What We're Reading: How to Save the Amazon

By Roger Berkowitz

Roberto Mangabeira Unger writes that lectures and stern words will do little to save the Brazilian Rain Forest. There are 30 million people living in the Amazon, Unger reminds us, and we “need to ensure that the forest is worth more standing than cut down. To that end, we must give the inhabitants of the Amazon the means to both use and preserve their environment.” Above all, what is needed is ways to make the people living in the Amazon aware of its worth to them. That will take creativity and work, not sanctimony.  

Don’t demand that Brazil turn 61 percent of its national territory into an international park. And don’t expect Brazilians, who have managed to preserve about 80 percent of the trees in their section of the Amazon, to appreciate being lectured by European countries left largely treeless by centuries of deforestation. 

Saving the Amazon is a project for Brazil to shape and execute and for the world — beginning with the Group of 7, which has just pledged the pittance of $20 million in emergency aid — to support. If the Bolsonaro administration, sunk in its perverse culture wars, refuses to participate, governments, research institutions, and businesses of the world should go to the governors and mayors of the Amazon.