[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] hello, everybody. I we good to go . My name is mark, until recently i i was ceo of the Nature Conservancy. Im really delighted to be here to be the moderator of todays discussion. We have great panel to my left is monica, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for international economics. To her left is daniel, director programs at the climate and landuse alliance, and then on the screen is my good friend peter, the cofounder and ceo of and new ngo focused on a lot of issues that will be discussing today. It is also well known as the founder and longtime ceo of Conservation International where he continues to the chairman. Our topic today is the Global Impact of the amazon rain forest. You been reading about in the news you can of course so many issues. First of all whats really happening, its hard to tell on the basis of the news, how much of this is due to illegal logging or industrial agriculture or bad government policy or is Climate Change itself impacting the forest . Also question arises what happens . Until recently the amazon was on of the great conversation Success Stories through a great effort of the brazilian government, local government, brazilian growers and ranchers, international companies, international ngos. One of the great Success Stories the conversation field used to boast about was bringing d4 station wait at any amazon but thats change. What happened . Another question on my mind, important to discuss at the council on Foreign Relations is what cant International Community deal . Who really owns the amazon . Most of it within brazil, not all of it but its impact on the rest of the world especially visavis the climate challenge is huge. Where are we in terms of Tipping Points . We know as Climate Change progresses or worsens, like it can accelerate that outcomes. Ivory coast conducted in the amazon . There are a whole host of other issues. What about the other amazon countries . What about the role of Indigenous People and impacts on Indigenous People . Or biodiversity itself. We are going to try to touch on all those issues. I could ask questions for about 30 minutes and then well open it up to all of you, okay . Peter, are you all set . Can you hear us and everything . Can you hear me . Sound good. I will start by asking dan to just give us an assessment of where things stand. I think its hard to know by reading the paper. Whats causing what right now . What is the role of fires, logging, big ag, ranching, policy . What is deforestation stick with the outlook . Are we at the scary Tipping Points Jair Bolsonaro thanks, t, mark, thanks an opportunity to be here with all of you. I think were all here because of these fires and d is for station the spinning news in the amazon over the past several months deforestation, peakg in the summer in august. Its important to put a bit into the context, fires occur all the time within the region, part of land clearing. I think its really important though to know in brazil in 2019 these fires were not induced by Climate Change. They were not driven by drought. Through the end of august this year the 2019 try season, which is over now, was about 50 wetter than what weve seen in the previous few years. Yet on average we had about 50 more fires during the same time. So the fires were not driven by drought. The drought season, the number of dry days were fewer than the past. The fires, naturally first thing i want to take on from here. The second thing is these were fires that occurred deliberately for the purpose of deforestatio deforestation, for the purpose of land clearing. Most of that, and when i say most, estimates are 90 of that is illegal. Perhaps 30 of that is driven by speculators who were clearing public lands. This is a complex criminal enterprise in brazil in particular with many variations that are all aimed ultimately at selling falsely legitimated cleared lands at a huge market. About another 30 occurred on private properties. Mostly exceeding limits on deforestation that were agreed to in brazil in 2012 under a major revision of brazils poorest code. That was agreed to by all of the major agribusiness associations in brazil. Another 20 was likely small farmer clearing mostly on poorly managed reform settlements. At about 10 occurred in areas that have no designated ownership, unlike the first category, thats really all about land speculation. You can find all these data, there in technical notes prepared by a group called Amazon Institute for environmental research. Overall, these are official data that just came out this morning, year on year deforestation increased in the brazilian amazon by 30 this year over last year. So nearly 10,000 square kilometers. Thats the official data. Its the highest in the past decade. And it goes, but its important to know that doesnt cover the time were talking about which mostly emerge beginning in august because the deforestation year in brazil goes from august 1 one to july 31. Thats weve had several square kilometers cleared since then between august, september and bit into october. The third point i want to make is that this mostly illegal deforestation and the fires associated with it both began and ended with the support of executive branch of the brazilian government. Which has prioritize this current government has really prioritize the undoing of 15 years of governmental progress in deforestation control. The fires peaked in the second and third weeks of august following what were to liberally organize fire days in parts of the amazon, which are pretty much an open secret within the responsible government agencies. But what happened then was knowingly counted on a huge amount of smoke reaching so paul, and blackening the skies in the city of sao paulo for about four days. And following that later that month following what youve already got about a lot of controversy and international fronts, president bolsonaro sit in the army and declared a 60 day moratorium on fire in the region, which point fires stop being set. And the fires diminished and ultimately the dry season ended. But Government Support is responsible for both starting and ending this problem this year. So its not climate, delivered turn on and off by Government Action and inaction. Work asked for me to Say Something about this issue of Tipping Points that is, in the news quite a lot, and suffice to say its a very complex. Around the science, but the consensus as more and more data are emerging is that we are very, very close, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the basin to Tipping Points where the combination of landuse change and Climate Change will mean that forest will not go back. We are seeing the conversion of large areas and tropical forests, savannah like tropical ecosystems over the coming years. So having said that depressing statement, i will turn a bag over do. Let turn to monica. Monica, given the challenge what are the options the International Unity faces, and the brazilian government, how can this challenge be addressed . So starting with the International Community, i think theres one area where not a lot has been done, not a lot is perhaps a fairly infamous way of putting it. That has to do with payments for Environmental Services. Of course conserving the amazon come concerning the amazon in brazil, in the of the countries that the amazon spans is a service that is provided to the rest of the world. Because as a term that has come out that some people use and i particularly like, we can go into the explanation of this term from is the amazon is really a carbon bump in the sense that it retains a lot of carbon under the soil. And the moment that you start d4 sting, this carbon is released into the atmosphere in very, very large quantities. So the service that is being provided by keeping the fourth in fact, is that of keeping all of that carbon underneath the ground. And it is an issue of how to actually set up payments for this kind of Environmental Services which would be very beneficial from the point of view of incentivizing governments, particular governments that have recently taken different stances on deforestation. It provides a powerful incentive for them to change the policies back to one of preserving and conserving. This is an area where the International Community have to think more about and has to do something about. Because in essence we are talking about an entire wyoming that has this characteristic bio maintaining carbon underneath the soil and the services which are global in scale are not being paid for. So that i would say is one area that the International Community needs to think hard about. There are other things like the amazon fund, for example, which is chiefly an initiative that was spearheaded by norway and germany, but largely norway, and did serve the purpose of trying to do a few things in conservation and deforestation within the amazon, but we know the size of the amazon fund is small, you know, in relative terms. And at the moment there are issues with the amazon fund and the government of brazil. This is another area where some thought has to go into sort of what do we do with the amazon fund . Do we make it larger . To ask for more contributors from other parts of the globe . What can they effectively do . How do we set up a Good Government structure for this fun if it is to become much larger, and now do we do this in continents with the current brazilian government wants. As for the government of brazil specifically, there are lots of things that, and then reference some of them we know there was a huge period spanning from 2004 until about 2014 just before 2014 [inaudible] they fell dramatically because policies were put in place and so we knew what to do to reduce deforestation because we tried in the past and these policies worked. The monitoring, the very sophisticated satellite imagery monitoring Law Enforcement and coordination of several of our mental agencies in brazil. But also measures like, for instance, i take like this measure, the central bank of brazil in 2008 instituted a resolution that essentially created, because in the Amazon Region rural credit is essentially, actually and a lot of in the Amazon Region specifically, world credit is essentially provided by public banks. And so what the central bank did was institute a blacklist, lets say, a district within amazon or anissa pedaled his within the amazon where deforestation rates were occurring at a much higher pace and where there was evidence that farmers, local farmers were not meeting the environmental regulations and the environmental norms. This blacklist, so anybody who is put on this blacklist was essentially shut off from credit markets. They were not receiving any kind of access to credit. And according to a lot of research thats been done on this initiative alone, that measure, just that measure serve to reduce deforestation by about 20 in different parts of the amazon and in different parts of the amazon where it was applied. Those are things like this that are already worked, in essence you carrots and sticks, and you have policies and things that have worked in the past. This Bank Resolution image is still in effect. So it could be used once again. It hasnt been revoked. Its just the current government is not moving in that direction, is not using these tools that has available to it. In fact, one of the thinks it has done is dismantled to some extent the capacity of the monitoring and the Law Enforcement ability of environmental agencies. Thats where we are. Thank you, monica. Lets turn to peter. Peter, there are a lot of additional issues. I know you been focusing on them. The other amazonian countries, the role of china, the role of indigenous gamers in the amazon. How did all those players get into this storyline . Pretty directly. [laughing] i would say that part of the driver of deforestation, of course that weve talked about, is agriculture towards him whether its solely or whether it is beef. So if you trace where the fires are taking place, and what commodities are being grown and where those companies are going, you can see direct correlations. Theres an increase in delivery to europe and an increase in delivery of soy in particular to china. Beef to china to russia to egypt. So theres a direct correlation between this increase and actually the tariff war between the United States and china, which has resulted in a decrease in the importing of soy and be from the United States to those of the countries. Number one, theres a Global Economic connection. Number two, its really intriguing to me as that the amazon, which is 880 million hectors, onethird of that, or 30 of of that actually is under the guardianship of recognized indigenous protected areas. Sure the constitution of brazil is actually very clear as to the rights of Indigenous Peoples. As a little bit of an aside, president bolsonaro has stated in speeches that the institute that he admires the most in the United States has been the u. S. Calvary because of its effectiveness in eliminating indigenous native americans. So what is happening in brazil now is not only is 30 of the amazon under indigenous guardianship legally, but the government has said those areas need to be accessed. We know we cannot do it legally that we will look the other direction. And so what is happening is an assault on Indigenous Peoples rights. Whats interesting about those Indigenous Peoples is that they are very effective in securing the help of these large ecological territories that are the own. In fact, if you look at maps right now to look at an overlay of fires with indigenous territories, indigenous territories are actually the most secure of the territories actually resisting invasion of fire and agriculture. So Indigenous Peoples play a very, very Important Role in securing the help of the amazon come at a schutze its not just the amazon. Until about 35 of the entire terrestrial earth is under the garden ship of Indigenous Peoples, and those are the territories on this planet that contains about 70 of the intact ecosystem. Direct correlation with commodity price, direct correlation with Indigenous Peoples. And thats just the state of the world. So weve got some important allies in Indigenous Peoples, and we also need to be looking at those organizations that are directly involved in the financing and the trading of commodities so that we can get at the heart of how to solve some of these problems. Id like to comment for just a second something that monica talked about, which is this concept of payment for ecosystem services, and the enormous role that brazil plays in terms of carbon captured sequestration. About 5 of the the co2 that is human caused is absorbed by amazonian parks. So there is an outsized role that the amazon place. And when you look at solutions, when you to look at both whats in the selfinterest of the brazilians in terms of not allowing a Tipping Point so that that forest becomes savannah, which would be devastating to the agricultural and precipitation at agricultural productivity within brazil itself. And so that in the selfinterest of brazil to keep that forest standing. But the waters and precipitation that emerges from the amazon doesnt just a in brazil. It actually goes up to atmosphere rivers to benefit midwest United States. So there is a strong argument that this is a global good and it should be a common there should be a concerted, thought the way to balance the benefits to brazil and the benefits to the rest of the world. So i would just say that, its a complex question for sure, and its a very difficult question right now in terms of how you address the challenges in brazil. Its no less complicated than the challenges we are facing in the United States in terms of the political world. I wish there was an easy solution. There is not. Thank thank you, panelists. Really interesting. It reminds me in my time at the Nature Conservancy the way i think about this is welcome we wish that federal governments were doing more to address the climate challenge but for a variety of reasons they in many cases seem to be backing away. Ngos i think are doing everything they can. I think there are limits to how much an ngo can deal. But then i thought about the private sector and said how can we get the private sector to do more . Well, you know, during the time of success producing deforestation the private sector both international and Brazilian Companies played a very big role in helping brazil understand in their self, enlightened self interest to get this right. What can we do is that a lever that is available for us now . Can the panelists imagine somehow global multinational food companies, Commodity Traders and their brazilia