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Sept. 3, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
24:36
THE AMAZON IS NOT BURNING! Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Interviewed by Stefan Molyneux
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Hi, everybody. Stefan Molyneux.
I'm here with Ricardo Sales.
Now, Minister of the Environment in Brazil has been pretty much the most exciting job over the last week, I would say, on the planet.
And I'm very, very pleased that he's had the chance to be able to speak with us.
Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Thank you. Thank you very much for the invitation.
It's a pleasure. I guess my first question is a question that the rest of the world has.
Why are you killing the planet voluntarily for no good reason whatsoever?
No, I'm just kidding, of course. You know the story that's been out there that for some reason Brazil has just decided to destroy the complete Amazon from end to end and that's, I guess, what your government stands accused of.
And how's that been for you and what is your response?
No, first of all, it's not true.
Amazon forest is 84%, 84% preserved, which means that for 500 years that Brazil has been discovered by the Portuguese, Thank you.
Thank you. For the past 500 years, 84% preserved.
Okay, now I'm sorry to interrupt you, but just because that's so shocking to people, that I really, really want people to understand that.
So 500 years since Europeans first came, of course, to the Amazon, and was it 16% only has ever been used for human use?
Exactly. We still have 84% of the forest entirely preserved.
Okay. After 500 years.
Well, and of course, it's not like Brazil doesn't care about the rainforest.
I mean, it is a human treasure, a national treasure, an international treasure, and a huge tourist attraction, of course.
And you take it very seriously, the responsibility for the portion of the Amazon that you guys have control over.
Exactly. We do have the absolutely, we are completely conscious about the fact that Amazon, our part of the forest, the Amazon forest, It belongs to Brazil.
It's our responsibility to care about the forest.
And we're continuing to have the huge effort about taking care of the forest.
What we have noticed is that for the past 20 years, previous governments simply disregard the fact that we have more than 20 million people living inside the Amazon region.
And these people were simply and completely disregarded.
They have not been supported by public policies.
They have the richest part in terms of natural resources in the country, but on the other hand, it's the worst human level of development in the entire country.
So it's a contradiction that we have.
The richest part of the country in terms of natural resources Leave the poorest part of the people and of the entire 200 million Brazilians.
Right. Okay, so imagine this.
Imagine that I'm some evil, mustachio-twirling capitalist and I say, I want to buy up half the Amazon or a quarter or a third or 10% or 5%.
I'm going to buy a big portion of the Amazon and I just want to pillage it.
I just want to strip mine it.
I want to cart off all of the trees.
What kind of barriers am I going to face in Brazil for trying to do such a thing?
First of all, it's completely illegal due to the many different pieces of legislation, but especially to the one which is called the Brazilian Forest Code.
It's the most restricted piece of legislation in the entire world.
No country has the slightest piece of legislation as we have, especially on the Amazon.
80%, 80, 8-0, 8% of all of the properties in Amazon cannot be touched.
It's being called the legal reserve due to the Forest National Code.
So it's the very restricted legislation.
However, it's a 5 million square kilometers area, the entire area.
So it's very hard to monitor, to make the enforcement of the law.
We do have a strong infrastructure, very expensive infrastructure, and we do enforce the law strongly.
But we are surrounded by different countries who have We're good to go.
But we are facing the fact that it's a huge territory.
It's very complicated to make the monitoring and the enforcement of the law, and we do need to have some of our financial support from outside.
That exactly was the promise to developing countries, as we mentioned.
During the Paris Agreement, for instance, was promised more than $100 billion for the developed countries.
Nothing has come so far.
Now, of course, yeah, because people, I think, they think of the Amazon as Brazilian, but you guys just have a portion of it.
And of course, there are other countries around, as you point out, with their own political difficulties that are also responsible.
But the focus seems to be particularly on the Amazon.
In Brazil, and of course, you've seen the numbers and they were sort of burned into your brain, I'm sure by the mainstream media as a whole, that 80% increase in the destruction, the burning and so on.
I wonder if you can explain to people how these numbers came about and how they match up to historical trends.
Okay. Concerning the fires, this is the fire season.
So every year, every year, this part of the country and the other, the neighbors as well, Bolivia For instance, it's burning.
The fire is much bigger than in Brazil, where nobody makes any comments about it.
But the fact is that during this period of the year, every season, we have the fire problems, especially on years that the weather is hotter and it's drier, exactly as we are facing now 2019.
Last year, 2018 or 2017, both of the years, were very humid, with a lot of rain, So that's the reason why the percentage between last year and this one has changed so high, so dramatically changed, because the base that the number was calculated last year,
2018, was really low due to the fact that we had the humid, rain, and the different type of, quite completely different that we are facing now in the Amazon region.
Right. And I think people have this idea that government officials or sort of private capitalists are out there among the macaws and the rainforest and the parrots with flamethrowers just setting fire to everything.
But as far as I understand it, correct me where I go astray, but it is mostly being done on land that has already been claimed for cattle grazing and farmland.
Exactly. These areas that we are facing problems in both the florestation and also with the fires origins are areas that we need to have legal standards, as we call the regulation of the properties and all of the documentation.
Once you don't have the stability of an appropriate legal base, you do have a more broad Field for illegal activities.
So it's something that's very, it's almost obvious that we need to find out a way to solve the problems of legal registration and of those areas.
If we don't do that, as the socialist governments didn't do for the past 20 years, they simply disregard those issues like the legal standards and the private property rights and things like that.
It was an invitation for the illegal activities.
That's why they are increasing for the past seven years.
So we need to face the problem in a historical scenario.
It's not a 2019 problem, but it's a problem that's been increasing since 2012.
So the reasons why we are facing these problems are basically connected to the fact that we don't have private property rights, we don't have an appropriate legal basis for the area, We don't have a development and a plan, an appropriate development plan, which would be a sustainable development, respecting the fact that the forest must be kept, but in the same time, people need to have an economic activity in order to provide their own means.
Right. Well, those are big challenges.
Now, one of the things that I heard just kind of in passing, and hopefully you can help bring it to people's attention.
So one of the things that Bolsonaro was talking about was that he had some concerns that some of the fires may be set deliberately.
They may be set not for the purpose of clearing land for cattle grazing or other agricultural purposes, but as an act of sabotage, even perhaps against government or against budget cuts.
Have you heard anything about that stuff?
Yeah, we heard about that, and that's the reason why the president mentioned this possibility, and specifically due to this possibility, he has determined to the federal police to begin a criminal procedure to investigate who are those involved and responsible for eventually having any criminal activity.
And we are not concerned about who they are in the terms that no matter if they are farmers, criminals or any sort of people, if they are responsible for those crimes, if it really happened, they must be punished under the law, under the legal system. they must be punished under the law, under the legal Right.
Now, what's it been like for you?
I mean, I myself have had the occasional whirlpool of media attention where things just seem to get kind of crazy and stories just seem to feed on each other.
I don't think I've ever faced anything like the kind of focus and attention that yourself and Bolsonaro were facing from the worldwide press being basically almost tried in absentia for crimes against the environment.
So when did you first become aware that this kind of story was floating around and how did it play out for you?
First, it began when we simply cut off the financing for NGOs who were living for 20 years by spreading out these problems, and some of them are serious, some of them have important jobs, important things were done in the past,
but there's a huge number of them that have been fundraising money, including the governmental funds, to do things that are not connected to the Efficiency have not resulted in the reduction of the deflorestation.
I mean, simply, it's a narrative that they use to collect funds.
And we simply cut off those public funds.
We're not against. They can raise money from private people in the private sector, but they're not going to collect any more funds from the government.
So this campaign began when we cut off those funds.
It really began at that time.
Do you think that they used contacts in the media in an attempt to drum up a kind of hysteria with the goal of getting said funding restored?
Exactly. It's a circle.
It seems like a circle relationship.
Some of them are connected to the academia.
Some of them are connected to the media.
Some of them are connected to the former foreign NGO as well.
And there is an entire campaign, first of all, because they don't like Bolsonaro.
It's a right-wing conservative government.
And since they are left-wing socialist people, some of them, they are against Bolsonaro, no matter what we do.
So in addition of that, they are really doing, they're using their contacts worldwide to pressure the government due to the fact that we cut off the funds, due to the fact that we're not giving The same space that they had before in terms of public policy or public opinions and so on.
Brazilian society have recognized that some of those people have used, simply used the flag of the environment for their own benefit, to raise funds, to pay their own salaries, to pay the payroll of the NGOs,
to fund actually some campaigns that have no I think this is fascinating in particular because, you know, every voter in just about every country recognizes that there's a huge problem with deficits, there's a huge problem with accumulated national debts, not to mention unfunded liabilities.
And all of the taxpayers sit there and say, well, gee, why don't you just cut government spending, right?
So here, to me, is a very, very powerful example of just how difficult it can be to cut government spending because Bolsonaro and I guess yourself have some hand in cutting some government spending towards these NGOs.
And next thing you know, you have every half corrupt reporter on the planet accusing you of destroying the environment and threatening the survival of the human race or whatever it is.
Like that's quite a blowback for some budget cuts.
And I think it helps explain to people why it's so damn difficult to cut government spending.
Exactly.
If we reestablish the sponsoring of some of those initiatives, this Sunday campaign would finish extensively in the moment.
So first, it is a financial problem in terms of the reason why they're shouting so much.
In addition, the public spending also includes the inefficient policies that have been implemented through a very huge budget by these NGO-ing groups.
We're not saying that there are no good initiatives.
There are some of them that are good.
They have delivered some important results in different fields.
But there is also a huge number of them that it's simply an excuse to take money from government.
And if we don't look into these details and have an appropriate analysis, we're going to be classifying some of them as an appropriate public policy, and it's not.
So we need to have the right to criticize, to analyze and sometimes to simply cut off those public spendings in policies that are not succeeding, are not delivering results, are not being efficient enough.
Right. Now, when the news began to break about what the mainstream media was talking about with regards to, you know, choking off the lungs of the world and all this kind of stuff, Were you surprised at how quickly the story spread?
Were you asked for comments?
Did you have any chance to kind of manage the hysteria that was building, or how did that play out?
Well, some of the media, the press, some of the journalists have contacted us, and we have provided a lot of information, and some of them were disclosed, but most of them were simply disregarded.
Some of them was added In order to cut some of the words or statements out of the contest and being supported to the story that's not correct.
It happens in many different press offices all over the place, and we do recognize that it was on purpose.
It's not a lack of an appropriate coverage, but it's a preordinate strategy In order to avoid the arguments, then appropriate and reasonable arguments concerning the forest and the Amazon and the whole context which is involved in this case.
Well, and of course, I think this is another example of just how when you look at the mainstream media, anyone who's to the right of Chairman Mao is automatically someone to be taken out, to be undermined, to be often lied about, to be quoted out of context, to be just attacked.
And this is a...
I mean, you see this, of course, with Trump.
When I was younger, I saw it with Margaret Thatcher.
You can see it with a wide variety of people who are not on the left, that it really is this monolithic wall of attack with very little grounding in reality.
And that, of course, is another huge reason why it's very tough to tame government, because you're not just facing the people who don't like their budgets cut, but you're facing all of their allies in the media who can make your life, well...
Quite exciting for a while.
Yeah, actually, it's not exciting, it's an interesting word, but the fact that they are all together.
These people, hey, they have connections.
They have connections in the academia, as I mentioned.
They have connections in some of the medias, and they have these NGOs, this net of NGOs worldwide, especially in some specific areas in Europe where this Socialist mentality continues to provide the substance, the support that they need to continue with this campaign, which is absolutely not true.
If they look into the Brazilian behavior in terms of the environment, we are very proud to say that Brazil is very sustainable.
Our agriculture is sustainable.
The forest is maintained, and as I mentioned, 84% is a huge percentage.
If you look into the European forest, They have been devastating time after time.
And we continue to have ours by 84% after 500 years of occupation.
And we continue to have a lot of good practices on that.
It's not correct that things are not being done.
It's really complicated to show that if people don't want to see or if they don't want to spread out the information that we give them as an explanation.
Right, no, and once you've been through one of these media maelstroms, you kind of come out of it a bit of a wiser and slightly more hardened person.
Maybe this is not your first, but, you know, it gets a lot easier as you go forward.
So, listen, I really, really appreciate your time.
We will get this out to a lot, a lot of people, and I'm just wondering, and feel free to take as much time as you want, what is the basic message that you would like to get across?
We've touched on it, of course, here and there, sustainability and the massive preservation of the Amazon.
But if you had a sort of megaphone to the world, which is this to some degree in a nutshell, what is it that you would like to say in particular against the narrative that has been coming out of the mainstream media over the last week or two?
First, we are aware that we need to conserve, to preserve the Amazon.
We are doing that.
We want to bring the capitalist involvement on that in terms that we provide And develop the private initiatives over there.
If we don't bring the economic development to the region, it becomes very complicated to keep it as it is.
If people don't have an economy that is legal, they'll just go to poaching and they'll just steal things and it doesn't actually make things worse.
Exactly. You are pushing those people to the illegal activities.
Since we don't provide them the opportunity to work properly, If they don't have the opportunity to develop by themselves, to live by their own, to have their own income, they are going to go to the illegal activities anyway, as is happening in the surrounding countries.
When you see the production of drugs, cocaine, and so on, in the different territories, what is the explanation of that?
We also have this mining illegal activities.
They go to the mining illegal activities because they don't have an option.
So we need to bring the development.
To bioeconomy.
This bioeconomy, for instance, is a huge opportunity to capitalist investment, to go after the profit, to have people get involved, have this prosperity touching the people, these 20 million people who live in the Amazon.
So we cannot pretend that they are not there.
It's the region of Amazon.
It's not an inhibited place.
There's 20 million people living over there.
So we need to do something in order to bring these people to the formal economy, to the appropriate way of living and have their own income.
This is something that the world can happen instead of doing this campaign against Brazil, which is not fair, it's not correct, it doesn't reflect the concern and the appropriate behavior that we have in terms of preserving the environment.
You did mention something that I just wanted to touch on before we close, which was the lack of property rights.
So, of course, as you know, there's a good number of economic theories that say it's very, very hard to maintain the value of something unless someone has invested in it, unless it's privately owned.
I wonder if you can touch a little bit on some of the challenges that you face preserving the Amazon when private property rights can be challenging there.
Exactly. Amazon, first of all, is huge.
People need to understand that we're talking a huge portion of the territory.
It's very huge. Private areas are sometimes 10,000 acres, 20,000 acres, 50,000 acres, each one.
So if they don't have the sense of being the owner of those areas, to take care of those areas, and also be responsible for those areas, we are not going to give the appropriate path To the development and they respect the forest and the environment.
So it's critical to have these property rights based, going after the legislation and appropriate base of registration, those properties, and make these people be responsible for the conservation of their own property.
And then they follow the forestry code, they follow, they comply with the rules.
It's simple to understand.
And it's a system that has been proved all over the world.
Why would it be different in the Amazon area?
That's the main question.
And I guess just to close off, is there anything that you would like to say to the reporters who seem to have run a little amok with this story?
Well, I would like to be more fair with the coverage.
Coverage are not being fair.
They are not Describing the facts and some of them, maybe not all of them, but some of them know exactly that they're doing not a good job to their people are paying attention to their interviews or the reports and it's not correct.
All right. Well, listen, I really, really appreciate you taking the time.
I know you're massively busy at the moment.
Really appreciate you taking the time to set the record straight.
We'll put links to all of this information below.
Stay in touch if there's anything else that you want to bring to the attention of the world.
And thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you very much, Molo.
I want to show you where we are right now.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. This is the Amazon River.
You see nothing over here.
The boats are over there.
The tourist boats and so on.
We are exactly in the middle of the Amazon, the city of Manaus right now.
There's no flickering fires on the horizon.
There's no dying plants.
There's no mccords flying to flee the forest fires.
It's all quiet. It's all nice.
And it's all very well taken care of.
So thanks again, my friend. It was a great pleasure.
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