Lula and the Amazon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't think too much should be read into this, for such reading would be premature, and excessively optimistic, but there seems to be some encouraging news coming out of Brazil with respect to the state of the Amazonian rainforest:

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has welcomed new figures showing that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has decreased by 25%.

President Lula said this had prevented the release of millions of tonnes of CO2 gas into the atmosphere.

The government says environmental policies, including measures against illegal logging, have had an effect.

Environmentalists welcomed the figures, but said falling commodity prices and economic conditions were also a factor.

Is Lula -- who seems, and may well be, sincere -- right that "it's possible to have growth while preserving the environment," that "the challenge we have overcome is knowing how to use the jungle and how to preserve the environment while allowing people's lives to be improved"? Well, it's certainly possible to balance economic growth and environmental preservation -- anything is possible, Sir Humphrey would agree -- but it hardly seems likely, and indeed is almost certainly impossible, that that immense challenge has been overcome once and for all.

Besides, although the decrease seems, and may well be, impressive, it must be mentioned that the rainforest is still being destroyed, just not quite as rapidly as in recent years -- it's all relative, no? There has been a 25% decrease, but from what? What does such a statistic even mean? Less CO2 emission, which is good, but still a lot of CO2 emission, which is bad. The goal should not be to slow down the destruction but to put an end to the destruction and to replenish the rainforest, to build it back up again.

Is that too much to ask? Yes, perhaps so, even with Lula running the show.