To avoid the devastation of the Amazon rainforest and ensure that the natural resources in the Amazon are used rationally for the benefit of the vast majority of the population being a resident and economic and social progress in Brazil, as well as to combat global warming, it is essential to have a effective environmental management based on a network structure that integrates the actions of all public and private bodies operating in the Amazon.

1. 1
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT OF AMAZON TO
PROMOTE ITS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Fernando Alcoforado *
Several environmental problems affect the Amazon. The exploration and industrial
processing of wood are among the main economic activities in the Amazon next to the
industrial mining and agriculture. The exploration and industrial processing of wood is
largely responsible for the destruction of the Amazon rainforest because they contribute
to the increase of deforestation. Mineral extraction is also a source of environmental
degradation in the Amazon because it causes changes in the water table, impacts on
wildlife and flora, promote siltation and soil erosion, among other factors. Other
harmful activity to the Amazon environment are agricultural practices that contribute to
the replacement of the forest by pastures and crops in the Amazon rainforest depleting
the soil and causing a total imbalance in the environment where live thousands of
species of animals, many of which are already in process of extinction.
Another major environmental problem in the Amazon is the implementation of
highways that has profoundly transformed its regional organization until then defined
around the rivers. It has gone from a structured Amazon in function of waterways,
draining flows to the East, to a region dominated by the roads leading to the south-
southeast. Roads allow opening areas of the Amazon that are now inaccessible and
promote migration of deforestation foci. In addition, it is planned to implement several
hydroelectric plants in the Amazon, highlighting, among them, the Belo Monte on the
Xingu River in Pará, Jirau and Santo Antonio on the Madeira River in Rondônia,
Estreito and various other on the Tocantins River in Maranhão with irreversible
consequences for many indigenous peoples of the Amazon, including people without
contact with Brazilian society, which substantially alter the conditions of life of the
region.
The Amazon rainforest is under threat of destruction, therefore, due to deforestation and
fire resulting of the expansion of farming and logging, mineral exploration which has
left a legacy of poverty and serious social and environmental impacts, the
implementation of highways that are causing major environmental impacts on Amazon
and hydroelectric whose planned reservoirs will cause many negative impacts on the
environment that its construction is not recommended. Join all this, the process of
urbanization in the Amazon that does not follow any environmental consideration.
Urbanized areas of the Amazon require services for the population assistance and
housing is devoid of any infrastructure system, sanitation and urban equipment.
Certainly, this problem is not just the Amazon. It is worth noting that of all the
environmental problems in the Amazon, deforestation and fires are the most damaging
because they are responsible for the destruction of vegetation, of "habitat", the death of
animals, local species extinction, the loss of organic matter in the soil and their
exposure to erosion. It also contributes to the greenhouse effect by releasing large
amounts of CO2.
Of all the environmental problems in the Amazon, the main one is with regard to
deforestation and fires of which result CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. The IPAM-
Environmental Research Institute of the Amazon states in Article Qual a contribuição
do Brasil para as mudanças climáticas? E qual o perfil das emissões brasileiras? (What
is Brazil's contribution to climate change? And the profile of Brazilian emissions ?),
published on the website <http://www.ipam.org.br/saiba-

2. 2
mais/abc/mudancaspergunta/Qual-a-contribuicao-do-Brasil-para-as-mudancas-
climaticas-E-qual-o-perfil-das-emissoes-brasileiras-/27/17>, that in 2005, Brazil issued
approximately 2.2 billion tons of CO2, of which about 61% were due to changes in land
use and forests. Most of Brazil's emissions (362 million tons of carbon) are the result of
land use activities such as deforestation and fires. Of this total, 67% occur in the
Amazon and 22% in the “Cerrado” whose predominant vegetation is generally small,
with twisted branches and thick leaves. Due to deforestation, only in the Amazon
region, Brazil emits annually about 200 million tons of carbon (average for the period
1996-2005). Such estimates put Brazil among the five most polluting countries in the
world. Not counting the emissions from Amazonian forest fires, which are not
considered and neither were included in the Inventory of Brazilian emissions.
Combating illegal logging is at the heart of the Brazilian government's strategy to cope
with climate change. The main Brazilian government tool to combat the problem is the
Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon
(PPCDAM), launched in 2004. One of the pillars of PPCDAM is the satellite
monitoring system, which subsidizes operations surveillance in the Amazon. INPE uses
several mechanisms, including the PRODES (Deforestation Calculation Program of the
Amazon), one of the most advanced in the world for identification and quantification of
deforestation processes in forest areas and DETER, a quick survey done every two
weeks by INPE. In 2009, Amazon deforestation reached the lowest levels of the last two
decades, representing a decrease of 75% compared to rates recorded in 2004. However,
the current environmental management in the Amazon could achieve high effectiveness
in eliminating the problems described above if it existed in this region an organizational
structure capable of bringing together all public and private bodies in the pursuit of
sustainable development.
To avoid the devastation of the Amazon rainforest and ensure that the natural resources
in the Amazon are used rationally for the benefit of the vast majority of the population
being a resident and economic and social progress in Brazil, as well as to combat global
warming, it is essential to have a effective environmental management based on a
network structure that integrates the actions of all public and private bodies operating in
the Amazon. This was the conclusion that we draw from our research on the Amazon
whose results are presented in our work Amazônia Sustentável (Sustainable Amazon)
(Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo: Editora Viena, 2010). The main purpose of the network
structure is to contribute to enable an integrated environmental management of the
Amazon under which all public and private bodies operating in the region operate in a
coordinated manner to promote their sustainable development. Coordination between all
public and private agencies requires that their operations are performed based on
strategies previously established jointly by all public and private stakeholders and
periodically strategies established are reviewed jointly by all the participants in the
network taking into account their development.
The implementation of an integrated environmental management of the Amazon to
promote their sustainable development should be the main project to be presented by
Brazil in the 21th Climate Conference (COP 21) to be held in Paris in December this
year which aims to limit the effects of climate change to 2 °C to take effect in 2020. The
Brazilian government's initiative would aim at reducing deforestation and fires that are
the main emitters of CO2 to the atmosphere of Brazil. At COP 21, will be celebrated
new agreement to curb global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which
expired in 2012 and had disappointing results.

3. 3

Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012) and
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015).