Using Legal Codes to Protect Brazil’s Forests

Sao Paulo | April 7, 2011

Eric Biber at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Attendees at the Federal University of Parana

As part of the U.S. Consulate’s speaker series on environmental issues, Professor Eric Biber of the University of California at Berkeley visited Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo in a southern tour of Brazil from March 20-25.  The conversations illustrated that it is not just the Amazon that is at stake in the protection of Brazil’s forests. 

Prof. Biber, Acting Professor of Law at University of California – Berkeley brought his specialization on environmental law issues, including climate change agreements to academic, business, governmental and activist audiences in Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo, where protection of the Atlantic Forest has become as great an issue as the preservation of the Amazon rainforest.  Eric Biber helped focus the discussions on this issue for a variety of organizations with varying degrees of engagement.

In Curitiba, Professor Biber visited the American Chamber of Commerce and the Federal University of Parana  to meet with business representatives and academics studying climate change issues.  In Porto Alegre, his presentations for law students at  the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul were a prelude to the next generation of protectors as were his discussions at Sao Paulo’s Forest Institute, a part of the State Secretariat of Environment.

Taking as his text the new deforestation agreement, REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), established in the 2010 climate talks in Cancun, Biber pointed out the benefits and potential pitfalls, including sovereignty issues.  The agreement raises in its formalization of a voluntary structure in which developed countries will pay developing countries for protecting their tropical forests.