- Unlike Amazonia, where illegality is the rule, authorized deforestation is a greater concern for researchers and environmentalists in Bahia’s Cerrado.
- A new book shows how the appropriation of water by agribusiness is intensifying conflicts in western Bahia, where both deforestation and cattle farming are spreading rapidly.
- Researchers view Brazilian agribusiness operations as agrarian extraction—a model with high social and environmental impact which concentrates wealth, similar to mineral extraction.
Since 2010, loosened state legislation has contributed to the spread of authorized deforestation in western Bahia, where municipalities like São Desidério stand out among Brazil’s most aggressive deforesters.
The scenario is described in the book entitled Desmatamento e apropriação da água no Oeste da Bahia: uma política de Estado [Deforestation and Water Appropriation in Western Bahia: a State Policy]. The publication explains how between September, 2007 and June, 2021, INEMA (the Institute of the Environment and Water Resources) emitted Vegetation Removal Authorizations (ASV) excusing environmental licensing requirements for agrosilvopastoral activities and allowing for the deforestation of 992,587 hectares of land—an area 32 times the city of Salvador.
Analyses of 5,126 ASV permits and 835 Water Resource Use Permits showed that 80% of the areas approved for deforestation lie in Bahia’s Cerrado region. Water permits emitted between September, 2007 and September, 2022 allow for the daily capture of 17 billion liters of water from the Grande, Corrente and Carinhanha River basins. This volume would be enough water to supply seven times the Bahia state population and nine times São Paulo city’s population every day.
The ten municipalities where the most vegetation was removed under ASV permissions are Formosa do Rio Preto, São Desidério, Jaborandi, Correntina, Cocos, Barreiras, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Riachão das Neves, Baianópolis and Santa Rita de Cássia. The Bahian Cerrado is part of the Matopiba region, composed of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, where Brazil’s advancing agricultural frontier has been accelerating the deforestation process.
The book expands and consolidates the results of a study underway since 2019 by researchers at Bahia Federal University (UFBA) and the Mãos da Terra Institute (IMATERRA) with funding from WWF-Brasil and Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza (ISPN) [The Society, Population and Nature Institute]. It was released on September 5 at an event called “O Cerrado que queremos” [The Cerrado that we want], organized by the Forestry Code Observatory [Observatório do Código Florestal, or OCF] at Barreiras City Council Headquarters. Barreiras is known as agricultural capital of the region and one of the municipalities with the least amount of remaining native vegetation. The OCF also held a Cerrado Expedition between September 2-13.
Even with over a million entries in the CAR Rural Environmental Registry system totaling more than 37 million hectares of land and 35% of the requests to join the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA), the Forestry Code Thermometer shows extremely low conformity in Bahia to Law 12.651 (2012), which regulates the conservation of native vegetation on private property. Approximately 397,000 hectares of Reserva Legal [a vegetation preservation requirement for private properties] and 167,100 hectares of Permanent Preservation Areas or APPs need to be recuperated. This represents a land area eight times the size of the Salvador municipality.
Untangling the web woven between State and agribusiness
“Because of changes made to environmental legislation, the State is validating activities that strengthen agribusiness in Bahia,” affirms researcher Margareth Maia, director of IMATERRA and editor of the book. “This has made Bahia the national leader in environmental setbacks.”
Professor Blandina Viana from Bahia Federal University’s Institute of Biology is one author of the new book as well as another publication that analyses authorized deforestation in the Bahian Cerrado. She believes that the only people benefitting from agribusiness in these territories are the landowners, unless the activities eventually contribute to an improved HDI (Human Development Index) in the region.
In defense of building public policy for family farming that values socio-biodiversity and ancestral knowledge, Viana questions “the reasons for offering more support to the agri-export model, to the detriment of family farming”. In her opinion, given the climate crisis, Brazil’s only path forward is to shift this old paradigm.
Professor Viana also states that agribusiness is different from agriculture. She explains that production systems are complex, involving family farming, organic and agro-ecology farming, crops managed by traditional communities, permaculture, as well as crop-livestock integration and other connections. Based on the knowledge and lifestyles of innumerous social groups, this diversity guarantees agricultural production and improved quality of life for people. “We are talking about a variety of systems that oppose monoculture,” she reiterates.
Studies carried out by partner organizations have offered new perspectives on the reality in the Bahian Cerrado. “We used to think the degradation was caused by illegal deforestation,” observes the IMATERRA director. Here, water resources have been affected at increased risk to subterranean water reserves like the Urucuia aquifer. Agribusiness’ unyielding demand for water has driven conflicts with traditional communities like those seen in Correntina, highlighted on the Map of Conflicts maintained by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ). “The Cerrado is a zone of immeasurable sacrifice,” she says.
Viana believes that society’s misinterpretations also cause disregard for the value of the Cerrado’s native vegetation, mostly composed of savanna (in fact, it is the most biodiverse savanna on the planet) and other types of countryside. These ecosystems are fundamental in protecting the water resources of the biome, which is known as ‘Brazil’s water reservoir’. The region earned the moniker because it is home to the sources of rivers that feed eight of Brazil’s twelve watersheds and long stretches of aquifers including the Bambuí, the Guarani and the Urucuia.
Executive Secretary of the Forestry Code Observatory Marcelo Elvira believes these studies are important. In his opinion, the situation in the Cerrado is a risky one, “given the worsening climate crisis and its impacts on water availability, the protection of biodiversity and people’s quality of life”.
Elvira affirms that the lack of transparency on data related to regional ASVs is worrisome and a threat to management and controls. He points out that most of the information is not available on public search systems—a fact that he reiterates in the preface to the newly-released book.
According to Elvira, the Bahian West is a target for land grabbers and violence waged against traditional communities. Given the existing pressure and the Cerrado’s environmental importance, he affirms it is necessary to evaluate where the point of no return lies for this biome, just as has been debated in relation to the Amazon.
He holds that solutions for the Cerrado will only be reached through implementation of the Forestry Code and reinforcement of environmental management that considers “respect and recognition of the importance of traditional populations’ knowledge about preserving nature and the fundamental role that socio-biodiversity plays as a key element in regional sustainability”.
Banner image: Road in Barreiras, in western Bahia: on one side the Cerrado, on the other monoculture. Photo courtesy of Macaca Filmes.
This article was first published here in Portuguese on Oct. 23, 2024.
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