Short Wave - The Hope For Slowing Amazon Deforestation

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Brazil's president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is renewing calls to protect the Amazon and rein in the deforestation. Climate scientists are encouraged but so far there aren't a lot of specifics of how this might happen. NPR's Kirk Siegler traveled to a remote Amazonian research station that is also threatened by illegal logging and talks to host Aaron Scott about his trip.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey there, shortwavers. Aaron Scott here with NPR correspondent Kirk Sigler. Hello, Kirk. Hey, Aaron. You are fresh back from an epic reporting trip. Tell us about where you've been. I was lucky enough to travel into the Brazilian Amazon as part of a UN Foundation reporting fellowship where a few of us journalists from around the world traveled into a place called Camp 41, which is a remote. research camp about 80 miles north of the Amazonian capital of Manouse, where scientists have

been studying the effects of deforestation on the rainforest since the 80s. And are we talking like a series of buildings in the forest here? Describe the camp to us. I would say maybe glamping adjacent. We had running water, if you count running water being pipes directly from the stream. but we also had great food. We had a kitchen area and cooks, and we slept in hammocks, which was an experience in and of itself. Getting up in the middle of the night, if you needed to use the toilet to make the track with your headlamp on,

have to be very, very aware of critters, hiding in your shoes that you step into to a few snake sightings out by the toilets. Fortunately, I didn't actually see any of them. And so sleeping in hammocks, glamping adjacent kitchen, but then a bunch of scientists doing research. Tell us a little bit about their actual work, and did you get to kind of trek into the forest with them? We did. So there are these series of paths that fan out into the jungle where researchers have been looking at the

effects of deforestation on habitat, what they call infragmented forest. That is, like, forests that have been cut down. Can certain bird species survive across that? Or can they move to a another part of the jungle that hasn't been deforested. But lately, much of the work that's going on there at Camp 41 is looking at the effects of deforestation on the global climate. And this is a huge topic because I mean for the longest time the Amazon has absorbed more carbon dioxide than it emits. But then there was this big study that came out last year in the journal Nature that says due to deforestation, that might have flipped. And the Amazon might actually now be emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. So,

are we at a tipping point here when it comes to the Amazon, Kirk? Well, it's so interesting that you use that phrase because that phrase comes up all the time when you're there. And there isn't really a definitive answer as to whether or not we are. One scientist may say we are, the other not. We may still have more time. But the Amazon is one of the world's last remaining megaforests. And it's the most biodiverse place still on the planet. And it does act still, despite all the deforestation,

as this big carbon sink that absorbs all the harmful CO2 gases in the atmosphere. So as we cut more of it down, that actually affects the climate elsewhere, like where you and I are talking in the Pacific Northwest, where we're seeing more wildfires. There's a real increasingly connection between the two, and that's what scientists are trying to study more about and make definitive conclusions about so they can better inform the public, of course. Today on the show, Kirk Ziegler heads to a remote research station

in the Amazon to look into the future of the forest. I'm Aaron Scott, and this is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. So, Kirk, will you set the scene for us the journey to Camp 41? What was it like? Well, we had to travel about 80 miles overland out of the capital of Manous, which is this huge city, dead center in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, but pretty quickly do the pavement roads fade away to dirt? in our case, slick mud. It took us seven hours to go about 80 miles just to get to this camp.

And in a few spots, you or I sitting in these four by fours jarring around, peering over a ledge, would think, okay, so I'm not going to get to go to Camp 41 on this trip. This is just too hazardous. But each time, our skilled Brazilian drivers, who have a lot of experience driving through hazardous conditions in the bush, would get us down. some embankment that was basically itself a mudslide. And listen, you can hear the chainsaws in the background. This is not what you might think of as, you know, saws cutting down the Amazon. These are guys just clearing the road. Let's listen to the story.

A storm brought massive wind toppling trees and huge rain all at once, which is unusual. So is what preceded it. Even this year, we're experiencing an extreme drought. And there are whole areas of the Amazon right now that are completely dry and communities that are completely isolated. This is Hita Mosquita, a Brazilian government scientist and our guide at Camp 41. She's dedicated her life's work to protecting the rainforest. The Amazon is an important carbon sink.

All this jungle soaks up those harmful CO2 gases that are making the planet warm. As more of it gets chopped down, that leads to more extreme weather elsewhere, like the fires in the American West and drought back here. In this particular area where we are, we are right now in the middle of this huge dispute if the forest is going to fall for cattle ranching or not. Because amazingly, even though we have been here for 43 years straight, people still have not gotten the message.

But scientists like Mesquita see October's presidential election in Brazil as a possible turning point. I'm very hopeful. that we're going to see change, and that this change is going to be positive for the Amazon. But at the same time, I still think that we lack a concrete plan for the Amazon. You hear this a lot. Until rich Western countries recognize that extreme poverty is not okay, the illegal logging and other development will continue no matter who's president.

People are desperate for work. This was the case until recently in an indebtable. indigenous village a day's boat ride from Manaus along the Rio Negro River, where there are signs of change. A collection of brightly painted buildings and huts sits atop a steep riverbank. Roberto Brito Mendoza says he's a fourth-generation logger, but lately realized that what's going on in these forests is a direct threat to his people's survival.

My grandparents knew basically everything about the seasons, he says. Today, we can't predict anything. Summers are 10 degrees hotter, it's smoky, droughts come every couple years instead of every 30. With the help of an NGO, Mendoza stopped logging and is transforming this village into an eco-tourism destination. The jungle surrounding it is now protected as a sustainable forest reserve, allowing for some small-scale logging and farming,

local sell artisan products. Julia Freitas, with the Foundation for Amazon's sustainability, wants to replicate this model across the Amazon. We believe that we cannot attack the deforestation problem if we don't give the people that live in the forest the possibility of living with a high quality of life. And there's hope that incoming president, Luis Inaccio Lula de Silva, will be more friendly toward indigenous rights.

He's also expected to restore funding for environmental agencies that were gutted under Bolson. A string of murders of Brazilian environmental enforcers in this jungle drew international headlines. At a reception in Manaus, I meet Carlos Travasso, who's taking over for one of the men recently killed. I've been working to protect isolated indigenous people for 14 years. It's always been risky, he says. Criminals felt emboldened under Bolsonaro, and enforcers like Travasos are still way outnumbered, but he was. won't give up. Soon, he promises, there will be an army of forest guardians fighting to save the Amazon. So, Kirk, as you share there, there's been a huge change in Brazil's government. We've gone

from outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, who was very pro-logging to now the new incoming president, Luis Inacio Lula de Silva, who has pledged a zero-tolerance policy on deforestation in the Amazon, Besides restoring funding for environmental agencies, has he laid out how he's going to go about that? I think it's still been light on specifics, and much of what you've heard so far is symbolic, but I don't want to discount that. You know, Lula showed up at COP 27 in Egypt to a standing ovation. He's pledged to create a ministry for indigenous peoples, which will be key, because a lot of people in the Amazon, as that piece pointed out, and many other stories before it. are sort of forced into having to cut down the trees due to the economic situation that they're in. But if he is going to restore funding for the environmental agencies, that will be big because they've been hobbled under Bolsonaro.

But what the real question is, is it too late? You don't just reverse certain policies or the effects of them overnight. It's going to take time. And is there enough time to do that in the Amazon with deforestation? That's what nobody knows for sure. I'm curious, what was morale like amongst the scientists at the research station? What keeps them going? I was actually surprised.

There was quite a bit of hope and also excitement and enthusiasm. We met a lot of graduate students and other younger researchers who come out to the camp who are doing their doctoral work there, most of them Brazilian. Many of them have never actually seen the Amazon until coming to Camp 41. most of Brazil's population is urban and most Brazilians do not get to visit the Amazon. So there was a sense of excitement about what's still being discovered in that jungle, but also some optimism that things may be turning around with the change in presidential administrations. But I think a lot of scientists on the front lines of climate change will probably tell you they have to remain optimistic

because they're presented with a bunch of doom and gloom data all day, every day, every month, every year. But they're really on the front lines there at Camp 41 and other research facilities in Brazil like that. And I think that there is some optimism that it is not too late that they could still, with more and more global attention coming to the poverty issue, for example, in the Brazilian Amazon, with more pressure from the international community about some of the agricultural exports out of Brazil. Some of them may be tied to deforestation. I think there's going to be more international pressure. And I think some of the scientists' optimism that we spoke to is a result of seeing that there's more international awareness and attention to this increasingly

global problem. Well, thank you so much, Kirk, for sharing this with us. For sure. Glad to be here. This episode was produced by Thomas Liu and edited by our senior supervising editor, Jaisal Grayson. Our fact checker was Ubi Levine. Brennan Crump is our podcast coordinator. Beth Donovan is our Senior Director of Programming, and Anya Grumman is our Senior Vice President of Programming. I'm Aaron Scott. Thanks, as always, for listening to Shortwave from NPR.