Vatican City (AFP)
The Brazilian Carlos Nobre - climate scientist and Nobel Peace Prize 2007- advocates a new bio-economic model for the Amazon that maintains the "standing forest" idea shared by many participants in a "synod" in the Vatican.
Carlos Nobre who contributed to a scientific report for this assembly of bishops devoted to the Panamazon region (October 6 to 27) explains to AFP that "the Amazon has great economic potential" likely to "benefit socially to indigenous peoples and preserve their traditions ".
"The + upright forest + generates more products with an economic value for the present and the future than the destruction of the forest and its replacement by agricultural or mining lands", insists this Brazilian who has surveyed the Amazon for forty years.
"Science has to look for solutions, not just talk about risks, we need to find the path to an economy that keeps the forest upright," he says, judging the possibilities as "innumerable".
Forty-two international scientists have prepared for the synod a costed inventory with recommendations. Among them: master new technologies and high-value bio-industries, for example in the pharmaceutical, food or cosmetics fields.
- Acai and Babassu -
The forest is full of acai berry (with medicinal properties), babassu palm (oil used in cosmetics), chestnuts or cocoa.
These activities could be framed by strict ecological standards, while protecting the rights of the people, say the scientists who regret that the countries of the Amazon have chosen a model involving intensive land use.
"For a middle class to emerge in the Amazon, value must be added to forest products, which have a very high intrinsic value," says Carlos Nobre.
"We need an industrial and scientific revolution, so that the Amazon and its people will appropriate this value and have a better quality of life!", He adds.
The natural overabundance of water, heat and humidity makes the ecosystems of the Amazon home to about 10 to 15% of terrestrial biodiversity.
During the first two weeks of the synod, bishops who came mostly from the Amazon, a handful of representatives of indigenous peoples and international experts strongly denounced the fate of populations sometimes threatened with death by the economic predators of the forest.
Like Felicio de Araujo Pontes, Brazilian prosecutor who specialized in the defense of indigenous peoples and protests against the dominant economic model in his country (cattle breeding and soy monoculture).
"From an economic point of view, it is worthwhile to keep this forest upright," he says, lamenting "a colonialist mentality that persists with the idea of a superiority over the people of the forest".
- Constitution flouted -
Roque Paloschi, Archbishop of Porto Velho (State of Rondônia, Brazil), recalled that indigenous peoples had been harmed in his country on the issue of land distribution.
"The 1988 Constitution provided that all indigenous peoples' lands must be demarcated, registered and registered in 1993. One-third of them were landed, the others were invaded by gold diggers, industries mining and the oil and timber industries ", the bishop complains.
Brazilian Nobel laureate Carlos Nobre, defying the claims of climate-skeptics, says he is very worried about the Amazon, spread among nine of the twelve countries of South America, mainly Brazil.
"Science is showing that we are very close to a point of no return," he said, adding that "60 to 70 percent of the Amazon rainforest could disappear in the next 30 to 50 years."
"We must stop deforestation and achieve zero deforestation in the coming years, and we must fight against global warming," says the climatologist. Today 15% of the forest has already disappeared due to deforestation and often voluntary fires.
© 2019 AFP