ARTICULATION
As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pointed out, “Tackling climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and addressing shifting demographic and consumption patterns, will require bold new approaches.” (Ki-moon, 2011: 5) and this should be done fast if the world is to “keep the protective covering that helps it breathe, waters its crops, keeps it cool and nurtures its biodiversity” (The Economist, 2010 a). Forests are a natural way of removing large quantities of harmful carbon dioxide pollutants from the atmosphere – and hence the need to curtail deforestation.
Brazil is a developing country of which half of its land area is covered by forests in the Amazon basin.Lula da Silva, the previous president of Brazil, called the Brazilian forests the “lungs of the world.”Nevertheless deforestation of the Amazon rain forests continues in this country whose per capital income is about $10,000 per year. The Brazilian government is in favor of deforestation under certain conditions.Lula said to the Copenhagen summit on climate change “I don’t want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree”, (The Economist, 09/2010a) of the report.There are many stakeholders and many issues which are part of controlling deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest.Your assignment is to identify these issues and stakeholders by categorizing them within the 5 dimensions and their interactions as in the ACE framework.
Questions
Q1: Describe shortly the Physical domain related to deforestation. How are the parts of the physical environment related to each other? What are some of the trends?
Q2: What is the Social domain related to this issue? Who are the main stakeholders in the Social domain and what role are they playing?
Q3: Describe shortly the Political domain. Comment on Brazil’s policies and regulations regarding deforestation and their implementation, and on the position of the Brazilian government’s as part of the international community.
Q4: What are Brazil’s challenges in the Economic domain towards creating and maintaining economic growth?
Q5: What are the main industries / businesses involved in the Business domain?How does REDD provide an incentive to stop deforestation?To whom are the REDD incentives to be paid?
Q6: Describe the interaction between the social and business domains.
Q7:Comment on Brazil’s trade-offs between natural protection and economic growth. Many households and businesses make a living using forest products. How does this affect Brazil’s efforts to tighten the environmental regulations?
Q8: In Brazil (as in most countries) there are two levels of political power: national and local. How does the distribution of power between two levels affect the success of environmental reforms?
