National Geographic Society

Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon dropped 45.7 percent from August 2008 to July 2009, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced yesterday during a meeting with state governors and mayors in Brasília.

Data based on analysis of satellite imagery by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) suggests that 2,700 square miles (7,000 square kilometers) of forest were cleared in Brazil during the 12-month period, the lowest rate since the government started monitoring deforestation in 1988.

Photo of Amazon forest courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

"The new deforestation data represents an extraordinary and significant reduction for Brazil. Climate change is the most challenging issue that we face today," Lula said.

Photo of Brazil's President Lula at yesterday's event by Ricardo Stuckert/PR

The slowing deforestation levels are primarily a result of the Action Plan for Deforestation Control and Prevention in the Amazon, a set of cross-government policies and measures launched in 2004 to improve monitoring, strengthen enforcement, define conservation areas and foster sustainable activities in the region, said a statement from Brazil's Secretariat for Social Communication (SECOM).

"With the support of 13 government agencies, the plan played a major role in helping reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 74.8 percent from 2004 to 2009."

Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon 

Surveillance and enforcement

The INPE data indicates that the projected 32 percent increase in government inspections over the last year inhibited illegal deforestation in the Amazon, the statement added.

"Satellite images from INPE's near real-time deforestation detection system enabled government inspectors to focus their efforts where deforestation is most critical and act quickly to prevent new areas from being cleared.

"As a result of this surveillance, the Brazilian Environment Institute apprehended around 230,000 cubic meters of wood, 414 trucks and tractors, and embargoed 502,000 hectares [1,240,000 acres] of land linked to illegal deforestation activities in the region over the period from August 2008 to July 2009, leading the government to issue over R$ 2.8 billion reais [U.S.$ 1.6 billion] in fines.

"In addition to fines, the government used other tools to financially constrain those whose activities contribute to the destruction of the forest. This includes a resolution enacted by the National Monetary Council in mid-2008 that requires farmers and ranchers in the Amazon to meet environmental criteria in order to obtain loans from public and private banks."

Brazil is home to 60 percent of the Amazon. The "Legal Brazilian Amazon" ("Amazonia Legal Brasileira") is an administrative region that spreads across the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and portions of Tocantins, Maranhão and Goiás. It represents 53 percent of Brazil's total land area (about 2 million square miles or 5 million square kilometers), has a population of 25 million people, and generates just under 8 percent of Brazil's total GDP.

Around 43 percent (800,000 square miles or 2.1 million square kilometers) of the Amazon land falls within Protected Areas or Indigenous Lands Around 21 percent of the Amazon are federal or state public lands outside Protected Areas and Indigenous Lands. There are about 400 identified and demarcated indigenous lands in the region, home to between 170,000 and 200,000 indigenous people.

Image and caption courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

Conservation and sustainable activities

Federal and state governments also worked to create around 50 million hectares [123 million acres] in new conservation units in the Amazon from 2004 to 2008, while another 10 million hectares [25 million acres] in indigenous lands were granted recognition in the same period, SECOM said. "Today, 43 percent of the Legal Amazon is federally protected."

The government also initiated a concession scheme for sustainable management in public forests. The first concessions were granted in August 2008, enabling three private groups to carry sustainable logging and extraction activities in 237,000 acres (96,000 hectares) of the Jamari Public Forest, in the state of Rondônia.

Deforestation and climate change

Deforestation in the Amazon region is the main source of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, SECOM said. According to the first National Inventory of Greenhouse Gases, up to 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from deforestation and land-use change.

"For this reason, tackling deforestation is at the center of Brazil's strategy to combat global warming. Launched in December 2008, the National Plan on Climate Change sets targets to cut deforestation rates by 80 percent by 2020, which would avoid 4.8 billion tons in CO2 emissions during this period.

"To meet these goals, the plan sets out a number of actions and programs to combat illegal logging and provide sustainable economic alternatives to the people living in the Amazon, among other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in different sectors," SECOM said.

Photo of Amazon forest courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

Further action required, conservationists say

Although it is essential to recognize the efforts made by the federal and state governments as well as Brazilian society in general, further action is required, said WWF-Brazil CEO Denise Hamú.

"Deforestation needs to continue falling in a sustainable manner and must take place in other Brazilian biomes in addition to the Amazon, such as the Cerrado," she said in a statement issued by the conservation organization in response to President Lula's announcement.

Hamú also said that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Copenhagen in December, will be a good opportunity for Brazil to defend the adoption of clear and ambitious emission reduction commitments by the participant countries.

"Deforestation numbers such as the ones showed today by President Lula strengthen Brazil's credentials to lead the climate negotiations and take the forefront in building a new development model for the world that respects the environment and the people."

"Deforestation numbers such as the ones showed today by President Lula strengthen Brazil's credentials to lead the climate negotiations and take the forefront in building a new development model for the world that respects the environment and the people", Hamú said.

"Among the other biomes, the most critical situation is found in the Cerrado," WWF-Brazil said. "While deforestation in the Amazon has finally fallen below 10,000 square kilometers, in the Cerrado it surpasses 20,000 square kilometers." The Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna region southeast of the Amazon.
 
36 football fields a minute

Despite conservation efforts, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate--13 million hectares per year, or 36 football fields a minute, WWF added. "It generates almost 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and halting forest loss has been identified as one of the most cost-effective ways to keep the world out of the danger zone of runaway climate change."

Apart from decreasing emissions caused by deforestation in the Amazon, Brazil needs to work on achieving reductions in the industry and transport sectors, and especially in energy generation and transmission processes, added Cláudio Maretti, WWF-Brazil's conservation director.

"After all, the planet urgently needs expressive greenhouse gas emission reductions", he said. 

The first two Soyuz launchers have left Russia for the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Arianespace said today.

Each voyage will carry two Soyuz 2-1a vehicles along with the accompanying systems and propellant.  With Arianespace's planned mission rate of two to four Soyuz flights per year, it expects to perform one or two
trips annually from St. Petersburg with the Russian launchers aboard the roll-on/roll-off ships.

Photo courtesy of Arianespace

"The legendary Russian launcher will lift off from its new launch pad, now being completed, for the first time in 2010," the space launch service company said in a statement.

The European Space Agency (ESA) set up the program "Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center (CSG)" to bolster collaboration with Russia on launch vehicles.

Photo courtesy of Arianespace

The two Soyuz launchers left St. Petersburg today aboard the MN Colibri, which is one of two ships used by Arianespace to transport Ariane launch vehicles from their European manufacturing sites to French Guiana. The ship will arrive in a port near Kourou, French Guiana, in about two weeks.

"The two Soyuz rockets will be launched in 2010 from a new purpose-built Soyuz launch complex at the Guiana Space Center," Arianespace said.

"Soyuz will become the medium-lift launcher in the Arianespace family, operated from the most modern launch site in the world alongside the Ariane 5 heavy-lift launcher, which just logged its 34th successful mission in a row."

This is the first ever shipment of Russia's Soyuz launcher by sea. "This workhorse vehicle family--which literally introduced the space age--has been operated from two facilities: the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Russia's northern launch site at Plesetsk Cosmodrome," Arianespace said.

Photo courtesy of Arianespace

"The shipment of our first two Soyuz launchers to French Guiana is a major milestone, taking us a step closer to its introduction in Arianespace's commercial service from Europe's Spaceport," said Arianespace chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall. "With Soyuz, shortly to be joined by Vega, Arianespace will have a complete range of launch vehicles, enabling us to launch any payload, to any orbit, at any time."

Artist's impression of the Soyuz installation at the Guiana Space Center

Illustration credits CNES/Cardete et Huet/Les yeux Carrés

Due to the virtually equatorial location of the Guiana Space Center, Soyuz is capable of lofting communications satellites weighing up to 3 metric tons into geostationary orbit--versus 1.8 metric tons from its current launch site in Baikonur.

"Soyuz is also perfectly suited for the launch of scientific or Earth observation spacecraft, as well as constellations of satellites," Arianespace added.

The Soyuz launchers are built by Russia's Samara Space Center, which sends the vehicles from its Samara production facility to St. Petersburg via rail. This is the same means of transportation used to transfer Soyuz vehicles to the existing launch sites at Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Photo courtesy of Arianespace

Arianespace has ordered 14 Soyuz launchers from Russian industry to date, and nearly all of these launches are already booked. Todate, Arianespace had launched a total of 270 payloads, including more than half of all the commercial satellites now in service worldwide.

ESA is the contracting authority (and program management) and provides the Soyuz launch facilities for use by Arianespace.

The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) bears overall responsibility for the program in Russia, and coordinates the activities of Russian companies involved in the program.

By choosing to allow the Soviet Union to be the first nation to launch a satellite into orbit, Sputnik, in October 1957, the United States found a way to engage its Cold War nemesis where there was no dialog before, says Paul Berkman, chair of the International Board for the Antarctic Treaty Summit.

The Antarctic Treaty Summit convenes in Washington, D.C., on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the agreement "in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes."

"President Eisenhower's decision to stand back for the Soviet Union in putting a rocket into space opened the possibility for the U.S. to engage the Soviet Union," Berkman said. "Eisenhower recognized that science could be used as a tool of diplomacy to create a vehicle of cooperation where there was none beforehand."

In this second part of a three-part series on the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, Berkman explains how the frozen southern continent presented the opportunity for the leading Cold War protagonists to come together on the basis of "common interests" and, in the name of science, co-manage a vast portion of the Earth for peaceful purposes only.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty on its signature-day in the city where it was signed "with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind," the Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance will be convened in Washington, D.C. from 30 November 30-December 1, 2009. Its goal is to assess lessons about managing nearly 10 percent of the Earth "for peaceful purposes only." Visit the Antarctic Treaty Summit Web site for registration and other information.

By Paul Berkman,
Special Contributor to NatGeo News Watch

In May 1958, using the example of cooperation during the International Geophysical Year (read the first part of this series), President Eisenhower suggested that all nations engaged in research in Antarctica come to the U.S. and begin the process of negotiating an agreement to manage the Antarctic collectively.

Eisenhower did this over the objections of his Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the 1950s the U.S. was going through McCarthyism and the whole concept of pinkos and reds and people's lives were damaged because of any word of Russian in their background.

During this period, between May 1958 and October 1959, there were 60 secret meetings between the 12 nations who were involved in studying Antarctica during International Geophysical Year.

In October 1959 the formal Conference on Antarctica began in Washington, D.C. It lasted from October 15 to December, 1, on which day the Antarctic Treaty was signed in the interests of all mankind, that Antarctica shall forever be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and prevent international discord.

So if we combine this history, there are several interesting features. There was a period when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were clearly racing toward ballistic missiles. It was a period of expanding the horizons of humankind to study the Earth on a planetary scale, with rockets that could circle the Earth, and it was a period when the Soviet Union and the U.S. were agreeing to cooperate and work together to manage a vast portion of the Earth for peaceful purposes only.

First nuclear arms treaty

It's fairly well known that the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to cooperate in the management of the Antarctic. What's less well appreciated is that the Antarctic Treaty also became the world's first nuclear arms agreement, and that the inspection strategy that Eisenhower originally envisaged for Outer Space became part of the Antarctic Treaty.

So in a sense, although Eisenhower wasn't successful in Open Skies in Outer Space, he was able to establish the Antarctic as a region to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, and he established this as the first non-nuclear region on the planet.

The Antarctic Treaty became what is known as a non-armament treaty. On the high seas there had been ships with weapons in the past, but the idea that Antarctica had never been and would never be armed would subsequently define it as a non-armament region.

That idea of non-armament and peaceful use was similarly extended to Outer Space in the 1968 agreement, and to the Deep Sea in the 1982 agreement. So three of the four international spaces beyond sovereign jurisdictions are specifically defined as non-armament regions.

Now the lessons of the Antarctic Treaty at the time were that the United States and the Soviet Union weren't able to identify agreement explicitly directed at nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles in Outer Space.

However, they were able to look at issues in a sideways manner with science as the vehicle of cooperation.

So science provided a tool for cooperation that didn't exist with other diplomatic means. It allowed the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the two principal protagonists of the Cold War, to set aside their difference and identify what were called common interests.

The notion of "common interests"

Among the lessons of the Antarctic Treaty is this notion of common interests, which is in contrast to the notion of national interests, which are defined by nations in relation to their boundaries, which is the way the world has worked for millennia. This is what nations contest. They defend their boundaries.

What happened from World War II onward is that, while there remains a component of national jurisdictions, confined to national boundaries, we now realize that 75 percent of the Earth is beyond sovereign jurisdictions. The challenge for the future is to how we manage these regions that are beyond sovereign jurisdictions.

One of the components to doing that is to recognize that international spaces have this concept of common interests. These are interests that are shared not only by nations, but by corporations, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and indigenous peoples organizations.

In effect, these are regions that are shared with all humanity into the distant future.

It's an interesting time that we're at in terms of beginning to germinate these ideas, because in a very practical way we are beginning to think as a civilization, not years or decades into the future, but centuries into the future.

Like the Magna Carta

When the Antarctic Treaty was up for ratification in 1960 in the U.S. Senate, Laurence Gould, one of the principal scientists who had been instrumental in using science diplomacy and helping the U.S. cooperate with the Soviet Union, said that in ways the Antarctic Treaty was like the Magna Carta.

Whereas the Magna Carta served as a tool of inspiration for nations and the development of constitutional law, Gould suggested that the Antarctic Treaty would serve similar import at an international scale for the development of international institutions.

It's a fairly presumptuous statement in that in the Magna Carta we have experience from 1215 to the present to think about its role in the development of constitutional law and the development of democracies. To suggest that the Antarctic Treaty would have similar import means that we'd have to have 800 years of perspective.

What Gould suggested was that we have an experiment for the ages, that through time we'd have the opportunity to assess the treaty in terms of the development of international organizations.

So in a very practical way, the Antarctic showed nations how to build on common interests the concept that a region shall be used only for peaceful purposes. Questions of jurisdiction were a common interest, scientific cooperation was a common interest, freedom of scientific investigation was a common interest, conservation and preservation of living resources was a common interest.

In the case of Antarctica these common interests provided the framework for establishing the treaty. But more importantly they established the basis for a process for engagement among the nations to continuously interact and solve problems from 1955 to 1959 and into the future.

Think about, for example, the discussions that are ongoing today with regard to climate change and the upcoming meeting in Copenhagen, and the notion of specific carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. In effect the wrong message is being sent to the world because the idea is that if you achieve a magic carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere somehow we've solved the problem.

That's not the case. The climate is a dynamic system operating over decades and centuries, as opposed to weather, which is days to weeks to years. The solution to a climate issue can't be fixed by a specific level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is something that has to be ongoing and iterative and responsive to changing circumstances.

There is no magic bullet. The solution is the process. The Antarctic Treaty demonstrates that the process of consultation to engage the various parties continuously and effectively over time has to be built around common interests.

Common interests correctly phrased provide a beacon for nations to orient and consider and formulate measures and principles for whatever institution that is involved.

The history that built up to the Antarctic Treaty allowed the U.S. and the Soviet Union to identify their common interests, and those common interests became not only the framework for the treaty but also the basis for the process of ongoing consultations.

That allows the parties to continuously adjust to circumstances like living resources and even mineral resources, which weren't envisaged or considered as part of the treaty.

Professor Paul Berkman is the head of the Arctic Ocean Geopolitics Programme at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK.

Special series on the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty by Paul Berkman

Part One: Antarctic Treaty at 50, a beacon for joint management of Earth

Part Two: How Antarctica facilitated science as a tool of diplomacy (this page)

Part Three: Antarctic Treaty lessons have enduring value for humankind

For more information, please visit the Antarctic Treaty Summit Web site.