[2008.06.07] Welcome to our shrinking jungle 欢迎来到我们不断缩小的丛林

Brazil and the Amazon
巴西与亚马逊流域
Welcome to our shrinking jungle
欢迎来到我们不断缩小的丛林

Jun 5th 2008 | BRASÍLIA
From The Economist print edition

A political storm over environmental policy has coincided with a rise in deforestation
一场关于环境政策的政治风暴与森林砍伐的加剧同时到来

FROM the Amazon last month, Brazil’s Indian agency released aerial pictures of painted men with bows and arrows who have had little or no contact with modern civilisation. To judge from their hostile stance, they want to keep things that way. But the Amazon is the responsibility of Carlos Minc, Brazil’s hyperactive new environment minister. In his first few days on the job he flew to Germany to talk about the Amazon, from there to the northern city of Belém to meet the governors of the states that contain the forest, and then on to Brasília where on June 3rd he explained to a crowd of journalists why the rate of deforestation is increasing again. “I haven’t changed my shirt in three days,” he complained.
上个月巴西的印第安基金会发布了一些从空中拍摄的亚马逊流域照片：涂满色彩的男人拿着弓和箭，他们与现代文明很少或根 本没有联系。从他们充满敌意的姿态来看，他们想让世界保持原样。但是亚马逊河是巴西极度活跃的新环境部长Carlos Minc的职责范围。上任的最初几天他就飞到德国去讨论亚马逊流域问题，从那儿又跑到北方城市Belém去会见这片森林所在的州的州长们，然后又回到 Brasília，6月3日他在那里向一群记者解释为什么森林砍伐速度又升了上来。“我的衬衣已经三天没换了。”他抱怨说。

Since taking office in 2003, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has balanced the wishes of those who would like the Amazon to be a giant park and Indian reserve against those who want to turn it into a giant farm. He appointed an icon of the conservationists, Marina Silva, as his first environment minister. He has sometimes been willing to enforce the law against loggers: in February he sent troops to Tailândia, a town in Pará state where illegal logging is the main industry, after inspectors from the environment ministry were thrown out by sawmill workers.
2003 年上任以来，总统Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva就权衡了那些希望亚马逊流域成为一个巨大公园及印第安人保留地的人们和那些希望将它变成一个巨大的农场的人们的愿望。他任命了一位环境保护主义 者的偶像人物，Marina Silva，作为其首任环境部长。有些时候他也愿意加强针对伐木工人的执法：2月份他派部队到Tailândia，Pará州的一个小镇，那儿非法伐木是 其主要工业，之前来自环境部的调查人员被锯木厂的工人们扔了出来。

But Lula has also encouraged infrastructure projects in the Amazon that trouble conservationists, including two new hydroelectric dams. Instead of giving the job to Ms Silva, he asked Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard philosopher turned minister, to produce a development plan for the Amazon. And he is touchy when he feels Brazil is being lectured by foreigners: Europeans, Lula said recently, should take a look at a map of their own continent and see how much forest is left before telling Brazil what it should do with the Amazon.
但是Lula也鼓励在亚马逊流域搞基础设施项目，包括两个新的电力水坝，这会使环境保护主义者感到不安。他不是 将这个工作交给Silva女士，而是要Roberto Mangabeira Unger，哈佛大学的哲学家，后来成为一名部长，去制定一份亚马逊流域发展计划。当他感到巴西被外国人指指点点的时候他有点恼火：Lula最近说，欧洲 人，在告诉巴西该如何对待亚马逊流域时，应该在地图上先看一看他们自己的大陆，究竟还有多少森林被留了下来。

All this was too much for Ms Silva. She grew up in the forest, learned to read only when a teenager, worked with Chico Mendes, an activist who was killed by ranchers in 1988, and later became a senator. She tired of lending her credibility to the government only to lose battles with other ministries. She resigned last month. Her replacement, Mr Minc, says that he accepted the job on a number of conditions (ten in all), which amount to a refusal to be pushed around. “I am not a masochist,” he says, before admitting that it remains to be seen if the deal he thinks he got will hold.
所有这些Silva女士都受够了。她在森林里长大，十几岁才学会阅读，与Chico Mendes（一位积极分子，1988年被农场主们杀害）一起工作，后来成为一名参议员。她厌倦了用自己的信誉来为政府增色，所获得的却是在与其它部门的 战斗中败下阵来。上个月她辞职了。他的替代者，Minc先生，说有条件地接受这份工作（条件共有十个），这等于说拒绝被人摆布。“我不是受虐狂。”他说。 之后他也承认，他自认为得到的承诺能否被兑现还有待时间来验证。

It needs to if Brazil is to halt a recent rise in deforestation. On June 2nd the National Institute for Space Research, which monitors deforestation (see article), announced that the forest retreated substantially in April compared with the month before. The change may be explained in part by the fact that April was less cloudy than March, so a greater area was visible to satellites. But the trend is clear. The environment ministry began to get alarmed in January: in the previous two, usually wet, months nearly 2,000 square kms (770 square miles) of forest were cut down. There may be worse to come, as the next four months—the dry season—are normally peak ones for deforestation.
如果巴西准备阻止最近森林砍伐的加速，的确有必要如此。6月2日国家空间研究所 （National Institute for Space Research），是它在监控森林砍伐，宣布这片森林4月份与一个月前相比大大地萎缩了。这种改变的部分原因可能是由于4月份的云层较3月份少，因此卫 星能看到更多的地区。但是这一趋势很明显。环境部1月份就开始警觉：在过去通常多雨的两个月里将近2000平方公里（770平方英里）的森林被砍倒。这种 情况会更加恶化，因为接下来的几个月——干燥季节——通常是森林砍伐的高峰时段。

This increase has several causes, and picking out one or two tends to distort the picture. However it does seem that there is a link between high commodity prices and deforestation, with a lag of about a year (see chart). Brazil became the world’s largest exporter of beef in 2004. Meat from the Amazon is eaten in Brazil but not exported because the cattle there have not been declared free of foot-and-mouth disease. So the link between a hamburger eaten in Paris and a tree felled in Brazil is indirect.
这种增长有几个原因，只挑出其中一两个原因来讨论很可能会歪曲事实真相。然而看起来在高的商品价格和 森林砍伐之间的确存在着关联，（这种关联）大概有1年的时间差（见图表）。巴西在2004年成为世界上最大的牛肉出口国。来自亚马逊地区的肉类被巴西国内 消费，但并不出口，因为那里的牛还没被宣布清除了口蹄疫。因此一个在巴黎吃下的汉堡与一颗在巴西倒下的树之间并没有直接联系。

As for soya, the relationship is even more indirect. The vast majority of the crop is grown nowhere near the Amazon. But its expansion has pushed cattle ranches further into the jungle, and started itself to encroach on the forest. Big trading houses have imposed a ban on buying soya from recently deforested parts of the Amazon. It is too soon to judge the effects of this. Even so, Mr Minc has already picked a fight with Blairo Maggi, the governor of Mato Grosso and one of the world’s largest soya farmers. Mr Maggi in turn has cast doubt on the reliability of the numbers on deforestation.
至于大豆，这种关系就更不直接了。这种农作物绝大多 数生长在亚马逊流域，别的地儿没有。但是它的扩张使养牛的农场向丛林中推进，而且其本身也开始侵蚀这片森林。大交易所已经禁止从最近被砍伐的亚马逊流域购 买大豆。现在就判断这条禁令的效果还为时过早。尽管如此，Minc先生已经挑起了与Blairo Maggi（马托格罗索州州长及世界上最大的大豆农场主）的一场战斗。Maggi先生反过来质疑关于森林砍伐的数字的可信度。

Yet high commodity prices are only part of the story. Illegal deforestation happens when ranchers and loggers conspire to clear swathes of land. A rancher typically claims a part of forest and then sells the timber rights to a logger. This helps to finance the next stage of the rancher’s operation. The logger then takes what he wants and afterwards clears the area. The rancher tidies it up with the help of a bulldozer, burns what is left, sows grass and raises cattle. When the land is exhausted, as it quickly is, the ranchers move on.
然而高高的商品价格只是故事的一部分。 当农场主和伐木工人串谋清理一长片一长片土地时，非法砍伐就发生了。农场主通常是声称某片森林是自己的，然后就把其上的森林采伐权卖给一个伐木工人。这样 做是为了下一步的农场运作筹集资金。这个伐木工人便将他所需要的东西都拿走，然后清理这一区域。农场主用一台推土机将地整平，把留下的东西都烧光，播下草 种然后养牛。当这块地耗尽地力——通常很快就耗尽了——农场主们向前继续推进。

That is the most common way to stake a claim to ownership of land in the Amazon. Of the 36% of the forest that is supposedly privately owned, only 4% is covered by a solid title deed, according to Imazon, an NGO. Since the government does not know who owns what, enforcing any rules is impossible.
在亚马逊流域，打桩立界来表明自己对土地拥有所有权是最普通的做法。根据Imazon，一个非官方组织的说法，有36％的森林据称为私人所有，而这部分森林中又仅有4％拥有可靠的所有权证书。既然政府不知道是哪些人拥有了哪些东西，进行任何管理都是不可能的。

As of July, says the new minister, ranchers and other farmers who fail to present any kind of documents backing up their claims to ownership of land will have lines of subsidised credit suspended. If they have not co-operated after four years, their land will be confiscated. But in practice it is close to impossible for the government to impose its will on the edges of its empire, even if it wanted to. Members of that newly photographed tribe are not the only people who do not recognise Brazil’s sovereignty in the Amazon.
新部长说，到了7月份，农场主和其它农民不能提供任何文件证明其对土地 的所有权的将被终止补贴信贷最高额度。如果四年之后他们还不合作，其土地将被没收。但实际上要政府将意志强加到该帝国的边缘——就算它想——这也几乎不可 能。那个刚被拍摄下来的部落的成员不是亚马逊流域唯一不认可巴西主权的人。

译者：7colorwolf    http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12048&extra=page%3D1