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Some aspects of social problems facing conservation in Brazil
TREE vol. 1, no. 2, August
131-134 5 Moore, N.W. (1962)J. fcol., 50,369-391 6 Levins, R. (1970) in Some Mathematical Questions in Biology, Vol. 2
(Gerstenhaber, M., ed.), pp. 77-107, American Mathematical Society 7 Shaffer, M.L. (1985) USDA Forest Service
General
Technical
Report
PNW-185,86-99
8 May, R.M. (1973) Stabilityand Complexity in Model Ecosystems,
Princeton University Press 9 Goodman, D. in Viable Populations for Conservation (Soul& ME, ed.), Cambridge University Press (in press) 10 Leigh, E.G., Jr (1981) J. Theor. Biol., 90, 213-239
11 Richter-Dyn, N. and Goel, N.S. (1972)
Associates
J. Mhcio Ayes There has been growing concern in Brazil for environmental issues in the last two decades. The conservation policies for Amazonia, which still represents the largest portion of forests of the country, are still based on isolated decisions made in the late 1970s. Among these policies there is, for instance, the plan for the establishment of a net of National Parks, proposed by Wetteberg et al. ‘, based on the ‘Pleistocene refugia’ model. These refugia are areas of high species endemism, representing forest islands formed during the dry periods of the Pleistocene age, constituting the center of evolution dispersal of Amazonian and species? A number of parks and biological reserves have since been established and the decrees of laws protecting some elements of the fauna have been implemented. In 7979, studies for a more comprehensive plan for the conservation and development of Brazilian Amazonia were carried out in several institutions committed to research in Amazonia. As a result, several documents were handed to the government, but nothing has yet been implemented. Indeed, no environmental policy for Amazonia will succeed without an effective and comprehensive social plan, and the latter has yet to be formulated.
Every time the bankers meet in New York to discuss the future of their numerous debtors and, for ‘uncontrollable economic reasons’, increase interest rates by 0.5%, Brazil will have increased its debt by about US$600 million. In 1970 the interest rate was 7.7%, increasing to 12.5%
J.M. Ayres is at the lnstituto National de Pesquisasda Amazonia(DeptEcologia),Caixa Postal478, Manaus4000, Amazonas,Brazil.
Theor. Pop. Biol., 3,406-433 12 Bavlovsky, G.E. in Via/i/e Popularions for Conservation (Soul& M.E., ed.), Cambridge University Press (in press) 13 Franklin, I.R. (1980) in Conservation Biology: an Evolutionary-Ecological Perspective (Soul& M.E., and Wilcox, B.A., eds), pp. 135-149, Sinauer
SomeAspects ofSocialProblems facingConservation inBrazil by 1984with a peakof 16.3% in 1981. The minimum monthly labour salary in Brazil3 is now around US$58.00. This is the wage which 45% of Brazilian urban labourers are paid each month4. A portion of the population is unemployed or underemployed (40% of the urban population) and does not even get paid this amount of money”. The debt, which was US$53 415 billion in 1978, increased to US$lO4 384 billion in 1984. During this period, Brazil paid about US$50 billion only on interest rates and on the debt service5. In 1984 Brazil paid, in interest rates alone, an amount equivalent to the minimum wage of more than 10 million workers. For a country in which about 1000 children under four years old die each day6, and 53% between one and six years are undernourished, these payments are a considerable drain on resources. According to the Institute for Social and Economic Planning of Brazil only 34.2% of its entire population has an adequate diet7. As the same author points out, child mortality is equivalent to three Hiroshima bombs each year. It is
wrong to suggest, however, that all the Brazilian financial problems are related to the foreign debt. There are a number of organizational and historical reasons for that, which will not be discussed here. What will be expressed is the opinion that no plans for the conservation of the country’s fauna and flora will succeed unless part of the social question is solved. The same bankers who decide on the increase of interest rates are part of the system which has been providing ‘generous’ financial aid for numerous conservation agencies and projects in the region. This aid represents, however, a very small percentage of the interest rates. The information which has been gathered on Amazonian wildlife over the last two decades, both by Brazilian and multinational groups, is considerable and the amount of technical information has grown sharply. There is no doubt that identifying endangered species, parks to save them, or adequate management techniques in order to assure minimal ecological disturbance, are extremely important to any conservation plan. The problem lies in the fact, however, that with such low wages nobody can assure a minimal conservation plan without incurring the risk of injustice. How can hunting be banned in Amazonia, when equivalent cattle meat would cost at least 10% of the average salary? In
Table1. Pricesof wildlifespeciesin the Brazilianstatesof Amazonas, Par6andMato Gross0(datafrom Rsf.9).
Percentage of
Price regional minimum (US$ equivalent) monthly wage
Species Pied Tamarin Parrot Pigmy Marmoset Squirrel Monkey Spider Monkey Manatee Jaguar Giant Otter Otter Margay
Saguinus bicolor 10.00 (live) Amazona sp. 8.50 (live) Cebuella pygmaea 10.00 (live) Saimiri sciureus 10.00 (live) Ate/es paniscus 16.50 (live) Trichechus inunguis 165.00 (live) Panthera onca 70.00 (skin) Pteronura brasiliensis 27.00 (skin) Lutra en&is 16.50 (skin)
Fe/is spp.
1986
40.00 (skin)
13
11 13 13 21 211
88 34 21 51
TREE vol. 1, no. 2, August
1986
some isolated Amazonian towns, game meat is very important: a oneday sample in a population of about 620 people revealed that 23% were eating this tvpe of meat’. The same argument applies to a skin of jaguar (Table I)‘, a live wooiv monkev (50% of the monthly wage) or logSing a valuable hardwood tree (about one minimum monthly wage)“. Meat trade is high in the upper Amazon region because of the proximity and easy access to several other countries via the rivers JapurB, Jurue and SolimBes. In 1984, for example, several tons of alligator meat were seized by the authorities; this corresponded to several thousands of individuals killed. The situation has deteriorated with inflation and the inadequate increases in wages. For example, a person who needed to work 65 hours a week in 1959 in order to obtain the minimum basic ration would have needed to work 149 hours in 1981 to get the same ratiot?. Thus, some of the larger, poorer families (e.g. Fig. 1) have no option but to depend at least partially on wildlife as an income source or substitute. The growing pressure for land in some areas of Amazonia, allied to its unequal distribution, is directing the poorest part of the population to invade or use the parks in heavily populated areas like the south of Par& and Rondenial’. Parks, reserves and other conservation units are guarded by a handful of wardens, who are unable to cope with surrounding population pressures. These wardens do not have a salary much higher than that of the average local labourer. The state of Amazonas (I 546 445 km*) had, in 1979, 22 wardens to manage faunistic and floristic resources in its entire area. Furthermore, at least half of these were employed for bureaucratic purposes and were not expected to leave their offices in Manaus. The situation has changed little since then. These problems could be solved at relatively low cost. However, any social plan for effective conservation in Amazonia would have to address further questions. For example, according to the Brazilian Association of Geologists and CIMI (Conselho lndigenista MissionBrio)‘*, ‘a third of the entire area occupied by 77 Indian reserves in the greater Amazon basin has been requisitioned by mining companies, both Brazilian and transnational, for prospecting purposes’. Such activities still require effective regulation. In the last few months the economic climate in Brazil has changed
Fig. 1. (a) Children
of a family
in the upper Amazon
income is equivalent to US$58.00 per month. protection plans have been implemented
considerably. Inflation, which was running at nearly 15% last February, dropped to 1.7% in May, and prospects seem to be improving with the government’s new economic scheme, but the situation is still unstable. The social side of the plans is still awaited; and if this is seriously tackled, fauna and flora in Amazonia will have a longer life.
References 1 Wetteberg, G.B.. Padua, M.T.J., Castro, C.S.,andVasconcelos, J.M.C. (1976) Ministhrio da Agricultura, Brasilia, Serie Thcnica, 8 (114),1-6 2 Prance, G.T. (1977) in Extinction is ForeverIPrance, G.T., and Elias, T.S.,
region,
(b) Flooded
near the mouth
of the Japur6
river. Their father’s
Wrzea forest in the same region, where no effective
eds), pp. 195-212, New York Botanical Garden 3 veja. no. 928, p. 122, June 18th, 1986 4 Latin American Bureau (1982) Brazil: State and Struggb Special Brief, Latin American Bureau 5 World Bank (1986) World Debt Tables: External Debt of Developing Countries; 19851986 Edition, The World Bank 6 World Bank (1985) World Development Report, Oxford University Press 7 Aguiar, R.C. (1985) Revista Brasileira de Tecnologia, 16,4 8 Ayres, J.M., and Ayres, C. (1979)Acta Amazonica (SuppI.), 9,81-101 8 Ayres, J.M., and Best, R. (1979) Acra Amazonica, 9,287-298 10 Ayres, J.M. Primate Conservarion Newsletter (in press) 11 Fearnside. P. (1985) Cibncia Hoje, 17, 90 12 Guardian, May 3rd. 1986, London
49
131-134 5 Moore, N.W. (1962)J. fcol., 50,369-391 6 Levins, R. (1970) in Some Mathematical Questions in Biology, Vol. 2
(Gerstenhaber, M., ed.), pp. 77-107, American Mathematical Society 7 Shaffer, M.L. (1985) USDA Forest Service
General
Technical
Report
PNW-185,86-99
8 May, R.M. (1973) Stabilityand Complexity in Model Ecosystems,
Princeton University Press 9 Goodman, D. in Viable Populations for Conservation (Soul& ME, ed.), Cambridge University Press (in press) 10 Leigh, E.G., Jr (1981) J. Theor. Biol., 90, 213-239
11 Richter-Dyn, N. and Goel, N.S. (1972)
Associates
J. Mhcio Ayes There has been growing concern in Brazil for environmental issues in the last two decades. The conservation policies for Amazonia, which still represents the largest portion of forests of the country, are still based on isolated decisions made in the late 1970s. Among these policies there is, for instance, the plan for the establishment of a net of National Parks, proposed by Wetteberg et al. ‘, based on the ‘Pleistocene refugia’ model. These refugia are areas of high species endemism, representing forest islands formed during the dry periods of the Pleistocene age, constituting the center of evolution dispersal of Amazonian and species? A number of parks and biological reserves have since been established and the decrees of laws protecting some elements of the fauna have been implemented. In 7979, studies for a more comprehensive plan for the conservation and development of Brazilian Amazonia were carried out in several institutions committed to research in Amazonia. As a result, several documents were handed to the government, but nothing has yet been implemented. Indeed, no environmental policy for Amazonia will succeed without an effective and comprehensive social plan, and the latter has yet to be formulated.
Every time the bankers meet in New York to discuss the future of their numerous debtors and, for ‘uncontrollable economic reasons’, increase interest rates by 0.5%, Brazil will have increased its debt by about US$600 million. In 1970 the interest rate was 7.7%, increasing to 12.5%
J.M. Ayres is at the lnstituto National de Pesquisasda Amazonia(DeptEcologia),Caixa Postal478, Manaus4000, Amazonas,Brazil.
Theor. Pop. Biol., 3,406-433 12 Bavlovsky, G.E. in Via/i/e Popularions for Conservation (Soul& M.E., ed.), Cambridge University Press (in press) 13 Franklin, I.R. (1980) in Conservation Biology: an Evolutionary-Ecological Perspective (Soul& M.E., and Wilcox, B.A., eds), pp. 135-149, Sinauer
SomeAspects ofSocialProblems facingConservation inBrazil by 1984with a peakof 16.3% in 1981. The minimum monthly labour salary in Brazil3 is now around US$58.00. This is the wage which 45% of Brazilian urban labourers are paid each month4. A portion of the population is unemployed or underemployed (40% of the urban population) and does not even get paid this amount of money”. The debt, which was US$53 415 billion in 1978, increased to US$lO4 384 billion in 1984. During this period, Brazil paid about US$50 billion only on interest rates and on the debt service5. In 1984 Brazil paid, in interest rates alone, an amount equivalent to the minimum wage of more than 10 million workers. For a country in which about 1000 children under four years old die each day6, and 53% between one and six years are undernourished, these payments are a considerable drain on resources. According to the Institute for Social and Economic Planning of Brazil only 34.2% of its entire population has an adequate diet7. As the same author points out, child mortality is equivalent to three Hiroshima bombs each year. It is
wrong to suggest, however, that all the Brazilian financial problems are related to the foreign debt. There are a number of organizational and historical reasons for that, which will not be discussed here. What will be expressed is the opinion that no plans for the conservation of the country’s fauna and flora will succeed unless part of the social question is solved. The same bankers who decide on the increase of interest rates are part of the system which has been providing ‘generous’ financial aid for numerous conservation agencies and projects in the region. This aid represents, however, a very small percentage of the interest rates. The information which has been gathered on Amazonian wildlife over the last two decades, both by Brazilian and multinational groups, is considerable and the amount of technical information has grown sharply. There is no doubt that identifying endangered species, parks to save them, or adequate management techniques in order to assure minimal ecological disturbance, are extremely important to any conservation plan. The problem lies in the fact, however, that with such low wages nobody can assure a minimal conservation plan without incurring the risk of injustice. How can hunting be banned in Amazonia, when equivalent cattle meat would cost at least 10% of the average salary? In
Table1. Pricesof wildlifespeciesin the Brazilianstatesof Amazonas, Par6andMato Gross0(datafrom Rsf.9).
Percentage of
Price regional minimum (US$ equivalent) monthly wage
Species Pied Tamarin Parrot Pigmy Marmoset Squirrel Monkey Spider Monkey Manatee Jaguar Giant Otter Otter Margay
Saguinus bicolor 10.00 (live) Amazona sp. 8.50 (live) Cebuella pygmaea 10.00 (live) Saimiri sciureus 10.00 (live) Ate/es paniscus 16.50 (live) Trichechus inunguis 165.00 (live) Panthera onca 70.00 (skin) Pteronura brasiliensis 27.00 (skin) Lutra en&is 16.50 (skin)
Fe/is spp.
1986
40.00 (skin)
13
11 13 13 21 211
88 34 21 51
TREE vol. 1, no. 2, August
1986
some isolated Amazonian towns, game meat is very important: a oneday sample in a population of about 620 people revealed that 23% were eating this tvpe of meat’. The same argument applies to a skin of jaguar (Table I)‘, a live wooiv monkev (50% of the monthly wage) or logSing a valuable hardwood tree (about one minimum monthly wage)“. Meat trade is high in the upper Amazon region because of the proximity and easy access to several other countries via the rivers JapurB, Jurue and SolimBes. In 1984, for example, several tons of alligator meat were seized by the authorities; this corresponded to several thousands of individuals killed. The situation has deteriorated with inflation and the inadequate increases in wages. For example, a person who needed to work 65 hours a week in 1959 in order to obtain the minimum basic ration would have needed to work 149 hours in 1981 to get the same ratiot?. Thus, some of the larger, poorer families (e.g. Fig. 1) have no option but to depend at least partially on wildlife as an income source or substitute. The growing pressure for land in some areas of Amazonia, allied to its unequal distribution, is directing the poorest part of the population to invade or use the parks in heavily populated areas like the south of Par& and Rondenial’. Parks, reserves and other conservation units are guarded by a handful of wardens, who are unable to cope with surrounding population pressures. These wardens do not have a salary much higher than that of the average local labourer. The state of Amazonas (I 546 445 km*) had, in 1979, 22 wardens to manage faunistic and floristic resources in its entire area. Furthermore, at least half of these were employed for bureaucratic purposes and were not expected to leave their offices in Manaus. The situation has changed little since then. These problems could be solved at relatively low cost. However, any social plan for effective conservation in Amazonia would have to address further questions. For example, according to the Brazilian Association of Geologists and CIMI (Conselho lndigenista MissionBrio)‘*, ‘a third of the entire area occupied by 77 Indian reserves in the greater Amazon basin has been requisitioned by mining companies, both Brazilian and transnational, for prospecting purposes’. Such activities still require effective regulation. In the last few months the economic climate in Brazil has changed
Fig. 1. (a) Children
of a family
in the upper Amazon
income is equivalent to US$58.00 per month. protection plans have been implemented
considerably. Inflation, which was running at nearly 15% last February, dropped to 1.7% in May, and prospects seem to be improving with the government’s new economic scheme, but the situation is still unstable. The social side of the plans is still awaited; and if this is seriously tackled, fauna and flora in Amazonia will have a longer life.
References 1 Wetteberg, G.B.. Padua, M.T.J., Castro, C.S.,andVasconcelos, J.M.C. (1976) Ministhrio da Agricultura, Brasilia, Serie Thcnica, 8 (114),1-6 2 Prance, G.T. (1977) in Extinction is ForeverIPrance, G.T., and Elias, T.S.,
region,
(b) Flooded
near the mouth
of the Japur6
river. Their father’s
Wrzea forest in the same region, where no effective
eds), pp. 195-212, New York Botanical Garden 3 veja. no. 928, p. 122, June 18th, 1986 4 Latin American Bureau (1982) Brazil: State and Struggb Special Brief, Latin American Bureau 5 World Bank (1986) World Debt Tables: External Debt of Developing Countries; 19851986 Edition, The World Bank 6 World Bank (1985) World Development Report, Oxford University Press 7 Aguiar, R.C. (1985) Revista Brasileira de Tecnologia, 16,4 8 Ayres, J.M., and Ayres, C. (1979)Acta Amazonica (SuppI.), 9,81-101 8 Ayres, J.M., and Best, R. (1979) Acra Amazonica, 9,287-298 10 Ayres, J.M. Primate Conservarion Newsletter (in press) 11 Fearnside. P. (1985) Cibncia Hoje, 17, 90 12 Guardian, May 3rd. 1986, London
49