Brazil has the power to save Earth’s greatest forest—or destroy it
巴西有能力拯救地球上最大的森林——或摧毀它
Print edition | Leaders Aug 1st 2019
Although its cradle is the sparsely wooded savannah, humankind has long looked to forests for food, fuel, timber and sublime inspiration. Still a livelihood for 1.5bn people, forests maintain local and regional ecosystems and, for the other 6.2bn, provide a—fragile and creaking—buffer against climate change. Now droughts, wildfires and other human-induced changes are compounding the damage from chainsaws. In the tropics, which contain half of the world’s forest biomass, tree-cover loss has accelerated by two-thirds since 2015; if it were a country, the shrinkage would make the tropical rainforest the world’s third-biggest carbon-dioxide emitter, after China and America.
雖然樹木稀疏的非洲大草原是人類的搖籃，但是人類長期以來從森林中獲取食物、燃料、木材和極大的精神動力。森林仍然是15億人的生計來源，它維持著當地和整個地區的生態系統，而對另外62億人來說，森林為應對氣候變化提供了一道一觸即破的屏障。現在，乾旱、野火和其他人為因素正在加劇砍伐森林造成的破壞。在佔世界森林生物量一半的熱帶地區，自2015年以來，森林覆蓋面消失的速度加快了三分之二；如果把熱帶雨林看作一個國家，那麼雨林縮減規模足以使它成為僅次於中國和美國的世界第三大二氧化碳排放國。
Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the Amazon basin—and not just because it contains 40% of Earth’s rainforests and harbours 10-15% of the world’s terrestrial species. South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hastening the process—in the name, he claims, of development. The ecological collapse his policies may precipitate would be felt most acutely within his country’s borders, which encircle 80% of the basin—but would go far beyond them, too. It must be averted.
世界上再也沒有哪個地方比亞馬遜盆地面臨的風險更大了——這不僅僅是因為它擁有地球上40%的雨林和10-15%的陸地物種。這個南美洲的自然奇蹟可能已經接近臨界點，前景堪憂。一旦超過這個臨界點，即使人們停止砍伐，也無法停止或逆轉亞馬遜盆地逐漸退化為草原的趨勢。當前，巴西總統雅伊爾·博索納羅正以發展的名義加速這一進程。他的政策可能引發生態崩潰，這在巴西境內（巴西境內包含了80%的盆地面積）感受最為強烈，但影響範圍將遠甚於此。這種現象必須避免。
Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s they have done so on an industrial scale. In the past 50 years Brazil has relinquished 17% of the forest’s original extent, more than the area of France, to road- and dam-building, logging, mining, soyabean farming and cattle ranching. After a seven-year government effort to slow the destruction, it picked up in 2013 because of weakened enforcement and an amnesty for past deforestation. Recession and political crisis further pared back the government’s ability to enforce the rules. Now Mr Bolsonaro has gleefully taken a buzz saw to them. Although congress and the courts have blocked some of his efforts to strip parts of the Amazon of their protected status, he has made it clear that rule-breakers have nothing to fear, despite the fact that he was elected to restore law and order. Because 70-80% of logging in the Amazon is illegal, the destruction has soared to record levels. Since he took office in January, trees have been disappearing at a rate of over two Manhattans a week.
從一萬多年前人類定居在亞馬遜熱帶雨林以來，就不斷砍伐亞馬遜雨林。自20世紀70年代以來，人類開始了工業化砍伐。在過去的50年裡，巴西已將17%的原始森用於修路築壩、伐木、採礦、大豆種植和畜牧業，這一面積超過了法國的領土面積。七年間，政府努力放緩森林砍伐速度，但由於執法力度減弱和對過去毀林行為的特赦，2013年的破壞速度有所回升。經濟衰退和政治危機進一步削弱了政府的執行力。現在，巴西總統博索納羅羅興高採烈地把嗡嗡作響的電鋸揮向雨林。儘管國會和法院阻止了他剝奪亞馬遜部分地區受保護地位的努力，但博爾索納羅明確表示，儘管他當選總統是為了恢復法律和秩序，違法者沒有什麼可害怕的。因為亞馬遜地區70-80%的伐木都是非法的，所以對森林破壞已經飆升到了創紀錄的水平。自從他一月份上任以來，森林每周以超過兩個曼哈頓面積的速度消失。
The Amazon is unusual in that it recycles much of its own water. As the forest shrivels, less recycling takes place. At a certain threshold, that causes more of the forest to wither so that, over a matter of decades, the process feeds on itself. Climate change is bringing the threshold closer every year as the forest heats up. Mr Bolsonaro is pushing it towards the edge. Pessimists fear that the cycle of runaway degradation may kick in when another 3-8% of the forest vanishes—which, under Mr Bolsonaro, could happen soon. There are hints the pessimists may be correct. In the past 15 years the Amazon has suffered three severe droughts. Fires are on the rise.
亞馬遜的獨特之處在於，它的大部分水都是循環利用的。但隨著森林減少，再循環也會減少；再循環能力降低到臨界值時，將導致更多的森林枯萎，因此，在未來幾十年，這一過程將以此往復。隨著森林升溫，氣候變化使臨界值迫近。博爾索納羅正在將森林萎縮推向臨界值的邊緣。悲觀主義者擔心，當這片森林再消失3%-8%，失控退化周期可能就會出現——在博索納羅的領導下，這一現象可能很快就會發生。有跡象表明，悲觀主義者可能是正確的。在過去的15年裡，亞馬遜遭受了三次嚴重乾旱。火災數量也在上升。
Brazil’s president dismisses such findings, as he does science more broadly. He accuses outsiders of hypocrisy—did rich countries not fell their own forests?—and, sometimes, of using environmental dogma as a pretext to keep Brazil poor. 「The Amazon is ours,」 the president thundered recently. What happens in the Brazilian Amazon, he thinks, is Brazil’s business.
博索納羅對這些調查結果不屑一顧，就如他在更廣泛的科學領域一樣。他指責外人虛偽——難道富裕國家沒有砍伐自己的森林嗎？——而且，有時，還以環境教條為藉口，讓巴西一直貧窮。最近，博索納羅怒斥，「亞馬遜是我們的」，他認為，在亞馬遜巴西流域發生的一切都是巴西自己的事。
Except it isn’t. A 「dieback」 would directly hurt the seven other countries with which Brazil shares the river basin. It would reduce the moisture channelled along the Andes as far south as Buenos Aires. If Brazil were damming a real river, not choking off an aerial one, downstream nations could consider it an act of war. As the vast Amazonian store of carbon burned and rotted, the world could heat up by as much as 0.1°C by 2100—not a lot, you may think, but the preferred target of the Paris climate agreement allows further warming of only 0.5°C or so.
但事實並非如此。「倒流」將直接影響其他七個與巴西共享亞馬遜河流域的國家。從安第斯山脈一路向南流入布宜諾斯艾利斯的水流量將會減少 。如果巴西真的攔河築壩，而非護林蓄水，下遊國家可能會認為這是在宣戰。隨著亞馬遜地區巨大的碳儲存被燃燒和腐爛，到2100年，世界可能會升溫0.1攝氏度——你可能會認為這個變化並不是很大，但巴黎氣候協議的首選目標只允許再升溫0.5攝氏度左右。
Mr Bolsonaro’s other arguments are also flawed. Yes, the rich world has razed its forests. Brazil should not copy its mistakes, but learn from them instead as, say, France has, by reforesting while it still can. Paranoia about Western scheming is just that. The knowledge economy values the genetic information sequestered in the forest more highly than land or dead trees. Even if it did not, deforestation is not a necessary price of development. Brazil’s output of soyabeans and beef rose between 2004 and 2012, when forest-clearing slowed by 80%. In fact, aside from the Amazon itself, Brazilian agriculture may be deforestation’s biggest victim. The drought of 2015 caused maize farmers in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to lose a third of their harvest.
博索納羅的其他觀點也有不足之處。的確，發達國家已將森林夷為平地。趁現在還有能力重新植樹造林，巴西不應重蹈覆轍而應像法國一樣吸取教訓。對西方陰謀的偏執就是如此。知識經濟對隱藏在森林中的遺傳信息的重視程度高於對土地或枯樹的。即便不是如此，砍伐森林也不是發展的必要代價。巴西的大豆和牛肉產量在2004—2012年間有所增長，當時森林砍伐速度放緩了80%。事實上，除了亞馬遜本身，巴西農業可能是森林砍伐的最大受害者。2015年的旱災導致巴西中部馬託格羅索州種植玉米的農民損失了三分之一的收成。
For all these reasons, the world ought to make clear to Mr Bolsonaro that it will not tolerate his vandalism. Food companies, pressed by consumers, should spurn soyabeans and beef produced on illegally logged Amazonian land, as they did in the mid-2000s. Brazil’s trading partners should make deals contingent on its good behaviour. The agreement reached in June by the euand Mercosur, a South American trading bloc of which Brazil is the biggest member, already includes provisions to protect the rainforest. It is overwhelmingly in the parties』 interest to enforce them. So too for China, which is anxious about global warming and needs Brazilian agriculture to feed its livestock. Rich signatories of the Paris agreement, who pledged to pay developing ones to plant carbon-consuming trees, ought to do so. Deforestation accounts for 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions but attracts only 3% of the aid earmarked for combating climate change.
綜上，世界應向博索納羅先表明，人們不會容忍他的破壞行為。被消費者實驗的食品公司應該摒棄在非法砍伐的亞馬遜土地上生產的大豆和牛肉，就像2000年代中期那樣。巴西的貿易夥伴應根據其良好行為進行交易。今年六月，歐盟與南美貿易集團南方共同市場(Mercosur)達成協議，其中就包括保護熱帶雨林的條款。巴西是該集團最大的成員國。強制執行這些協議完全符合各方的利益。對中國來說也是如此，中國擔心全球變暖，需要巴西的農產品來餵養牲畜。籤約《巴黎協定》的發達國家承諾向發展中國家支付種植可吸收二氧化碳植物的費用，他們應當兌現他們的承諾。森林砍伐排放全球8%的溫室氣體，但只獲得應對氣候變化援助資金的3%。
The wood and the trees
木和林
If there is a green shoot in Mr Bolsonaro’s scorched-earth tactics towards the rainforest, it is that they have made the Amazon’s plight harder to ignore—and not just for outsiders. Brazil’s agriculture minister urged Mr Bolsonaro to stay in the Paris agreement. Unchecked deforestation could end up hurting Brazilian farmers if it leads to foreign boycotts of Brazilian farm goods. Ordinary Brazilians should press their president to reverse course. They have been blessed with a unique planetary patrimony, whose value is intrinsic and life-sustaining as much as it is commercial. Letting it perish would be a needless catastrophe.
如果博索納羅針對雨林的焦土政策中有一絲希望的話，那就是這一政策讓亞馬遜的困境更難被忽視——而不僅僅是針對局外人。巴西農業部長敦促博索納羅羅遵守《巴黎協定》。如果巴西仍然不加以控制，肆意砍伐森林，這可能會引起各國對其農產品的聯合抵制，最終必會傷害巴西農民。巴西民眾應該敦促博索納羅懸崖勒馬。他們有幸被賜予這個星球上獨一無二的「傳家寶」，其價值不僅在商業上更在於它與生俱來、滋養萬物的本質。任由亞馬遜雨林日漸消逝將成為一場不必要的災難。