Unprecedented mapping points out paths and opportunities for greater engagement in sustainable practices
By Marina Grossi*
At the beginning of 2023, the Amazon continues to be in the news, but unfortunately it is not good news. Deforestation reached a new record in 2022, with 10.5 thousand km², according to Imazon. This is the worst rate in the last 15 years. Between 2019 and 2022, the total devastated reached 35.1 thousand km², an increase of almost 150% compared to the previous four years. We have also seen the humanitarian tragedy that has befallen the Yanomami indigenous people, beset by malnutrition, precarious health conditions and the advance of illegal mining and organized crime on their lands.
The forest was also in the news at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Brazil was represented by business leaders, civil society, the federal government and governors. With a busy agenda of meetings, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, and the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, reaffirmed what President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had already announced at COP27 in Egypt last November that the firm fight against deforestation and the climate emergency will be priorities and will receive a cross-cutting approach, guiding actions by different ministries. The candidacy of an Amazonian capital, Belém, to host COP30 in 2025, submitted to the UN, is another nod in that direction.
Public and private efforts will need to be combined to address the high rates of forest loss not only in the Amazon, but in all Brazilian biomes. This is an urgent issue, given that changes in land use account for 49% of our greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the loss of biodiversity, worsening two of the main environmental crises of our time. Caring for biomes and combating illegal deforestation, our greatest scourge, will give the country the means to promote a bioeconomy of standing forests, generating new businesses and prosperity.
Companies associated with the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) are aware of this and, in 2021, created the Business Movement for the Amazon, based on the understanding that producing and preserving are not antagonistic verbs. The movement brings together large companies to express their concern about the country's negative image in relation to socio-environmental issues and to reinforce the support and participation of the business sector in taking positive actions. Last year, we took CEOs of large companies on an immersion trip to the forest and published the Study of Good Business Practices in the Amazon. This unprecedented mapping indicates paths and opportunities for greater engagement in sustainable practices in the region, with scalable solutions and businesses such as restoration of degraded areas, professional training, development of startups, sustainable agriculture, bioeconomy and artificial intelligence in preventing deforestation. There are 11 initiatives, with 50.7 thousand direct beneficiaries.
CEBDS shares the view that it is possible to halt the loss of biodiversity and that businesses have an important role to play, working with the government on this issue. Our Council of Leaders, made up of 95 CEOs of large companies, will receive Minister Marina Silva this month to discuss paths for a development model that halts the loss of ecosystems and reduces carbon emissions. More than that, it allows the 30 million Brazilians who live in the region to be economically included and generate prosperity while maintaining the forest. This is the Amazon, thriving and transformative, that we want to see in the headlines.
* Marina Grossi is president of CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development), an entity with more than 100 associated companies whose combined revenue is equivalent to almost 50% of Brazilian GDP
