caucus Foundation.
Previously, Mr. Millan was a career Foreign Service officer
for over 20 years.
He served in U.S. embassies in Colombia and Venezuela and
worked as a political counselor at the U.S. Mission to the
Organization of American States.
He is a U.S. Army veteran and earned two Bronze Stars in
Vietnam. He received his Master's degree from the University of
Virginia. Thank you for your service and for joining us here
today.
I ask the witnesses to please limit your testimony to 5
minutes, and without objection your prepared written statements
will be made part of the record.
Dr. de Bolle, it is now your turn.
STATEMENT OF DR. MONICA DE BOLLE, DIRECTOR, LATIN AMERICAN
STUDIES PROGRAM, SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES,
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, SENIOR FELLOW, PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
Dr. de Bolle. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. It is my distinct honor to testify before you today
on how Brazil and the United States should work together to
preserve the Amazon rainforest.
Mr. Chairman, my remarks this morning will summarize my
submitted written testimony.
Global warming is widely and correctly blamed for wildfires
around the world. But the Amazon fires in Brazil represent a
more specific government policy failure as Brazilian public
agencies that are supposed to curb man-made fires have been
deliberately weakened.
These fires set by farmers, cattle growers, and others take
place every year. But they have risen in number and severity in
2019.
After President Jair Bolsonaro took office, he set about
fulfilling his campaign pledge to ease environmental land use
and health regulations.
The Amazon fires are not just a tragedy but an opportunity
for the governments of Brazil and the United States to stop
denying climate change and cooperate on strategies to preserve
the rainforest and develop ways to sustainable use its natural
resources.
The record of such cooperation has already yielded positive
results. For example, there is a history of collaboration
between NASA and Brazil's National Institute for Space
Research, employing state-of-the-art technologies to monitor
deforestation.
It is possible to accommodate competing demands of economic
interests, food security and saving or even restoring the
Amazon rainforest along with its life-sustaining rainfall for
Brazil and the world at large.
Following are the major policy recommendations presented in
this testimony. The United States should rejoin the Paris
Climate Agreement and immediately establish a joint action plan
with Brazil to implement steps to preserve and restore the
rainforest.
Under the Paris Agreement, Brazil has committed to
restoring 12 million hectares of native vegetation in cleared
areas. Brazil should impose greater regulations on land use in
the Amazon that would allow farming and cattle grazing in some
areas to sustain livelihoods of local and indigenous people
while cracking down on illegal uses such as logging and mining
and the invasion of public lands.
To combat destructive activities, the government should
encourage livestock rearing and cultivation in nonsensitive
areas while more systemically demarcating land and property
ownership rights in the rainforest itself.
Brazil should lead an international effort to foster the
diversity of native vegetation in the Amazon region while
preserving the rainforest and also creating jobs and reducing
poverty and income inequality which plague the region.
Sustainable production of livestock and soy is already
happening in areas outside the Amazon. These activities could
be expanded to areas adjacent to the rainforest following an
effort to demarcate land and enforce property rights.
The international community should work with Brazil to
revive and expand the Amazon Fund, created years ago but now in
limbo, to raise international donations for investment in
sustainable activities that protect the rainforest.
The Fund would greatly benefit from the financial support
of the United States. Technical cooperation agreements to
develop new technologies for sustainable development are a
must.
Finally, the Brazilian constitution allows the economic
exploration of indigenous lands in cooperation with local
communities and with a focus on sustainability.
However, use of these lands is yet to be formalized through
adequate regulation. The United States with its experience in
formulating and applying similar regulations can play a key
role in advising the Brazilian government on such roles.
The rise in deforestation precedes President Bolsonaro's
electoral victory. But the dismantling of environmental
agencies under his watch and his past and present rhetoric on
environmental issues have emboldened farmers, loggers, and
other players to engage in predatory behavior in the
rainforest.
It is time for the international community to cooperate on
a strategy to provide the resources to conserve, restore, and
develop the planet's largest continuous rainforest.
The close relationship that has developed between the
leaders of Brazil and the United States should be used to
jumpstart this effort before it is too late.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. de Bolle follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much.
We will now hear from Dr. Nepstad.
STATEMENT OF DR. DANIEL NEPSTAD, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, EARTH INNOVATION INSTITUTE
Dr. Nepstad. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Sires, and
it is a real honor to be here to give this testimony. I will
give a brief summary of my written submitted testimony.
I moved to the Amazon in 1984 to begin my doctoral
research. It was a Wild West town of Paragominas. One thing I
learned there is that we tend to think of frontier towns as
full of bandits and land grabbers.
That place was full of families from across Brazil trying
to improve their lot in life. I think that observation is still
relevant today--the need to not demonize the people of the
Amazon.
The Amazon is important, as Ranking Member Rooney already
mentioned, largely because of its role in the global climate
system.
There are seven or 8 years' worth of global emissions of
carbons stored in the trees of the Amazon and if those come
out--that carbon comes out rapidly it really diminishes the
likelihood that humanity will avoid catastrophic climate
change.
But there is also an effect on global circulation patterns
through the amount of water that is evaporated from Amazon
trees. That is enough water, enough conversion of solar energy
into water vapor to influence global circulation patterns much
the way an El Nino event--a warming of the east Pacific surface
waters--shapes rainfall patterns around the world.
The current situation is dire but not unprecedented.
Deforestation is up, currently estimated about 6,000 square
kilometers against a historical average of 20,000 square
kilometers per year--that average through 2005.
But it is higher than last year, perhaps 40 or 50 percent,
and it is certainly a cause for concern. There are a lot of
fires but as has already been mentioned, this is not an
unprecedented high year for fires-highest since 2010. And these
two phenomena are related.
Many of the fires today are persistent fires in the same
position. That means burning little patches or large patches of
felled forests where the trees have been dried for months and
can now be set fire.
That means that there is a lot of smoke coming out of the
Amazon and that is creating tens of thousands of internments
and respiratory ailments and deaths because of smoke
inhalation.
Intact forests--all of the available evidence suggests that
they are not burning at scale, so forests that have neither
been logged nor previously burned, and this is very good news.
It is not a severely dry year, and this is a cause for
concern. We need to be watching for those forests and make sure
that if they start to catch fire there are teams on the ground
ready to spot them and put them out because they are actually
quite easy to put out--forest fires in intact forests.
That is part of the Amazon die back scenario referred to by
the chairman. A big part of that is wildfires basically--well,
man-made fires escaping into intact forests.
In 1998, 40,000 square kilometres of forest--standing
forest caught fire, and once it burns a forest is more likely
to burn again.
And that, together with the fact that the Amazon forest
generates much of its own rainfall come together in this Amazon
forest die back scenario, and we may be close to the tipping
point--the minimum--well, the area of deforestation beyond
which that downward spiral begins.
Finally, to the U.S. response, I want to call attention to
what I feel in my many decades--years working in Brazil is a
frustration--a frustration in the Brazilian government, in
Brasilia nationally, in State governments, and among farm
sectors that Brazil has done its part in climate change.
There was a promise coming out of Copenhagen that there
would be a robust international mechanism for compensating that
contribution and that has not come through.
Of the approximately 7 billion tons of emissions reductions
achieved through reduced deforestation in the Amazon, about 3
percent of that has been compensated through Norwegian and
German contributions to the Amazon fund and direct contracts--
pay for performance contracts with the States of Mato Grosso
and Acre in the Amazon region.
There is, as referred to by Ranking Member Rooney, a very
high bar for farmers. That has not been always the case. It
jumped from 50 to 80, back to 50.
There is a concern among farmers that the legal compliance
that they are striving to achieve is not recognized. I think we
are in the middle of a very strong backlash from the farm
sector because of that failure to recognize how difficult it is
to comply with the law there.
I think, moving forward, this is not a time to back out of
trade agreements. it is a time to stay in trade agreements,
processes, and send a signal that if Brazil continues its
historical march toward reducing deforestation there will be
real benefits.
We need to monetize those benefits as was done about 11
years ago nearly by this House.
I think I am out of time so thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Nepstad follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Mr. Millan.
STATEMENT OF BILL MILLAN, CHIEF CONSERVATION OFFICER AND
DIRECTOR OF POLICY, INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION CAUCUS
FOUNDATION
Mr. Millan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Like the others, I will submit my statement for the record
and talk briefly extemporaneously on top of that statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Rooney,
and other members of the committee.
When I left diplomatic service I began working in
conservation, something I have now done for 20 years. I have
worked for many years in the international programs of the
Nature Conservancy, which, of course, is very active in Brazil
and the other countries of that region, and for the last 4
years at the International Conservation Caucus Foundation,
which acts as the secretariat for a caucus of members of this
Congress, about 170 members of the House and Senate who are
interested in and supportive of U.S. support and activism for
conservation in the poor countries of the world--the developing
countries of the world.
Internationally, ICCF has created similar caucuses in about
12 foreign countries and we are hoping to grow further in the
near future.
We are in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. We are in nine
countries of Africa, and we are hoping to expand into Indonesia
and the Caribbean Island States starting next month.
With regard to the Amazon, as the other speakers have
noted, this is by far the world's largest tropical forest.
About 90 percent of it is rainforest. About 20 percent of the
original forest is already gone.
Deforestation often occurs in stages. Where the lumber is
valuable the loggers will clear cut. Would-be ranchers then
come in and burn the slash that is left behind in order to
clear the land for grazing, and later if the soil is suitable
with modern fertilizers and methods, it may be converted to
field crops such as soybeans.
Deforestation is, of course, not unique to Brazil. It has
also been high in neighboring Paraguay and Bolivia and in
regions of Peru and Columbia.
During the period of 1960 to 2010, the population of the
Amazon Basin rose from 6 million to 25 million persons, many of
them engaged in agriculture. This has, inevitably, had an
effect.
Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil peaked at around
2005, as you noted, Mr. Chairman. It subsequently dropped by
about 70 percent.
While market forces may have played some role in this
decline, it was not mirrored in other countries of the Basin,
which suggests that better enforcement of Brazilian laws which,
for example, mandated that private landowners had to keep a
percentage of their Amazon land in forest and which forbade
intrusions into protected areas--better enforcement of those
laws was the major cause and better enforcement ultimately
depends upon political will. It depends upon the top leadership
of the country taking conservation and good management of
natural resources seriously.
People, of course, have a right to develop their natural
resources and that right is probably clearest when the people
are poor. Brazil is a modern high-productivity country with a
population equal to that of France--60 some odd million.
But the actual total population is 211 million. So Brazil
has a highly unequal distribution of income and it has a large
population of poorly educated small farmers and ranchers who
are eager to take advantage of what they are told is free land
and better jobs and many large ranchers and farmers eager to
employ them in defiance of national laws.
It is especially painful to note that 15 percent of the
Amazon is reserved by law for Indian tribes and if those laws
are weakened or not enforced their fate, which is already
difficult, is likely to get worse.
The situation of the Brazilian Amazon and neighboring
countries of the Basin is a complex one that involves balancing
many competing interests, many of them legitimate.
It is unlikely to be resolved purely by outside pressures.
A growth of political will to properly manage their own natural
resources will be vital.
Progress over the coming years and decades are most likely
to be uneven and will sometimes be reversed. But we have to
try. We have to keep trying.
U.S. foreign assistance can play an important role in that
struggle. I recall a study done by my colleagues at the Nature
Conservancy when I worked there when they said that we needed
to increase world agricultural production by 100 percent by
shortly after 2050.
But to do that by expanding the land under cultivation
would mean essentially the destruction of the entire natural
world around the globe.
But we could do it by raising productivity on existing
lands. The meaning of this for the Amazon boils down to this.
Cutting down the Amazon forest is not needed for the future
agricultural production of the world.
The existing forest is needed for a host of other benefits
and we urge the Congress to continue as it has in the past to
support that goal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Millan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Thank you. We will now go to questions. I will
start by asking: I made a statement before that, from 2004 to
2012, cattle and soy production in Brazil rose.
The economy grew. Nearly 30 million Brazilians were lifted
out of poverty and deforestation rates declined. Can you tell
me what policies were implemented during that time that were so
successful?
Anybody.
Dr. de Bolle. If I may.
Mr. Sires. Yes.
Dr. de Bolle. So the Brazilian government in 2004
implemented an action plan to reduce deforestation, given that
it had been on the rise in previous decades.
This plan was a broad umbrella of many different
initiatives to fight off deforestation, including through
monitoring and law enforcement.
So there was a lot of coordination between two major
environmental agencies in Brazil: the National Space Agency
that I have already mentioned and also IBAMA, which is the
agency responsible for monitoring and for law enforcement.
These two agencies were working in close cooperation.
Satellite imagery systems developed with NASA were incorporated
into these efforts and alongside the monitoring and the law
enforcement capabilities that were put in place there were also
other policies.
So, for example, in 2008, the Brazilian Central Bank
actually passed a resolution whereby it restricted credit
greatly to areas where deforestation had been on the rise.
Rural credit in Brazil is subsidized so a lot of those
farmers did depend heavily on those credits, and those credits
were then conditioned on meeting several different
environmental regulations.
If these farmers were not in compliance with these
regulations, they did not get access to the credit.
There are several academic and empirical studies showing
that that policy in itself was hugely successful in bringing
down deforestation in 36 municipalities in the Amazon where
that had been previously a problem.
So, the tools, the capabilities, the initiatives--there are
a number of things that have been tested and tried, some of
them with great success, some of them perhaps with lesser
success.
But, broadly, I would say that Brazil knows what to do.
There is an issue of political will at the moment.
Mr. Sires. Yes.
Dr. Nepstad. Just to add very briefly to that, in our
summary of those policies that we published in science a few
years ago, our conclusion is that it was largely a set of
command and control interventions that were lacking carrots.
So part of the reason deforestation has been coming up
beginning in 2012 is that a lot of those measures that were
referred to my Monica have lost their teeth and there is a lack
of that positive set of incentives for farmers and State
governments too that are doing the right thing.
Mr. Millan. Thank you. I would endorse the comments by
Monica that it is possible to grow the economy rapidly without
doing grave damage to the conservation of nature and natural
resources.
What it requires is taking a long-term perspective and it
takes good governance, and a well-managed public authority.
Mr. Sires. One concern that I have is I see that China is
now getting involved in buying a lot of the soybean that they
are not purchasing from us.
Do you think that is going to make the situation worse
since now 80 percent of the soybeans made in Brazil basically
are going to China. Do you think that is going to drive
deforestation?
Anybody?
Dr. Nepstad. I think in the short term, the large-scale
slaughter of swine in China, because of African fever, is
really reducing the demand for animal ration but it is
increasing demand for pork.
So I think in a few years as that crisis passes there is a
very high risk that rising demand for soybeans could accelerate
deforestation.
A lot of it depends upon whether or not those incentives to
soy farmers are in place, whether or not the current momentum
to dismantle the Forest Code that requires 80 percent forest
cover on soy farms in the Amazon moves forward, and I think
that will depend upon whether markets give a positive signal
that they recognize legal compliance with the Forest Code as a
very high bar of performance on the ground.
And so I think a lot is in play right now. Brazilian
farmers have lots of options for markets. But we have to
remember that a positive market signal including from the U.S.;
for example, Brazilian beef is seen as a carrot. it is one of
the carrots that can be mobilized without invoking large flows
of new finance.
Mr. Millan. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues on the China desk
in the old days would not appreciate my bluntness. But I think
that the massive entry of China into these markets is not a
good thing.
We have talked about the importance of good governance. I
think that as a government the Chinese government simply does
not take these environmental issues very seriously,
particularly not when it is outside China.
So, for example, 10 or 15 years ago they enforced a
nationwide ban on cutting down any further forest inside China
and decided to instead cut down in Indonesia.
Dr. de Bolle. Let me add on, if I may, to my colleagues'
remarks just to say that the environmental seal for the
agribusiness sector in Brazil and, in particular, beef but not
just beef--soybeans as well--has been until recently hugely
important for exports.
There is a very large chunk of the sector which is geared
toward exports and one of the very important roles that the
international community at large and the United States in
particular can play is in ensuring that that seal remains as an
incentive for this sector, or this portion of the sector, to
continue with its sustainable production practices and thus
sort of staving off any kind of pressure coming potentially
from the Chinese.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Congressman Rooney.
Mr. Rooney. I would like to thank all three witnesses for
their testimony. Very thorough.
I would like to ask Mr. Millan first, and then Dr. Nepstad,
about the absence of land titles in the Amazon and the economic
interest of the landowners, being kind of a free enterprise
kind of guy.
You know, Mr. Millan mentions that the 70 percent decline
in deforestation since 2005 may have something to do with
economic factors and that there is an asymmetry between what
has happened there, with the decline and enforcement of laws,
versus what has happened in neighboring countries. I assume you
mean Paraguay and Bolivia.
So how does the increase in titling and enforcement of laws
relate to these statistics and what can that tell us about
going forward?
Mr. Millan. Congressman Rooney, I will defer to Monica
about some of the technical economic aspects here. I think the
decline of deforestation inside Brazil clearly was driven
mainly by better enforcement of their laws rather than by
market factors.
Across Latin America the lack of clear title to land is a
terribly grave issue. When I worked at the Nature Conservancy
we had a program in Bosawas in Nicaragua where we worked for
five or 6 years and we finally were able to help an Indian
community there to get what seemed to be a firm title to their
land.
I was told laughingly in Guatemala that in the entire
history of the country only 10 absolute titles to land had ever
been issued. We are talking about legal systems that function
very poorly and they are particularly bad at recognizing legal
title.
And so the result is that for many people by far the
easiest way to acquire a large ranch is to steal it, and this
is a bad thing.
Some of these countries need to reform their land title
laws, but then having reformed them they will then need the
political will to actually carry out the new provision.
Mr. Rooney. Dr. Nepstad?
Dr. Nepstad. There has been huge steps forward with law
enforcement in Brazil under the PPCDAm strategy that Dr. de
Bolle referred to.
One of the risks, though, is that in getting to law
enforcement and one of the fundamental tools of that approach
is the Rural Environmental Cadastro or Registry--the CAR. Every
landholder under the new Forest Code of 2012 is required to
submit their own map of their property. Unfortunately, they
have come in and there is a lot of overlap. Surprise, surprise.
But the risk is that in focusing on law enforcement the CAR
is not a land title. You neglect the very fundamental role of
land as a guarantee against loans.
Farmers today in Brazil and the Brazilian Amazon have a
hard time getting loans with their property as collateral if
they are mostly forested. Land values increase as forests go
down.
So we have this fundamental economic disconnect where if
you take the EPA social cost of carbon, a hectare of forest,
that carbon out of the atmosphere is saving the world economy
$50,000.
But if I am a landholder and I have that same hectare of
forest that is worth to me $200, if I clear it, its value
multiplies by 10, and I cannot use the forest land as
collateral.
So I think you have identified a fundamental gap that, as
we move to--as Brazil moves to a strategy that continues the
sticks but adds some carrots, getting to land title is a
crucial piece of that.
Dr. de Bolle. So I fully agree with Dr. Nepstad's
assessment and overview of what he has just said about the sort
of market incentives--economic incentives at play.
I will just add one thing from the past experience under
the PPCDAm, the national action plan of 2004. Alongside these
actions that I mentioned that the Central Bank put in place to
restrict credit and thereby, you know, just put in place a
mechanism whereby credit was conditioned to meeting the
environmental standards that had to be met, there was a clear
effort to put together a land registry of these areas within
the Amazon biome.
So, again, these efforts have been now sort of fallen by
the wayside. They are things that could, again, be implemented
and they are things that could, again, be implemented on a much
larger scale.
So there is the potential to do these things again and
there is the potential to achieve the sort of successes that
were achieved back in the mid-2000's through these policies by
greatly enlarging what has previously been done.
Mr. Rooney. Referring to the past policies, it is a pretty
bad deal when the property value goes up with more
deforestation. That is kind of working against what we want to
happen.
The requirement of 80 percent property staying in
preservation, first of all, will that be--do you have any
confidence that will be enforced and will have an impact, and
if it were impacted how, would that improve that asymmetry
between value and deforestation?
Dr. de Bolle. Well, on the 80 percent, the 80 percent has
over the last few years--correct me if I am wrong--but I think
over the last few years has already been somewhat softened.
So, in a way, it is not being enforced as such, including
because the 80 percent requirement that you do not touch that
area of your own property to produce and retain its native
vegetation, is very, very hard to comply with.
So there has to be something else being done with the
legislation in agreement overall as to what is best for the
region in terms of meeting these requirements or even lowering
these requirements in certain cases.
As for the current situation, which is that, you know,
cleared land is worth more than forested land, which basically
leads to all sorts of speculation as we have been seeing, it is
a matter of designing the proper regulations and the proper
incentive structure that makes that equation shift the other
way.
So this is what we are looking at. This is what Brazil
needs. Brazil needs to get the regulations rights so that it
shifts that balance.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you.
Dr. Nepstad. If I could just add to that. Yes, so the 80
percent is fairly new. Until 1996, 50 percent of the property
in the Amazon had to remain as forest cover.
I think one of the most significant actions that could take
place today would be a public recognition of the importance of
those private land reserves and recognition of the need to
compensate farmers who are being asked to forego their legal
right to clear forests in excess of that 80 percent.
That is the farmers' current complaint, for example, about
the Brazilian soy moratorium where 90 percent of the soy buyers
for the Amazon said that after 2008, if you cleared after that
date, you cannot--we will not buy your soy grown on that land.
And the farmers' response is, but wait a minute--I am in
legal compliance and I have the legal right--what about me. And
that concern has gotten particularly grave as that same
approach is under discussion for the Cerrado savanna biome next
to the Amazon.
So it is a very big issue.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Congressman Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you so much, Chairman Sires, for calling
this really important hearing on short order and getting these
tremendous witnesses. This is really great and I appreciate all
of your testimony.
I want to try to focus on what we can do with U.S. policy
to be helpful to this very difficult situation.
Dr. de Bolle, you mention in your testimony that the
economic benefit of conservation far outweighs the short-term
gains from cutting down the forest and then setting it ablaze
after it is been dried out.
Is there a role for the United States to play in
encouraging conservation in Brazil and making clear that it is
more sound economic policy than deforestation? How can we
really get at that?
Dr. de Bolle. Well, I think--thank you for that question--I
think there are a couple of ways. One is through the current
mechanism that exists, so the Amazon Fund.
The Amazon Fund is already there. We need to just properly
redesign--perhaps rethink what its role should be and
therefore, you know, what kind of financial resources it needs.
So that kind of financial assistance from the U.S. I think
would be crucial.
There are other things in the area of regulation,
sustainable cattle grazing, land demarcation for indigenous
lands, and not only that but how do you actually exploit
indigenous land--some of the things that I have mentioned in my
oral remarks but are also in my written testimony where the
U.S. has had ample experience and where that experience can
certainly be transferred to Brazil.
So there is a lot of room for technical cooperation on a
number of these issues.
Mr. Levin. OK. Great. Let's talk about one area of our
relations, so just trade. Both President Trump and President
Bolsonaro seem interested in growing the trade relationship
between the U.S. and Brazil.
So how should the U.S. insist on strong environmental
commitments from Brazil before expanding trade between our
countries?
For example, last month BBC reported that Brazil had
seriously relaxed its enforcement of environmental laws that
are already on the books.
And I am quoting here from the BBC account: ``Official data
from Brazil's environmental agency shows that fines from
January to the 23d of August dropped almost a third compared
with the same period of last year, and at the same time the
number of fires burning in Brazil have increased by 84
percent,'' and as you all testified, the highest since 2010.
And I have heard direct testimony from people there saying,
hey, it is the Wild West now--the president, obviously, is
giving us the green light to go ahead here.
So how can the U.S. demand that Brazil commit to stricter
enforcement of the environmental laws already there and any
other ideas you all have to how we should use our trading
relationship with Brazil to preserve the Amazon?
Dr. de Bolle. Well, I think the U.S. should use its
leverage on that front. The Brazilian government is greatly
interested in pursuing some of bigger trade agreement with the
U.S.
Whether that becomes an actual, you know, free trade
agreement or not, that is years in the making. But, certainly,
closer trade relations, and those closer trade relations, that
conversation in itself can be used for the U.S. to leverage and
try to enforce some of these that are not being met.
So that can certainly be achieved through negotiations,
which the Brazilian government is very much open to at this
point.
Dr. Nepstad. I would just add that I think we are in a very
volatile time in Brazil where unilateral actions that threaten
market retaliations, restrictions to trade--I believe they will
backfire.
I think it is time for sitting down at the table and
saying--you know, recognizing that managing a continental-size
force like the Amazon is a phenomenal task.
it is very expensive. Brazil did what no one thought was
possible and now it is time to recognize that and say how we
can help.
Part of this is that Brazil is 109th on the ease of doing
business ranking of the World Bank and the Amazon is much worse
than that. it is really hard to do investments, to do
enterprise in the Amazon.
I think the U.S. has a lot to offer in that sort of
collaboration through the GDA and other mechanisms of the
USAID.
But I think this collaborative approach that says listen,
we will open to whatever--Amazon beef--if these conditions are
in place and we see some progress.
What Norway did in the Amazon Fund is say, you build the
system--if deforestation comes down the payments will flow, and
a billion dollars later--a little more than a billion dollars
later--you know, I think that was a very positive thing to do.
The way it was structured was probably not right. That
money did not make it to middle and large-scale farmers; for
example, and they are wondering why they have been left out.
So, in short, collaboration, keep the negotiations going and
weave the conditions into that.
Mr. Levin. Thank you. My time has expired. But I would just
observe, Mr. Chairman, that the investment we need to make to
tackle the grave, grave crisis of climate change for the United
States, and the world, is so immense it seems that this would
be penny wise and pound foolish not to work with Brazil very
intensively on the efforts that our panellists are suggesting.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Congressman.
Congressman Ted Yoho.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I look forward to
finding a way forward with what Brazil wants to do with their
natural resources to find what they want to do with their
natural resources that is compatible with, I guess, world
standards.
How successful are the bans on crops on deforested land by
other countries have you seen?
Dr. Nepstad, you were talking about that. what is your
experience? You have been down in the Amazon a long time.
Dr. Nepstad. You know, when threats come from the EU, the
first response is, oh, this is protectionism and they are
protecting their own markets and that point was made abundantly
about President Macron's threat to pull out of the EU Mercosur
trade agreement.
We have to remember that 60 percent of agricultural exports
from Brazil go to Asia, and China, as already mentioned, is the
biggest supporter, and currently Asian markets are not
demanding sustainability or deforestation-free sourcing.
And so I think that Asia will move in that direction. Xi
Jinping is keenly interested in solving climate change and
keenly interested in investing in the Amazon.
So something like the Ferrograo railroad is something that
could buy good will in Brazil, give soy farmers a big break in
transport if it is structured right, and everyone comes up
winning.
Mr. Yoho. I wish I had your confidence on Xi Jinping. I am
more in line with Mr. Millan.
In Brazil, we know they are the largest cattle exporter in
the world. But yet, between 1990 and 2018 Brazil beef
production increased 139 percent while the areas of cattle
grazing decreased 15 percent.
And if you look at it in America, we are producing a third
more beef with a third less of the land that we use. And
knowing that, best management practices on our farmlands--we
know that grasslands, according to a study in UC Davis that is
titled ``Grasslands More Reliable Carbon Sinks Than Trees.''
And I am not implying they are more efficient, but they
store their carbon underground along with other things like
nitrogens and sulphur and things like that, that when a forest
burns that is not released into the atmosphere. So, therefore,
it is sequestered more securely.
With the best practice management, those are things that I
think there is a tradeoff. So if you cut down 100 acres of
rainforest, which is a shame because We have all been there and
seen that and we know what that biodiversity gives to the world
and the National Geographic specials, we can offset that by a
certain amount of rangeland. Would that be true?
Dr. Nepstad. I think there is tremendous scope for
improvements in the productivity of cattle, especially in the
Amazon. You know, 50 kilos of beef per hectare per year is not
an efficient system.
And as you say, beef production in--outside of the Amazon
in Brazil is growing on a shrinking area of pasture. I think
the net balance on greenhouse gases because of enteric
fermentation is this very serious issue that can be partially
compensated by good grazing, partly----
Mr. Yoho. Let me go back to something that the EPA said.
The U.S. EPA estimates that direct emissions from the U.S. beef
industry are only 1.9 percent of the total U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions.
So I know there is a lot of emphasis on beef cattle as far
as greenhouse gas emissions. But I think it is maybe not
accurate as it could be, and I think we need to look at that
because for sustainability of protein and food sources we have
to have that kind of juggling of which is the best way to go.
And with the world population growing stronger or, you
know, going to, you know, 9 billion to 10 billion, we have to
have sustainable agricultural practices, and it goes back to
best managed practices or practices that we do.
Going back to the deforestation, there has to be a market
for those trees--you know, where that lumber is going. What
country is the biggest importer of illegal deforested areas?
Does anybody----
Mr. Millan. Well, the largest market for illegally
harvested wood is China. Has been for 20 years.
Mr. Yoho. I was going to say I think it is a five-letter
name with a C and an A in it.
Mr. Millan. Oh, yes. Yes. But I do not know if any of it to
speak of comes from Brazil. Perhaps one of my colleagues has
better information than I do. A lot of it comes from----
Mr. Yoho. Dr. de Bolle?
Mr. Millan [continuing]. Comes from Malaysia. It comes from
Indonesia. It comes from Burma. It comes from Madagascar or
Mozambique. But I had not heard about Brazil.
Dr. de Bolle. Well, I have not either so I have no direct
answer to that. But one thing that I will say about what
happens to the trees that are cut down, in order to be able to
clear the land for pastures--this is a rainforest that we are
talking about so you need to dry out the rainforest first.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Dr. de Bolle. So the way that that is done is that the
trees are cut. So the trunks go dry and then after you do that
you set it ablaze.
So to a large extent, we are talking about logging
activities that, yes, take place. Probably some of that goes,
you know, to the region itself.
Brazil is a big country so a lot of it probably goes into
the construction sector in Brazil. it is all very opaque so we
do not have the data on that to say something, you know.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Dr. de Bolle. But I would say that most of it probably is
internal and goes to the internal construction sector, and the
rest of it is just wasted and it is just meant to clear land.
Mr. Yoho. Right. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Congressman Phillips.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Rooney and to each of you, our witnesses. Grateful for your
time today.
I am hoping to connect some dots, just starting with some
yes and no questions. The primary drivers of deforestation in
the Amazon are cattle ranching, logging, and large-scale
agriculture.
Is that correct? Each of you. Yes or no answers, if you
could.
Mr. Millan. Yes, absolutely.
Dr. de Bolle. Yes.
Mr. Millan. President Bolsonaro, before he was elected,
made statements concerning his intent to pursue development in
the region. Is that correct?
Dr. de Bolle. Yes.
Mr. Millan. Yes.
Mr. Phillips. Before his election, President Bolsonaro also
repeatedly pledged to relax environmental regulations and the
environment, and open up indigenous territories and protected
areas to mining, agriculture, and large-scale energy projects.
Is that correct?
Dr. de Bolle. Yes.
Dr. Nepstad. Yes.
Mr. Millan. Yes.
Mr. Phillips. So do you believe it is a coincidence that
President Bolsonaro was elected last year with the support of
Brazil's powerful agriculture lobby? Coincidence or no?
Mr. Millan. I have not seen any polling data one way or the
other. I really cannot say that definitively.
Mr. Phillips. Doctor?
Dr. Nepstad. He was supported by the farm sector. Yes,
certainly.
Dr. de Bolle. He was supported by the farm sector. I,
however, think that the farm sector now, at least a portion of
the farm sector, and we have seen that happen, is quite aware--
keenly aware--that they will lose their international standing
and they will lose their green seal, so to speak, if they
continue to support the kind of measures that Bolsonaro has
been putting in place.
So they are a potential political force in Brazil that can
be exploited to produce the results that we would like to see
in terms of, you know, the environmental scale back that we
have seen under Bolsonaro.
Mr. Phillips. And, Doctor, can you talk about any efforts
to that end that might exist right now?
Dr. de Bolle. So there have been a few. it is not a lot of
voices as of the moment but there have been a few important
agribusiness people, in particular one who was a former
agricultural minister and is one of the largest soybean growers
in Brazil, Mr. Blairo Maggi, who has made some very important
remarks regarding how hurtful the scaling back of environmental
regulations has been so far for Brazil and the potential that
that could be even more hurtful down the road.
So there have been voices like that, which are important
not just from the productive sector side but from the political
side as well because there are voices that have been in
government that are starting to see that this can be hugely
detrimental to their own interests.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Millan, we know there are indigenous and local
communities in Brazil that are living and working sustainable
in the forest.
You spoke of laws in place in these communities. Can you
expand on the current enforcement of these very laws?
Mr. Millan. My direct experience of the programs there is
now some years in the past and so I would not want to try to
comment on the details of recent changes.
Brazil has hundreds of separate Indian tribes, most of
which speak a unique language and many of which do not have a
single member of the tribe who has graduated from the
equivalent of high school. So these are intensely vulnerable
communities that desperately need outside help to organize and
defend their rights.
Theoretically, under the law they have a lot of rights. But
actually making them effective against the pressure of illegal
miners and other invaders of their territory for agriculture or
otherwise is and has been terribly difficult.
Mr. Phillips. And the organizations at the forefront of
assisting them in that effort?
Mr. Millan. My colleagues?
Dr. Nepstad. You know, groups like Instituto Socioambiental
I think are very concerned with the wave of impunity I think
that is present in the Amazon right now, an impunity growing
out of frustration for the lack of positive incentives and
recognition for past efforts and successes.
So it is a very volatile moment and there are signs that
deforestation patches are increasing within protected areas and
indigenous territories.
Mr. Phillips. OK. President Trump has characterized
President Bolsonaro as, quote, ``a like-minded leader,'' end
quote.
he has announced several agreements to bolster economic and
security ties with Brazil and also opposed the aid package
course for the fires during the G-7 and instead publicly
praised Bolsonaro for, quote, ``working very hard on the Amazon
fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of
Brazil,'' end quote.
Do you believe, each of you, considering these statements
that President Trump is helping or hurting the crisis unfolding
in the Amazon? Helping or hurting?
Dr. de Bolle. At the moment, not helping.
Mr. Phillips. Doctor?
Dr. Nepstad. I think that is--I sense that you want really
fast questions and I think there is a lot of nuance to this
question.
As I said before, I think unilateral sort of threats of
retaliation against Brazil right now could backfire and I do
not support a lot of what is going on in Brazil right now.
But I do know the roots of it and I think a positive signal
on trade from the United States, for example, could go a long
way.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Doctor. And Mr. Millan?
Mr. Millan. And I would suggest that as we go forward on
these issues, which, as I commented in my remarks, are
difficult and complex, and they involve not just legitimate
interests against illegitimate ones but direct competitions
between interests that are inherently legitimate in and of
themselves.
These are terribly difficult issues that are going to be--
are not going to be resolved this year or next year or in 5
years.
I think that to the extent that private groups can be
involved not only as investors but also as consumers and as
associations of consumers, you see this a lot in Europe and you
see it to a certain extent here already in the United States.
That brings another interesting player to the table because
now it is not just a big country appearing to bully a
developing world country; it is groups of hundreds of thousands
or potentially millions of consumers saying, we will not buy
your stuff if you do bad things in order to create it.
And striking that balance, of course, is always going to be
complicated. But I think that sort of action has a lot of
potential.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, all. I yield back.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Congressman Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman. And I apologize that I
came in late and missed some of the conversation. I was at
another meeting. But I think everybody would agree that the
Amazon forest is important to the health of the region and the
health of the world.
And I guess my question is in your own assessment how
strong are the efforts of Bolsonaro's government to protect the
Amazon? Do you believe that he and his administration are doing
everything they can to protect the Amazon?
Dr. de Bolle. As I submitted in my written testimony and as
I mentioned in my oral remarks, the answer to that is no. He
has scaled back the capabilities of the environmental agencies
in Brazil.
He has scaled back monitoring efforts. He has scaled back
law enforcement. He has spoken specifically about, you know,
using the Amazon's resources and not necessarily in a
sustainable way. He has not underscored sustainability in any
of his remarks.
So that really has emboldened a lot of predatory behavior
in the rainforest more recently. Does he have the tools to do
what he needs to do?
Does he have the capabilities within these agencies and
within ministries in Brazil and also going from past experience
in Brazil in terms of what has been done? The answer to that is
yes. But the ultimate question here is a question of political
will.
Mr. Castro. Sure. Do either of you significantly disagree
with that answer? Or let me ask it this way. Do you believe
that he has doing and his administration are doing what they
should to protect the Amazon?
Dr. Nepstad. I think more can be done, certainly. I think
there are threats. I would agree with Dr. de Bolle on that, and
there is been some scaling back.
I think Minister Tereza Cristina is in a pivotal position
right now. Under her ministry there will be the climate change
agenda.
Brazil is sitting on these billions of tons of emissions
reductions that have never been monetized. I think just sending
the signal that some of those emissions reductions are going to
be worth something would be hugely, hugely influential right
now.
And so I feel like Brazil is poised for some positive
signals from the United States that what they have done
historically is recognized and we are moving into a new phase
that is more about incentives than about punishment.
Mr. Castro. Sir?
Mr. Millan. I would not take issue with the comments of my
colleagues and I would particularly recognize the value of Dr.
Nepstad's comment just now about the potential value of the
stored carbon and the avoided emissions.
One of the difficulties of trying to value these intact
forest is that the benefits to the extent that they are real,
and they are real, are global. But the costs of not developing
are often perceived as local.
Mr. Castro. Sure.
Mr. Millan. And so the world needs to find better ways to
monetize that global value so that some of the benefits flow
through to local people and local institutions. If that can be
done, you would then create a powerful local incentive not to
cut down the forest.
Mr. Castro. OK. Part of the reason that I asked that
question is because I do not believe that the government there
is doing everything they can to protect the Amazon.
I also do not have confidence in President Bolsonaro's
administration right now because he has demonstrated very
erratic behavior: turning down that money from France, getting
into a fight with the French president about comments that were
made about the French president's wife.
So what leverage do concerned nations have to make sure
that the Amazon is protected? Those could be carrots or those
could be sticks.
So I ask you in the array of carrots and sticks, what do
you recommend? I know you just spoke on the emissions issue. Is
there something else?
Dr. Nepstad. California Air Resources Board on the 19th of
September will vote upon the tropical forest standard.
Under construction for 10 years, it would be a way of
recognizing the role of State governments in the Brazilian
Amazon and their role in reducing deforestation.
That sort of thing will send a very positive signal to
those States. They were part of the construction of that
standard and that will make it easier for them to attract
investors including climate finance.
So I think there are a lot of things that could happen that
provide those signals to Brazil that we are moving into an era
of collaboration. Agribusiness--you know, Bolsonaro threatened
to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
He did not do it because he heard from his own constituents
that that was a bad idea. He was going to eliminate the
Ministry of Environment. He did not do it because his own----
Mr. Castro. Well, he has not done it in year one, right? Or
year two. You know, he has got more years----
Dr. Nepstad. Well, I think he has been very loud and clear
as referred to by Dr. de Bolle that his own constituents are
saying, wait a minute--we want the forest agenda intact because
otherwise we are going to lose a lot of markets. We are going
to lose a lot of investors.
So I think that is really the way forward. You know, what
could the U.S. Government do to create a robust mechanism for
compensating emissions reductions? You know, it does not seem
very viable in the current political environment.
But that, in the end, I think is what is going to happen.
You know, that is going to grow. There are 30 companies in
California right now that want to become climate neutral and
they want tropical forest offsets.
Those will be voluntary in the first step. Eventually we
will need regulated markets to give that whole endeavor greater
volume and greater scale.
Mr. Castro. My time is up. I know that she had wanted to
make one comment.
Dr. de Bolle. Just wanted to add one thing. On
environmental compensation, which is a key incentive, this is
contemplated under Brazil's 2012 Forest Code. It just is
lacking in regulation.
So it has not properly been regulated. So that is one thing
that should advance, and collaboration with some moral suasion
could go a long way toward getting that done.
And second, once you do have that mechanism working, a lot
of the financial resources could come from a much enlarged
Amazon Fund. So just to get that point in.
Mr. Castro. Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Congressman Vargas.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
the ranking member for the opportunity.
When I was in law school I had a great professor named
Abram Chayes, and Abram Chayes was one of the best and
brightest. He was one of Kennedy's guys in the State
Department, and I took a class with him called International
Environmental Law, and this is back when we were really worried
about the ozone layers at the Poles, as we should have been and
continue to be worried about.
And anyway, he was just a master professor, and at one
point he told this story and he said there is a person that
lives in the Amazon and this gentleman has a gigantic tree in
his front yard and it is a thousand years old and it is
hundreds of feet tall and is absolutely magnificent.
It does everything a tree ought to do for oxygen. So what
should that gentleman do as an environmentalist? And, you know,
of course, having had him for a couple other classes and
knowing that he was a very progressive thinker we thought,
well, you know, preserve the trees.
He goes, no, he ought to cut it down and make it into
lumber, because being an environmentalist first means feeding
his family. He goes, but, of course, that is the wrong result.
He goes, that is the absolutely wrong result. We ought to
pay him for his tree so he does not cut down the tree because
we are the ones in the developed world--that We have already
done so much damage to the environment we ought to pay him for
his tree.
And, you know, there is a lot to that, I think. I mean, we
should participate in a much stronger way in making sure that
this forest does not get destroyed because it does benefit all
of us.
We do not want to see that magnificent tree cut down. In
fact, we do not want to see any of them. I have had the
opportunity to go to the Amazon before and one of the things
that is the most amazing to me, and I wish young people would
understand this, when you have clear cutting, when you have
burning, all that is terrible.
But the worst terror out there is when they burn the forest
to plant cocaine, because when they do that often times you get
this moss, and this moss does not allow the trees to pop
through it.
We went over and actually stopped in some places where they
had grown cocaine 20 years ago and the forest had not popped
through yet because of the thickness of the awful moss. It was
unbelievable.
But anyway, I think what is going on there right now is
reprehensible and we have to have more of a hand in working
this out as a global community.
Doctor, I would like to ask you about that. I mean, you
know, what about this thought? I mean, you know, Dr. Nepstad
said that, you know, there are these other companies that are
involved and California wants to be, you know, neutral in the
sense of its climate impact.
I mean, shouldn't we be more aggressive doing this?
Dr. de Bolle. Well, certainly. But I think the way that--
and I will echo something that Dr. Nepstad made here on a
number of occasions, which I think is crucial--the way I think
to work this issue out, even though what is being done right
now by the Bolsonaro administration is reprehensible----
Mr. Vargas. It is reprehensible.
Ms. de Bolle [continuing]. The way to work it out is
through collaboration.
Mr. Vargas. Yes.
Dr. de Bolle. So it cannot be through sort of hand
wringing. It cannot be through an approach where, you know,
another government--any government--I mean, we saw that
backfire greatly with France--it cannot be through another
government trying to impose its views on a sovereign nation,
which is the case of Brazil.
So there is great scope right now for collaboration between
Brazil and the U.S. And so what I think our role should be is
putting pressure so that collaboration actually materializes.
that is how I see it.
Mr. Vargas. And I agree, and how do we do that then? How do
we do that?
Mr. Millan. Well, we need to find better ways of bringing
together the long-term interests of the globe, including our
own country, and the short-term interest of the developing
world countries and the mainly poor people who live in their
rural areas.
Your story about the tree reminds me of something that
happened here in the United States about 10 or 15 years ago.
There was a forest researcher who was working in the
bristlecone pines up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of
California.
And he drilled a hole in an ancient tree in order to count
the tree rings and his drill bit got stuck, and he asked
permission of the forest rangers, which they rather stupidly
gave him, and then he cut down the bristlecone pine tree in
order to retrieve his drill bit.
So he cut down a 4,000-year-old tree in order to retrieve a
$20 drill bit. I guess the essence of this is that it is not
just Brazilian farmers who----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Vargas. Yes. I agree that was absolutely a terrible
thing to do. But, again, I appreciate--we do have to be more
firm, I believe, in what is happening in the Amazon is
reprehensible.
And I hope the people that do use drugs also understand the
damage they do to the forest because I know we just blame
farmers, we blame--it is also people that use cocaine.
I mean, I was absolutely shocked when I saw the damage that
cocaine has done to the Amazon and our young people and maybe
not so young people that use cocaine also are damaging the
Amazon, damaging the air that we breathe.
Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
We just have a couple more questions. I am curious about
something. How large is the U.S. business investment in the
Amazon--American business people? Is it a large portion? Are
they very involved?
Do we have--I am trying to get at the fact that maybe
through the U.S. business people we can encourage these people
to do some good things.
Dr. Nepstad. Yes, I will take a shot at that.
You know, currently, the Amazon is seen as one of the most
risky investments around in the Americas, at least, and it is--
I mentioned the ease of doing business index but it is more
than that.
If you do business in the Amazon there is a good chance
that you're going to get attacked, and there is a lot of
efforts right now by advocacy campaigns' campaigners to do
that--to create reputational risk for your association with
deforestation.
And I think that those campaigns have been very important.
they have brought companies and investors to the table, to
accountability.
So we have all of these companies and investors ready to do
something and the question is how to create those safe pathways
to invest, to partner with those local farm sectors and
governments.
And so I think the concept of these really safe zones--if
you have got a Mato Grosso that is offered to reduce emissions
by 4 billion tons by 2030, which is true--announced in Paris--
let's rally around that government and those farm sectors and
make sure that we have a development model in place for that
gigantic State, which is Brazil's biggest soy producer, biggest
cattle producer, so that they can win.
And that is what is missing right now. We have an
environment where the responsible investors in companies back
away and there are plenty of U.S.--plenty of U.S. money and
companies working in the Amazon.
But right now it is a sense of how do we do it without
getting blasted or without, you know, becoming a headline? And
so I think we need to make those safe pathways.
Dr. de Bolle. Let me just add to that by saying that
without the Federal Government's involvement and without a
clear strategy by the Federal Government that completely goes
back on our or backtracks on what they have been doing so far,
it is very hard to see a scenario like that actually
materializing.
So the potential is there. But, again, I come back to my
basic point. You need the political will of the Federal
Government to be able to get these initiatives going.
Mr. Millan. I would agree with that.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
My colleague now has a question.
Mr. Rooney. I will ask one more. I mean, there is been a
lot of facets or matrices put on the idea of solving the
asymmetries of what is positive but what is not positive, and
Congressman Castro's carrots and sticks was one analogy you
just talked about--Mato Grosso, and we talked about some of the
asymmetry of a guy that makes more money by tearing up the land
and deforesting it than he ever wood keeping it.
So I guess I got to thinking, when Ted Yoho mentioned about
ag, is there any--let me go back to Mr. Millan's comment here
in his testimony that you cannot--basically you cannot meet the
needs of the world's food by continuing to plow up more land.
We have to have higher productivity. Is that right?
Mr. Millan. Sir, I do not think I said that. If I did, I
erred.
Mr. Rooney. Raising the production of existing lands.
Mr. Millan. Yes. In other words, we need to raise the
production of existing lands a lot.
Mr. Rooney. Right.
Mr. Millan. And if we do that, we do not need to cut down
the forests.
Mr. Rooney. that is what I meant. that is exactly right.
Mr. Millan. that is the keeper. Yes.
Mr. Rooney. And that gets you to--leads you to things like
maybe different crops. You know, when Yoho's talking about how
many hectares it takes to make a certain quantity of beef,
well, that is a lot less in Mato Grosso.
it is a lot less in Oklahoma or Texas than it is in the
Amazon. The Amazon's a terrible place to grow beef and there is
other crops like that. I cannot imagine growing soybeans in the
Amazon.
But what--are there other things that can be done in the
spirit of positive replacement of opportunity that would be
better that we do not know about?
Dr. Nepstad. there is tremendous interest in the Amazon
today and in the national government for fish--increasing fish
production. That is managed wild fisheries of the Amazon flood
plain.
These are community-based management systems and fish
farming. And so you have a place like Rondonia State is
exploding with fish production and it needs technical support.
It needs markets. It needs international markets. But that
for me is getting back to the traditional cuisine of the
Amazon. The Amazonians traditionally eat fish protein----
Mr. Rooney. Pirarucu.
Dr. Nepstad. I'm sorry?
Mr. Rooney. Pirarucu looks like tarpon.
Dr. Nepstad. Pirarucu, you can buy in Whole Foods around
here.
Mr. Rooney. Looks like a tarpon, tastes like a snapper.
Dr. Nepstad. And so there is all of these amazing recipes,
culinary--but just high volumes of high quality fish, and the
great thing is farmers want it large scale. Soy farmers want
it. Small-scale farmers want it.
Some indigenous communities are doing fish farming and it
is the sort of thing where you got 20 percent--20 times more
production per hectare than beef and it is not excluding
anyone. it is giving them supplemental income.
I think that is an example of the sort of thing that could
move forward very rapidly and be a win-win as a development
agenda.
Mr. Rooney. Great.
Mr. Millan. A U.S. foreign assistance program, which
married titling of land for rural farmers, raising productivity
of that land through the use of hybrid crops and modern
fertilizers and insecticides, could have tremendous relevance
to 20 or 30 countries around the world, not just to Brazil.
It had enormous potential, and one way or another something
similar is going to be done or else they are going to cut down
all the forests.
Dr. de Bolle. Just coming back to my point on political
will, this is exactly where we can get political will because
these sorts of sustainable fish farming activities and things
of that--and other sustainable farming activities that may
happen in the Amazon or that are currently happening in the
Amazon would serve toward reducing poverty rates and inequality
rates.
I mean, we are talking about a region of the country where
inequality and poverty are at their highest. These are the most
naturally rich in resources States of Brazil.
But they are also the most impoverished. So there should be
great political will just from that fact alone.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Well, thank you all for being here today for
this important hearing. I urge my colleagues to remain focused
on what is happening in the Amazon.
I hope this hearing will be the beginning of an ongoing
conversation about how the U.S. Congress can help preserve the
Amazon rainforest for generations to come. I thank the
witnesses and all the members who have been here today.
With that, the committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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