brazilians and their forests
TRANSCRIPT
8/6/2019 Brazilians and Their Forests
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Changes in the climate, major infrastructure construction works and a bill that alters the forest code threaten to
produce a new thrust towards the further destruction of forests. As heirs to some of the greatest and most varied
tropical jungles on the planet, many Brazilians still look on with indifference to the disappearance of their most
valuable natural heritage. While efforts to hold back deforestation are concentrated within legal and economic
measures, the human element – the individual – and the reasons behind his behavior to fell the forest, protect it
or look on indifferently while it is being destroyed, is an aspect that has been ignored in the conservation and
development policies discussed.
The manner in which Brazilians relate to their forests began to become a concern within the country and abroad
since 1988, after satellite images revealed for the first time the magnitude of the deforestation occurring in the
Amazon. In the same year, the news of the death of the notorious rubber tapper Chico Mendes contributed to
once more place the Amazon Rainforest – and its villain, Brazilians themselves – in the spotlight of attention from
the environmentalist community. Brazilian authorities reacted creating protected areas. Since 1992, more than 80
conservation units were created in the Amazon. The government, companies and civil society also sought to
develop economic mechanisms to protect the forest. From incentives towards extractivism, forest handling and
ecotourism to the payment for ecologic services up to the great current bet on REDD, the logic behind these
financial and market mechanisms is to add a monetary value to the forest for it to be more valuable standing than
felled.
However, the vision that the root of the environmental problems lies in the end within human behavior and the
growing evidence that this human behavior isn’t determined solely by contextual factors such as laws and money,
but also by individual factors, suggests that the protection of forests must also take into account the human
dimension of the relationship between man and forest. We must understand what Brazilians really think and feel
with regard to forests if you want to change in an enduring manner their behavior towards them. Human behavior,
however, is a complex phenomenon, and must be examined on different levels.
How to understand this relationship
In its more fundamental and universal level, our behavioral response to the environment was shaped by
evolution. Each species of animal has its preferred environment, where its adaptations allow it to prosper.
According to the Savannah Hypothesis, our ancestors that l ived on the plains of Africa would have developed an
innate preference for open landscapes with few trees, where it would be easier to gather vegetables as well as
keep an eye on and follow the herds of heavy ungulates which they preyed upon. This preference would still be
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present in modern man and the evidence for this theory ranges from the prevalence of this type of scenario in
classical paintings and urban parks up to the results from tests performed on people from several parts of the
world to choose the most attractive landscape among photographs of savannahs with trees, open fields and
closed forests. According to this vision, we are savannah animals.
We are not a forest species. Naturally, some of the people of the past established themselves in forest
environments, however, using the forest mainly as a source of food and other resources, preferring to build their
dwellings, have their meals and perform their rituals under an open sky, as do many of the Brazilian indigenous
peoples. Few are the peoples who live permanently under a closed canopy of forest, and, as Jared Diamond
shows us in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel , the gatherer-hunter lifestyle of the legitimate forest dwellers
condemns them to a poor diet in terms of energy and, finally, to live in small groups incapable of technological
development (the forest is incompatible with two of the inventions that led to the creation of civilization:
agriculture and the breeding of domestic animals). Therefore, there would be a biological reason for this human
behavior of avoiding forests, and this ancient impulse could be the basis of our own predatory relationship
towards them..
On the other hand, the Biophilia Hypothesis proposes that evolution would have selected in the human being an
innate feeling of affinity with the living world. This feeling would have stimulated our ancestors to understand risks
and opportunities in their environment and, in this manner, contributed towards their survival. The quintessence
of diversity and sophistication in the living world is found in the tropical forest and, therefore, this type of
environment would exert on us a special instinctive attraction.
Most researchers agree, however, that the largest part of the variation with regard to human behavior is a result
of what we learn. It is our knowledge and beliefs that determine our actions in a more direct manner. Indigenous
people and traditional populations accumulated throughout the ages a deep understanding about the natural
resources of the forests in which they l ive, and that allows them to extract their sustenance without felling them.
They have been the main focus of anthropological studies about the man-forest relationship. However, the actors
who are most directly related to deforestation in Brazil have been migrants from the agricultural borders of the
Amazon. They are in their majority rural producers derived from regions where forests have ceased to exist long
ago. They require an income, but still have little knowledge about how to use the resources the forest has to
offer. They believe that the only way they can earn a living is by breeding cattle.
Contrary to what takes place with traditional populations, this agricultural frontier produce in the Amazon is
connected to the market. The demand for soy, beef and wood drives the destruction of the forest. On the
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receiving end, consumers are those who are actually driving the borders of deforestation ahead. Brazilian
consumers know little about the Amazon Rainforest and its social and environmental problems. Most Brazilians
live in cities outside the Amazon and are completely unaware of the origins of the products they consume,
believing that the Amazon is just a distant place over which he or she has no impact or responsibility.
Our actions are not guided only by rationality from knowledge or beliefs. We are also driven by emotion. Fear,
anger and love are examples of feelings that influence our relation with the natural world. Fear of snakes, spiders
and other forest animals explains in part the scarcity of trees close to human habitations. On the other hand, it is
because we love animals, plants and natural landscapes that we conserve our forests. National Parks that form
the greatest extensions of protected forests in the Amazon are created taking into account, among other criteria,
the beauty of the scenery and an aesthetic appreciation as a phenomenon of affection. The lack of emotion in
turn results in indifference.
Andrew Balmford says that “the most depressing conservation problem is not the destruction of the habitat or
predatory extraction activities, but the human indifference in the face of these problems”. Without an emotional
connection with the forest, the average Brazilian is unconcerned that hydroelectric powerplants and the paving of
highways can once again drive deforestation in the Amazon, or that the wood he or she buys isn’t of a certified
origin, or that carbon emissions, even if occurring at a distance, can contribute towards a sequence of events that
can culminate in a savannah-like effect of part of the Amazon Rainforest.
Lastly, our behavior also depends on the social and cultural context in which we are inserted. We tend to do that
which we believe “others” are doing, especially i f among these others are influent and respected community
members. The rural producer concludes that “if everyone is felling trees, then deforestation is right and I should
do the same”. Besides, we also do that which we think is socially desirable and we avoid doing that which seems
to us to be socially reproachable. Rural property owners of Costa Rica that reserved part of their land as
protected areas informed that their main motivation to protect the forest wasn’t a legal or economic one, but a
social reason: they believed that the politically correct initiative would bring them prestige! As Brazilian society
becomes more environmentally aware, the acknowledgement of those that take part in an organized effort to
preserve the biological resources that are threatened grows considerably, especially when we are dealing with a
world-known place such as the Amazon.
The modernization of our society is also accompanied by changes in values with regard to nature – from values
predominantly of an utilitarian kind to one of mutual interest – so that forests gain importance as a resource for
tourism or simply for its intrinsic value. Forests seen derisively as “bush” gain an image as an important and
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attractive place that deserves to be visited and cared for. In the post-industrial society, the ethical horizon is
expanded and moral considerations are increasingly applicable towards the way in which we behave with regard
to our forests too: to exploit them in an unsustainable manner becomes immoral.
How to improve this relationship
Summing up all this, human behavior in relation to forests is influenced by genetic, personal, social and cultural
factors. Although this influence may be eventually weak and not always decisive, it should not be ignored nor
eclipsed by the power of legal and economic impositions. Due to the difficulty of enforcing laws in the more
remote regions of the country and the limitation of economic approaches to make the forest more profitable
standing than felled, strategies for forest conservation in Brazil should still include the human dimension of the
relationship between Brazilians and their forests.
We must examine in which cases it is possible and applicable to influence personal, social and cultural factors,
and mobilize them in a manner to complement and amplify the effects of legal and material factors. Personal
factors such as knowledge, beliefs, feelings and skills – which shape the manner in which we treat forests, can
be influenced by educational and communicational interventions. The social context that encourages Brazilian
citizens – farmers, businessmen or politicians – to destroy the forest of protect i t can be changed accordingly by
means of social marketing tools; employing ‘role models’ (influent members of the community that offer a good
example to be emulated); through communications conducted through respected local institutions and informal
social networks so that conservationist messages are spread “horizontally” and not from top to bottom; through
social rewards, including prizes (a positive encouragement instead of a negative one); and through community
involvement with planning and participative management.
The sustainable future of forests will demand, however, the adoption of a new cultural paradigm, in which
motivations for conservation are not just legal, economic and ecological, but also of affection, aesthetics, cultural,
spiritual and ethical. This new paradigm will still have to be properly developed and applied, and therefore will
also depend on the disposition of future generations to change the manner in which people relate to the forest.
We need to include children and young Brazilians in this effort, and develop effective approaches to transform
them into citizens that nurture a responsible relationship towards forests. Initiatives with this goal already exist.
An example would be the School of the Amazon, that has been kindling in schools of Alta Floresta, on the border
of deforestation now for 8 years, the theme of forest conservation, employing two exceptionally charismatic
species of the region - the white-fronted spider monkey and the jaguar – to grab the attention and curiosity of
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students and educators alike, creating and strengthening a connection of affection of children towards the forest,
awakening in young people an interest for economic alternatives which are more sustainable than livestock
breeding and touring young people from major urban centers to meet the region’s reality up close. Laws and
money alone cannot bring about immediate benefits for the forests, but on the long term, the perspectives are
better if approaches focused on the individual, including young people and children, are also added to the
equation. In this manner, we will stand a better change that Brazil will continue to be, for a very long time, the
country of forests.
Silvio Marchini is a Doctor in Conservation of Wildlife and founder of the School of
the Amazon. E-mail: [email protected]