environment

Luciano Evaristo

Ref Batch
C
Focus Area(s)
Ref Batch Number
5
Critical Tasks
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Rachel Jackson
Name
Luciano Evaristo
Interviewee's Position
Director
Interviewee's Organization
Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources
Language
Portuguese/English
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

In this interview, Luciano Evaristo explains the work of IBAMA, focusing on the institute’s monitoring and inspection capabilities. The main thrust of those efforts has been on monitoring both the illegal and legal deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. Evaristo describes the technology and government coordination both in Brazil and transnationally that were required to maximize the efficiency of the monitoring system and ensure results in capturing illegal actors. He also acknowledges the challenges that arose along the way, as well as the many different creative solutions IBAMA was able to come up with each time in response. Toward the end of the interview, Evaristo takes interviewer Rachel Jackson on a step-by-step mock investigation of a deforestation violation to point out how the new monitoring technology serves to geographically locate the offense, determine its nature and magnitude, identify the person in the system, and immediately issue a fine and/or conduct an arrest on the spot.

Case Study:  A Credible Commitment: Reducing Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, 2003–2012

Profile

At the time of this interview, Luciano de Meneses Evaristo was director of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA). Previously, he had been with IBAMA in the department of strategic management as well as in the area of environmental monitoring. In addition, Evaristo served as head of the department of environmental protection at various times from 2002 to 2012. He also was in the Brazilian government’s internal affairs office on combatting corruption.

Defending the Environment at the Local Level: Dom Eliseu, Brazil, 2008–2014

Author
Maya Gainer
Country of Reform
Abstract

A former center of the timber industry in the Brazilian Amazon, the municipality of Dom Eliseu had built its economy around deforestation—much of it illegal. In 2008, as part of a strategy to enforce the country’s environmental policies, the federal Ministry of the Environment included Dom Eliseu on a list of the worst violators of deforestation laws. The blacklist cut off residents’ access to markets and credit and made the municipality the target of intensive law enforcement. To get off the blacklist, the community had to overcome a collective-action problem. The local government had to persuade the owners of 80% of private land—more than 1,000 properties—to map their property boundaries, declare the extent of deforestation, enter their properties in the state environmental registration system, and adopt more-sustainable methods of production. The municipality also had to build the capacity to take on new responsibilities for environmental protection—most important, environmental licensing, which would enable the local government to regulate land use. With support from nongovernmental organizations and the state, Dom Eliseu successfully coordinated private compliance with the national policy and left the blacklist in 2012.

 

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Belém and Dom Eliseu, Brazil, in September 2014. This case was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Case published March 2015.

A Credible Commitment: Reducing Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, 2003–2012

Author
Rachel Jackson
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract

In the early 2000s, deforestation increased sharply in the Brazilian Amazon, jeopardizing the tropical rain forest’s critical role in mitigating global climate change. In 2003, under the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his minister of the environment, Marina Silva, the federal government decided to address the problem. More than a dozen ministries worked together to draft the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon. Implementation, which began the following year under coordination by the Office of the Chief of Staff of the President, expanded Brazil’s system of protected areas, improved remote monitoring of the Amazon, and increased enforcement of existing forestry laws. By 2007, the deforestation rate was less than half of 2004 levels. In response to an uptick in deforestation in late 2007 and early 2008, however, the Ministry of the Environment shifted tactics. Silva and her team at the ministry published a list of municipalities that bore the greatest responsibility for deforestation. The blacklisted municipalities were targets of increased enforcement operations and sanctions. The federal government also restricted landholders’ access to credit by requiring environmental compliance to qualify for government-subsidized agricultural credit. Brazil’s decade-long effort reduced the deforestation rate in the Amazon region by nearly 75% from the 1996–2005 average annual rate.

 

Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Brazil, in September and October 2014. This case was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Case published January 2015. To learn more about how one local municipality implemented deforestation efforts, see "Controlling Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Alta Floresta Works Towards Sustainability." 

Associated Interview(s):  Luciano Evaristo

Controlling Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Alta Floresta Works Towards Sustainability, 2008-2013

Author
Rachel Jackson
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract

In the early 2000s, the municipality of Alta Floresta was part of Brazil’s Arc of Fire, a curving frontier of communities whose residents were clearing old-growth forests in the Amazon region so they could graze livestock, harvest timber, or cultivate crops. In 2008, the federal government cracked down on deforestation and pressured local governments to implement national environmental regulations. It created a blacklist of municipalities that were the worst violators of deforestation laws. Alta Floresta, as one of the 36 municipalities on the list, was thrust into an unfavorable national spotlight, cut off from access to rural agricultural credit, and its ranchers embargoed from selling their cattle to slaughterhouses. To get off the list, the municipality had to convince the owners of 80% of privately held land—more than 2,500 owners in all—to register their property, map property boundaries, declare the extent of deforestation, and agree to restore any illegally degraded or deforested areas within 10 years. Making compliance feasible for local ranchers meant that the municipal government had to promote more efficient agricultural production and provide opportunities for alternative livelihoods. This approach protected land set aside for restoration and reduced the economic need for future deforestation. In 2012, Alta Floresta became the third municipality in Brazil to earn removal from the blacklist.
 
Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Brazil, in March and April 2014. This case was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Case published July 2014. To learn more about national deforestation efforts, see "A Credible Commitment: Reducing Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, 2003-2012."

Emil Salim

Ref Batch
C
Ref Batch Number
5
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Matthew Devlin
Name
Emil Salim
Interviewee's Position
Faculty
Interviewee's Organization
University of Indonesia
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Indonesian
Town/City
Jakarta
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

Emil Salim describes lessons learned from his long career in Indonesia’s government. He describes his efforts to institute procedures to set priorities for budgeting and implementation, to build capacity, to educate leaders (particularly from the military) about economics, to reform civil service, and to facilitate interministerial communications. He defines major challenges he faced in creating communications and systems of local governance for a nation of over 17,000 islands. He gives his views on the transition from a centrally planned economy dominated by the military to an increasingly market-driven, more democratic country and reports on his efforts to enhance civil society. He offers suggestions about how to combat loyalty to agency rather than loyalty to government and the nation.

Case Study:  Against the Odds: Attempting Reform in Suharto's Indonesia, 1967-1998

Profile

At the time of this interview, Emil Salim was on the faculty of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. He graduated from the university's Faculty of Economics in 1959. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. In 1966, he was a member of a team of economic advisers to President Suharto. In 1967 and 1968, he was an adviser to the Ministry of Manpower. From 1967 to 1969, he was chairman of the technical team for the Council for Economic Stability and was a member of Parliament. He was vice chairman of the National Development Planning Agency in 1969. In 1971 was minister of state for the improvement of the state apparatus. During the 1970s, he was minister of communications, of development supervision and of environment.

Full Audio File Size
91MB
Full Audio Title
Emil Salim - Full Interview