BRAZILIAN FORESTS: Roots of an Eco-illogic Politics

Introduction - Steel industries, and a global production chain leading to modern 'essentials' such airplanes and automobiles - feeds on slavery and massive deforestation in the Amazon.

It's the result of a journalistic investigation recently published in Brazil1. Based on unquestionable math methodologies, author Marques Casara crossed official data from both, the Pig Iron Cias. and the legal Charcoal Cias. , to uncover the fact that: ALL top quality Pig Iron, produced at low costs in Brazil, uses illegal charcoal in a proportion that varies from 49% to 155%, in relation to the traceable certified sources. It's obtained from stolen wood, through armies of nameless workers with no guarantees of minimum wage, security equipment or even drinking water. This criminal charcoal is part of the Pig Iron largely consumed by NMT (National Material Trading Co.), NUCOR CORPORATION and THYSSENKRUPP, which operate in a world level, selling steel to DaimlerChrysler, Deeree & Co., Ford, General Motors, Kohler, Nissan and Toyota... just to name a few brands we may see parked in our own garages. But how? While involved corporations hide behind hollow "sustainable" marketing strategies and global public opinion chats on the surface of Rain Forest conservational issues - gangs of corrupt politicians, entrepreneurs and public workers team up to make their highly profitable international business regain the legal status it used to have until 2008. For as strange as it may seem, in our warming climate days, deforestation has been a lime stone to Brazilian Western civilization - from the XVIth century Brazil Wood Cycle, to contemporary meat farms, transgenic soy plantations and pig iron production fields. Deforestation has been a "beneficial" State sponsored action, and that was clearly established in the letter of the Law until President Lula, urged by Marina Silva, criminalized it in the Brazilian Forest Code, which was short lived, being torn apart in May 2011, under an anti-forest lobby.

Slavery and deforestation have always been associated in Brazilian history. Such practices are rooted in a mind-set that inspired most of the Nations pioneers and has lately been dealt with as a sort of Environmental Racism. By one hand, the European "race" and homogeneous landscapes stood as ideals of beauty and superiority. By the other hand, our heterogeneous "green hell" wasn't but a hiding spot for "ugly" Blacks and Indians to escape the slavery to which they were supposedly destined to. This simplistic, yet enlightening, equation still applies in the "deforestation arc", where the virgin forest is constantly violated. Slavery and deforestation are being promoted, right now, by a way of life that sees no economic value in the standing forests and condemns poor African-Amerindian descents to a life of misery and ignorance. Child-abuse and sexual exploitation are often in the same picture. Corruption and murder are tools that the anti-forest mafias employ quite effectively in Brazil. Leaving aside the implications of a Justice system that most citizens believe to never touch the rich and powerful - the scheme to "warm up" criminal charcoal (make it look legal) is so huge that it needs little aid to assure assassinations of Environmentalists and Rural Work Leaders go unpunished. Its proved more influential to the Steel Industry than all legally accountable sources. In this vicious circle, charcoal producers certify a third partys charcoal as a product of their own; public servants, from Para State Environment Office, "multiply" the amount of authorized deforestation direct into the system; Pig Iron Cias. "inform" to have bought legal charcoal miles away from their ovens... and so on. Though ICC Instituto Carvo Cidado2 (Citizen Charcoal Institute) seems unable to locate where it takes place, one can easily eye all of these crimes along Road PA-150, in special near the small (and otherwise unknown) Nova Ipixuna town, where Jos Claudio Ribeiro da Silva & Maria do Esprito Santo Silva (a couple of local Environmentalists) were killed in May 24th, few days after the Forest Code had fallen in the Congress. Steel and charcoal are non-revocably imbricated in our world's macro-economic tissue, as we know it. According to wikipedia, Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight. There alternative alloying material for iron, but Carbon is the most common. Historically, Since the XVIIth century the first step in European steel production has been the smelting of iron ore into pig iron in a blast furnace. Although modern methods turned to coke (from petroleum) as a cheaper Carbon source, the higher quality of the pig iron produced with wooden Carbon, makes the Slavery-Deforestation-Amazonic charcoal a much better deal for the global Steel Business. The Carajas Pole has been a focus of such criminal activities, since its installation, in the 1980s. The neighbor Nova Ipixuna town, in the heart of Carajas charcoal providing region, where one could smell burnt wood trails to discover hundreds of illegal ovens in full operation is a key spot to the Steel Production chain. Decarbonize is, thus, a much harder task than just switch gasoline for ethanol (whats, indeed, a good thing to do!). While nobody seems to have a definite answer to all the Economic-Ecologic mess we find ourselves tangled into, a more effective global effort may start from the assumption that its just not possible to blame Brazilians alone for all this Eco-nonsense. As the RIO+20 approaches, the political scene in Brazil shows conflicting signs for the months ahead. President Dilma has shown a strong will to fight corruption in her administration and, in fact, corruption is the first wrong to be straighten-out for the sake of a legal charcoal era in the Amazon. Misfortunately, the dungeons of Para State Environmental Office (SEMA-PA) corruption seem better armed (with the support of Charcoal-Steel Business interests) than Brazils Federal offices, like IBAMA or the Public Ministry, whose insufficient personnel works often in dangerous conditions and under the pressure of murder threats.

Hopefully, Native American and African descent forestry cultures, that make Brazilian popular traditions so important to our decarbonizing future, are up and about, inspiring an emotional environmental activism in a truly South American way. Recent expressions of such green creativity includes a Tree Planting Protest, which some students made in the front garden of the Brazilian Senate, and that has been updated in a blog3 where one reads : Because well make the revolution, handling seeds and new trees. More seriously, Marcos Terena4, Native Brazilians RIO+20 Coordinator (and great Airplane Pilot!) has promoted the August 9th (the International Day of the Indigenous Peoples) in the internet, as a conquest of all Native populations from around the globe. His photo with Pel and a Xavante Chief says more about the Black-Indian cultural-environmental identity than all of my previous words.

1- The Steel of Desfortation: http://issuu.com/papel_social/docs/steel_devastation 2- The Citizen Charcoal Institute was created in 2004, by the Brazilian Steel Industries, to assure the sector would banish illegal charcoal, obtained with slavery and deforestation, until 2012. 3- Blog jardimparaliberdade.wordpress.com (Garden For Freedom BLOG)

4- Marcos Terena Facebook Profile http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1367547622

Obs.: This article was first published at: www.dandaraseed.newsvine.com. Images added under permission.