My left is monaca. Shes a senior fellow at the seams and incentive for your international economics. And monicas left is danielle zarin director programs of the climate and land, use alliance. And then, on the screen is my good friend peter. The cofounder and ceo of the otero, the new mto focus on a lot of the issues that will be discussing today. Peter is also well known as the founder and longtime ceo of Conservation International where he continues to be chairman. Our topic today is Global Impact of the amazon rain forest weve been reading about in the news. And of course this raises so many issues. First of all, what is really happening. It is hard to tell on the basis of news. How much is due to ill legal log games or industrial egg, or bent government policy or is it Climate Change itself. Is it impacting of course. Also the question arises of what happens until recently, the great was one of the concert conservation Success Stories through a great effort, and the brazilian government and local government, brazilian growers and ranchers and international companies, international ngos, one of the great Success Stories of conservation use to boast about whispering the d4 station way down and hands on. But that has changed. What happened. Another question on my mind and important to discuss at the council on Foreign Relations is what in the International Community do. Who really owns the amazon. Obviously most of it, within brazil but not all of it. But its impact on the rest of the world and especially of the climate challenges are huge. Where are we in terms of the tipping. We know as Climate Change progresses or worsens, it can accelerate data are bad at kim. And then there are a whole host of other issues. What about the other amazon countries. What about the brawl of Indigenous People and impacted on the Indigenous People or biodiversity biodiversity is the bridge going to try to touch on all of thosein issues. To get to ask questions for your about 30 minutes and then well open it up to all of you. And tina, are you all set. Can you hear is everything. Bangmacse can you hear me. Yes mz. Well then letssu start. Ill start by asking then, to just give us an assessment of where things stay on. I say it is hard to know by reading the papers. What is causing what right now and what is the brawl of fires and logging, they gag, big ranching, pup government policy, where does deforestation stay on. I want to see hello. Are we near the scary tipping points. What is going on. Peter thank you for the opportunity to be here with all of you. I say were all here because of these fires and deforestation is the spin in the news in the amazon. This is been over the past several months and peeking in the summer of august. I say its important to put this to the contacts. Fires occur all of thein time. Within the region and hardly inquiring. I say it is really important to note that in brazil in 2019, these fires were not induced by Climate Change. They were not driven by drought. And through the end of august, the 2019 dry season which is over now, was about 50 percent wetter than what we had seen in the previous few years. And yet on average, we had about 50 percent more fires. During that same period so the fires were not driven by drought. The drought season and the number of fridays, were fewer than in the past. The fires, that is really the first thing that i want take on from here. The second thing is that these were fires that were or occurred deliberately for the purpose of d4 station for the purpose of land clearing. And most of that, and when i say most, the estimates are 90 percent of that. It is illegal. Perhaps 30 percent of that is driven by speculators who are clearing public lots. This is the complex criminal enterprise in brazil in particular with many variations that are all aimed ultimately at la falsely legitimated cleared land and a huge markup. About another 30 percent occurred on private property. And mostly exceeding limits on deforestation that were agreed to in brazil in 2012 on a major revision of brazils forest code. It was agreed to by all of the major graph Business Associations in brazil. Another 20 percent, was likely small farmer clearing mostly on poorly managed reform settlements. In about 10 percent that occurred in areas that have no designated ownership. In like the first category, that is all land speculation. And if you find all of these databases, there into technical notes prepared by an amazonian institute for your environmental research. Overall, and this data official data that just came out this morning to make your own year, deforestation increases in the brazilian amazon by 30 percent. This year over last year. To nearly 10000 square kilometers, is the official data, the highest in the past decade. And its important to know that doesnt actually even cover the period where we are talking about which is mostly emerged, beginning in august because the d4 station year goes august one two july 31. And we certainly add several thousand square kilometers. Since then, between august and september and a bit into october. The point i want to make is that this mostly d4 station and the fires associated with it, both began and ended with the support of the executive branch of the brazilian government. It is prioritize, this current government has really prioritize the undoing of 15 years governmental progress in deforestation control. Fires peaked in the second and third weeks of august following what we are deliberately organized fired days. In parts of the amazon which were pretty much an open secret arth the responsible Government Agencies but what happened that was that no one truly counted on smokeure amount of reaching some follow. An blackening disguise and some follow for your about four days. And following that later that month, following what youve all read about in a lot of controversy in the international front, president said in theti army and declared a 60 day moratorium five fires in the region. Which. Fires stop being set. G d diminished and ultimately the dry season and the Government Support is responsible for your both starting and ending this problem is you. So as not deliberate turned on and off by government actions. Mark asked a little bit for your me to see something about this issue of tipping. That is him up in his. Its precise to see this very complex area run science but the consensus as more and more data is emerging is that we are very close particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the base into tipping. Where the combination of Land Use Change and Climate Change warming up forest wrote back. You can see the conversion of large areas, to savannah like trump call ecosystems. Ac over the coming years. Having said that, turn it back to you. Monaca, given this challenge, one of the options in the International Community facing the brazilian government. How can this challenge be addressed. So starting with International Community so i say there is one area where not a lot has been done and not a lot perhaps is barely reporting it. That is to do with payments for your environmental purposes. The question of conserving the amazon concerning the amazon in brazil, when the other countries that the amazon spans, is the service that is provided to the rest of the world because is the term that has come out that some people and i particularly like it. We go into the explanation but amazon is actually carbon mom in that it retains a lot of carbon on the soil. In the moment that you start divorcing, this carbon is released into the atmosphere in very large quantities. So the service that is being provided by keeping the forest intact, as im all of the carbon underneath the ground. There is an issue patio actually set up payment for your these kind of Environmental Services which could be very beneficial from the point of incentivizing government in particular governments that have now recently taken a different stance on deforestation and conservation of the amazon, and provides a powerful incentive for them to change the policy back to one of preserving and conserving. I say this is an area where the International Community has to say more about has to do something about because in essence we are talking about an empowered isle, that has his characteristic maintaining carbon underneath the soil and those services which are global in scale and theyre not being paid for your. So that i would see is one area that the International Community needs to say hard about. Her other things like the amazon fun for your example which is chiefly an initiative spearheaded by norway. In germany but largely norway which is served the purpose of trying to do a few things and conservation in deforestation within the amazon but we know that the size of the amazon fun small. In relative terms. And at the moment, their issues with amazon fund and the government at present. So this is another area course about has to go into sort of what do we do with the amazon fun. Do we make it larger. Do we ask for your more contributors. Her mother parts of the globe. Can they effectively do and how we set about Good Governance structure for your this fund if it is to become much larger and how do we do this in confidence with what the brazilian government currently wants. So thats another area and need to be but much more about a lot of reflection has to go into a nest for the government of brazil, there are lots of things and then reference some of them, it was is huge. Spanning from 20 oh four, until about 2014 or just before 2014. They felt dramatically because of the specific policy that was put in place and because we have tried in the past, and when the policy work. They involved a number of things, not just the monitoring in the big very sophisticated satellite imagery monitoring , Law Enforcement and coordination of the several environmentally things in brazil but also measures things like princess annette economy and particularly like this measure. The central bank of brazil, in 20 oh eight, instituted a raresolution that essentially created because of the Amazon Region, rural credit, actually in the Amazon Region specifically, raw credit is essentially provided by public banks. As of the central bank did, was institute and blacklist, the district within the amazon. Reduce our station occurring at a much higher pace, and when there was evidence that farmers, local farmers were not meeting the environmental regulations and the environmental north. In this blacklist, so anybody who is buying this blacklist, was essentially shut off from credit markets. There were not receiving any kind of access to credit. According to a lot of research that has been done on this initiative alone, that measure, just a measure serve to reduce deforestation by 20 percent in different parts of the amazon and inas the different parts of the amazon work was applied. So things of a this that have already worked. In essence youve got carrots and steaks and policies and things that have worked in the past, and the Central Bank Resolution that i mentioned, is still in effect. So it could be used and once again it has not been revoked. Its just that the current government has brought moving in that direction. Its not using, these tools but has available to it in fact, one of the things that he has done is dismantled to some extent, the capacity of the monitoring of the Law Enforcement abilities of the advert environmental inmate agencies. That is where we are. Thank you monaca, lets turn to peter. Peter, there are a lot of it other things to consider. The other amazonian, and the brawl of china, the brawl of indigenous communities in the amazon how do all of those players fit into this. Pretty directly. [laughter] i would see the part of the driver of deforestation, as we have talked about it, cultural commodities whether it is soy or beef. And so if you trace where the fires are taking place, and what commodities are being grown and where those commodities are diing, its in direct correlation. So there they is the increase in delivery of soy in particular to china. Beef to china, to russia to inegypt, so there is a direct correlation between this increase in actually, the war between the United States and china. The tariff award. Its an increase to the importing of soy and beef to those other countries. There is a Global Economic connection. Number two, its really intriguing to me is that the amazon which is 880 million hectares, one third of that, 30 percent of the 0ctually is one of thehe guardianship of recognized indigenous protected areas. So the constitution of brazil, is actually very clear as to the rights of the Indigenous Peoples. In a little bit of a site, president has actuallyy stated n speeches so that the institute that he admires the most, and the United States is been the u. S. Calvary because of its effectiveness in eliminating indigenous native americans. So what is happening in brazil now, has brought only 30 percent of the amazon on indigenous guardianship. But the government has said, those forced areas need to be access. We cant do it legally but we will look the other direction. So what is happening now is an assault on Indigenous Peoples rights and whats interesting about them as they are very effective in securing the health of these large territories that are their own. In fact if you look at maps right now the listed 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 People play a very important brawl in securing the health of the amazon i should see about 35 percent of the entire terrestrial earth, is on the guardianship of Indigenous Peoples. And those of the territories on this planet that contain about 70 percent of the intact of ecosystems. Direct correlation, with Indigenous Peoples. That is just the state of the world. So we got some important allies and Indigenous Peoples, and we also need to be looking at those organizations that are directly involved in the financing in the trading of commodities so that we can continue actually get at the heart and solve some of these problems. I would like to, just for your a second on something that monica talked about. It is this concept of payment for your Ecosystem Services. An enormous brawl that brazil lays in terms of Carbon Capture and sequence. About 5 percent of the cmc that is human because is actually absorbed by amazonian parks. So there is an outsize brawl that the amazon place. And when we look at solutions, we need to look about what is in the resilience, in terms of not allowing a tipping. So that part become savannah, it would be devastating participation. Within brazil itself and so that is in the selfinterest to keep that part standing. When it emerges from the amazon, the waters and such and actually goes up into the carbon atmosphere rivers to benefit midwest in the United States. So there is a strong argument that this is the global good and there should be a common or a concerted thoughtful way to balance the benefits to brazil. And if its the rest of the world so i would just see this complex question for your sure. Its a very political question right now how you address the challenges in brazil and it is 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. And there has brought. We wish federal governments were doing more to address the climate challenge but for your a variety of reasons. In many cases do seem to be backing away. I say theyre doing everything they can there are to how much ngo can do but i say that the private sector to do more. So we know, during the periods of success in this deforestation, both international and Brazilian Companies play a very big brawl in helping brazil understand that it was in their self, their own selfinterest to get this right. And what can we do, is that the leper that is available for your us now. In the panelists, can they imagine the global multinational news Food Companies and Commodity Traders in the brazilian counterparts can take stronger action and boycotts these things. Rycause you would say that that would get the attention of the government as per the care about the economy in general and agribusiness. Is there a potential or what you guys say. I am happy to kickoff that part of the discussion. As peanut monica mentioned, there is clear evidence that there is self interest if we are looking at a loophole of a kind of a National Self interest public selfinterest. This this period of decline in the four sensation in the decade probably from 2004 2014 in brazil was accompanied by actual increases in revenue and poproduction from agriculture fm the very same places where deforestation was going down. That is because it has occurred in the u. S. , hundred 50 years ago, because this agricultural frontier innovation increases intensification increases, and production, they increase on those conditions. With that requires though, as it requires investment, and it requires factors that are functioningic within the boundsf the legal system. The legal system that is imposed in a democratic society. And what we have