'End of any and all deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 is probably out of reach'
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Transcript
00:00 Brazil has failed to rally other Amazon rainforest countries behind its pledge to end deforestation
00:05 by 2030. A major South American summit on Tuesday produced a 10,000-word roadmap on
00:12 sustainable development and the launch of an alliance to fight deforestation, but no
00:17 common policy on when to end the destruction of the world's biggest rainforest.
00:21 For more, I'm joined by François-Michel Le Tourneau, Brazil expert and senior research
00:27 fellow at the CNRS Institute in Paris. Thanks so much for being with us, François-Michel.
00:32 So we've seen few concrete objectives really here. Should we be taking this alliance that
00:38 they've launched seriously?
00:40 Well, the alliance was already existent because there is an organisation of the Amazonian
00:47 Cooperation Treaty and it's more the reaffirmation of Brazil as back on the international scene
00:55 that was the matter of this summit more than a concrete objective on deforestation, I think.
01:04 So you say this is a return to Brazil being on the international scene. We've seen Lula
01:09 posit himself as an environmental leader, but with his sort of reluctant stance on oil,
01:17 shall we say, and the fact that states-run Petrobras still wants to explore for oil at
01:21 the mouth of the Amazon River. How can he possibly square this with this push to end
01:26 deforestation in the Amazon?
01:28 Yes, that's the whole point. The position of Lula is very ambiguous because on the one
01:34 hand he wants to appear as an ecological leader on the question of deforestation, but on the
01:40 other hand, he wants Brazil to continue to be a very powerful farmhouse in the world
01:47 and to develop its agriculture and also to exploit some natural resources like petroleum
01:52 in the Amazon. So, yes, it's a bit ambiguous. The move from Brazil was to focus on deforestation,
02:00 to try to put forward a very consensual objective, but they quite failed. Even if they have a
02:07 general agreement on the fact that deforestation should be stopped at one point, the problem
02:13 is that not all countries agree on what concrete measures should be taken to lead to that goal.
02:19 And it's not just this conflict within Lula himself, as you put it, on oil, but also if
02:25 you look at the Colombian president, well, he's calling for an end to the use of fossil
02:28 fuels at all. So that's clearly a major conflict between these countries as well as they negotiate.
02:33 Are there other differences as well with their approach to the Amazon between these countries?
02:38 Yes, there are several policies and several approaches. The general point is that every
02:46 Amazonian country is very reluctant to tie its hands about what it could be or not should be
02:53 doing in its Amazon part. And that's the main point. Bolivia wants to be able to continue to
02:59 export agricultural commodities, and for that they need to deforest. Brazil is also reluctant
03:06 because they want to end deforestation, which is illegal deforestation in general. So I'm not
03:10 speaking about legal deforestation, but they want to be able to continue to build infrastructures,
03:15 etc. So the problem is that every country has a particular and specific Amazonian strategy,
03:21 and they don't want to tie their hands and not be able to apply it.
03:25 And is an end to Amazon-wide deforestation by 2030 still an achievable objective,
03:33 or is that dream kind of over? I think it's difficult. What we could see
03:39 would be the end of illegal deforestation in Brazil, which would be a major step. But the
03:45 end of any and all deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 is probably out of reach.
03:52 And finally, France, of course, possesses some of the Amazon rainforest in French Guiana. What's
03:57 France's stance on all of this? Well, France says that its part of the Amazon is very well
04:04 preserved, which is rather true. But we are also facing some problems, for instance, the invasion
04:10 by illegal gold miners coming from Brazil. And so we have the stance of France is that we are,
04:16 in a way, a model to be followed. But at the same time, we are not recognized really as an
04:21 Amazonian country, which is a problem for French diplomacy.
04:25 François, Michel, Le Torneau, thank you very much for joining us.
04:28 Thank you.