The challenge of putting Brazil’s forests in good hands

Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do we feed the world and still address the drivers of deforestation?

People often associate Brazil with its forests. It’s no wonder given that nearly 60% of the country’s territory is covered by forest and it holds about one-third of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests. You might assume that a country like this would care about educating people to sustainably manage this precious heritage. Well, you’d be wrong!



It is important to recall that Brazil has overcome decades of military intervention that framed the Amazon colonization in sovereignty terms, preaching the occupation of the forest under the slogan “to integrate not to give away”. The result was the destruction of about 18% of the Brazilian Amazon. Most of the clearing was done for grazing cattle, cropland and commercial logging. During this same period, the education system promoted a divorce between young people’s intellects and their environment, as though where one lives has no impact on his or her development. The much sought after urban life, modeled closely on cities of the Northern Hemisphere, did little to foster the art of living well in one’s surroundings.

The current shortage of qualified forest management professionals in this immense country, especially in the Amazon, is just one of numerous consequences of these policies that can still be seen today. The International Labour Organization, in its 2008 report, Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World, noted that fewer than 140,000 – or just over 1% – of the 12.9 million workers employed in the forestry sector worldwide are in Brazil. Other studies, such as the one by the Instituto Floresta Tropical, one of the most recognized forest management training centers in Brazil, reported a lack of workers to effectively manage timber production in the Amazon. Currently, the country needs some 10,000 such workers, but that number could triple within a few years if the amount of training programs in this area does not increase.



At first glance, these statistics may be disheartening, but they actually represent an opportunity. One positive upshot is the rise of a forest education movement, which has the potential to bring the culture, diversity and wisdom of the Amazon communities back into the school curriculum. Cross-sector partnerships led by civil society organizations such as the Roberto Marinho Foundation, the social arm of the Globo media conglomerate, in partnership with Fundo Vale and the Brazilian Forest Service, support this mission. One outcome of these collaborations is ‘Forestability’ (Florestabilidade in Portuguese), an environmental education program that aims to enable young students to envision the potential of forestry careers and care, and focuses on finding solutions to reverse the loss of tropical forests and their ecological systems.

Andrea Margit Environment Unit Head, Roberto Marinho Foundation Andrea Margit is the Environment Unit Head at Roberto Marinho Foundation where she leads a portfolio of educational projects, including the Forest Management Education; the Watershed Management Initiative; and the Young Scientists Award. Contributed to the development of the curatorial project of the Museum of Tomorrow and co-organized the ‘Social Entrepreneurship Forum in the New Economy’ that took place during Rio+20, in partnership with Ashoka, Avina and the Skoll Foundation. She has worked in environment since 2002 in the fields of learning and communication. She worked in knowledge management at Conservation International in Virginia, U.S. from 2005 to 2008. She has also led the communication strategy of CI Brazil for over 3 years.

In cooperation with the Secretaries of Education and the Environment, Florestabilidade has been reaching, since the start of this year, thousands of students and communities in the Amazon. Teachers and rural extension personnel are the program’s greatest allies. They receive training on how to include forestry content in the curriculum or when they provide technical assistance to local producers.



The experience of the teachers and technicians speaks to the extent of the challenges involved in training young people to manage Brazil’s forests. There are many accounts, for example, of students who are embarrassed to admit to their classmates that their father is a logger because several campaigns against deforestation have made the job synonymous with illegality and the destruction of nature. We need to readjust our focus and help consumers distinguish between logging that destroys and there must be stopped, and sustainable logging practices, which should be promoted.



Then there is the challenge of helping educators approach the subject of forestry without fear or prejudice. With globalization and urbanization (over 80% of Brazilians live in cities, with an even higher proportion in some Amazon states), we are becoming a population “devoid of place”, as the American professor of Politics and Environmental Studies, David W. Orr, puts it. The environment around us has ceased to be recognized as a source of food, water, energy and inspiration. All these items come to us, miraculously, packaged for consumption. Their relation to the forest is remote or non-existent.



Of course nowadays young people must be ready for life in a global world that values communication and negotiation, and is respectful of choices and diversity. But the education process cannot be disconnected from local culture and responsibilities. Brazil needs to educate young people to manage one of their most valuable assets, the Amazon Forest. Results from socio-environmental programs like Florestabilidade may be seen over the long-term – 10-15 years – but they are crucial to the future of tropical forests. We must face these challenges if we want to put Brazil’s forests in good hands.

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Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this op-ed do not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.com or its staff. Mongabay founder, president, and editor Rhett A. Butler served as an advisor to the Skoll Foundation from 2010-2012.

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