/* Written 3:54 PM Apr 18, 1997 by igc:newsdesk in ax:ips.english */
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 15-Apr-97 ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: World Bank to Overhaul Amazon Project
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Apr 15 (IPS) - The World Bank is having to overhaul its plans
to remedy the environmental and social damage wrought by a series of
Bank-financed projects in the Brazilian Amazon during the 1980s, according
to the Bank's independent inspection panel.
At issue are the Bank's plans to revive a 167-million-dollar environmental
protection loan, approved in 1992, for a natural resource management
project in Brazil's Rondonia state.
Some four years after the Bank launched that effort, known as PLANAFLORO,
deforestation has actually increased to ''high historical levels'' of
nearly 450,000 hectares per year, the agency's inspection panel says in a
new report to the executive board.
This has happened even though the Bank in 1995 acknowledged it had fallen
down on the job and offered new plans to get PLANAFLORO up and running,
the panel notes.
''Analysis of satellite imagery...done under the project demonstrates that,
contrary to project objectives, deforestation during the period 1993-1996
has increased considerably,'' the report states.
As much as 90 percent of the forest loss is believed to be at the hands of
illegal loggers, says panel chairman Richard Bissell.
The report notes that, under PLANAFLORO, tracts of forest land were set
aside for indigenous people and forest conservation in a region besieged
by loggers and migration since the 1970s.
Invasions of these protected areas continue, however, and little progress
has been made in implementing the project's other goals, including a
health plan for local Amerindians.
''Although there's been much progress in demarcating reserves and
establishing the legal title of Amerindians (to local lands), these are
largely ignored,'' Bissell notes. ''There's no policing, and lots of
encroachment.''
Drawing the boundaries of forest and indigenous peoples' reserves is ''a
necessary, but not sufficient, condition for their protection,'' the panel
report says, citing studies by the Bank's own Operations Evaluation
Division (OED).
''Financial disincentives...and strong enforcement capacity to
prevent and punish invasions are also required for ensuring the protection
of such areas,'' the panel quotes one OED report as stating.
Yet, the inspectors add, ''the suggested disincentives were not included
in the project, with the result that invasions and illegal settlements
have continued to be one of the most persistent problems.''
Plagued by shortcomings, PLANAFLORO itself was born of the need to correct
past mistakes.
The loan was made because the environmental and social components of a
series of Bank-financed projects known collectively as POLONOROESTE ''had
been neither adequate nor implemented'', the panel report says. The new
effort ''was meant to be a showcase project for a new era in Bank lending
for sustainable development,'' it adds.
By June 1995, however, Brazilian non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
complained to the inspection panel that the Bank had turned a blind eye to
Brazilian government agencies' failure to honour the project's goals. The
NGOs themselves endorsed those goals, according to the panel.
The claimants, who included indigenous people and small farmers and rubber
tappers, argued that, by ignoring these failures, the Bank was violating
its own policies on the environment, indigenous people, and project
supervision.
The Bank itself acknowledged some of the NGOs' allegations and put forward
a plan of action it said would speed and tighten PLANAFLORO's
enforcement.
That plan was enough to persuade the Bank's executive board not to launch
a full-scale probe of the project. But the executive directors said they
would ask the inspection panel to review the Bank's progress in
implementing the plan.
In its latest report, released here last week, the panel notes that the
Bank has improved its supervision of the project, along with
''administration at the technical and accounting as well as the managerial
level.''
But the project, which was to have wound down by last December, continues
to face enough problems that the Bank is looking to restructure it for the
second time in as many years.
Although the details have yet to be agreed, Bissell says the restructuring
will enable the Bank to concentrate on the most important and vulnerable
areas and to make sure the project's benefits flow ''more directly'' to
local communities.
The project ''still has not come up with a completely satisfactory formula
for grassroots participation,'' which was to be one of its hallmarks, says
Bissell.
The Bank and its Brazilian partners have been experimenting with ways to
make sure money earmarked for local communities is not diverted by
bureaucrats or businessmen.
Under a new 'Community Initiatives Support Programme', local communities
can apply for grants to help them achieve development goals of their own
making. But sources close to the process say such efforts remain
vulnerable to local business elites, who have posed as NGOs and tried to
siphon off funds.
It is difficult to prevent such abuses because ''civil society is very
rudimentary,'' says one analyst. Bona fide NGOs themselves tend to come
and go, he notes. Many such groups are formed as protest movements, and
when their immediate purpose is fulfilled, they disband or move on.
Although no date has been set for submitting the PLANAFLORO restructuring
plan to the Bank's executive board, and although the retooled project is
likely to involve no new money, Bissell says it is ''a hopeful sign that
the Bank wants to stay involved and remains committed to strengthening
natural resource management in this region.''
Just to be sure, the board will continue to review the project
''regularly'', he added. (END/IPS/AA/97)
Origin: Washington/ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL/
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[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
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