Modern Day Land Grab?

Land Use Change Issue Not Powered by Ethanol

Last year a controversial (non-peer reviewed) study was published in Science magazine by environmentalist Tim Searchinger that introduced the innocuous four-letter acronym ILUC, or Indirect Land Use Change.

According to ILUC theory, corn used for ethanol production cuts into American grain exports and thus provides a bigger market for competitors such as Brazil. This in turn leads to deforestation as Brazil expands its grain production.

Many well-meaning folks, including some prominent Washington, D.C. decision makers, bought the concept hook, line and sinker. As time goes on it is becoming increasingly obvious that what we are really witnessing is perhaps the most aggressive taking of land by military force or governmental influence since the Louisiana Purchase or the Oklahoma land rush of 1889. All of which has nothing to do with corn or ethanol production in the U.S.

While most land grabs are about expanding territorial holdings or broadening power, this new generation of real estate pilfering in Brazil seems to be about pure economics and is fueled by efforts to transfer land to the poor as a social program. In other places like Peru, petro dollars, or timber and mining profits are driving the land circus. Until the public at large begins to understand this, the rainforests will remain at risk, and we will continue to hold back the ethanol industry in the U.S. which has real environmental contributions to make.

The latest stir is being caused by a law expected to be approved by Brazil’s Congress granting 1.2 million people and numerous companies legal titles to a huge chunk of the Amazon rain forest. The government says the new bill will benefit impoverished peasants who were encouraged to settle the Amazon during the 1964-85 military dictatorship but were never provided with legal support, public security or financial aid.

Reutters news wire recently did a decent job of exploring this issue and exposing the true villains of Amazon destruction. http://tiny.cc/pbQ2r

“It’s not about world demand for agricultural products,” said John Carter, a rancher from San Antonio, Texas, who moved to the northeast of Mato Grosso 13 years ago with his Brazilian wife. “This is no man’s land and it’s a case of grab all you can while it’s still easy.”

Carter, who advocates more thoughtful planning and integrating rainforest conservation as part of Brazil’s land use strategy, has openly expressed his concern at difficulties in enforcing any laws or programs geared to save the rainforest, but also in the world’s apparent lack of understanding of the entire issue.  While Brazil has aggressive environmental regulations in place, including the preservation of rainforest, much of the Brazilian frontier in Carter’s neck of the woods is subject to lawlessness akin to the American Wild West of the 1880′s.  There are laws.  There’s just little or no enforcement.

In fact, deforestation has been going on in Brazil for more than three decades, long before ethanol became a significant market for corn. The Brazilian government seeks to benefit impoverished peasants who are being encouraged to settle the Amazon, often without benefit of land titles or legal ownership. The lure is free land. Once they arrive the fastest way to make a quick buck – hey, they are legitimately poor, is to cut the valuable Brazilian hardwoods down. They harvest these trees not only on the land they are given but anywhere else they can get away with it, even if they have to do so under cover of darkness.

Squatters come into an area and set up a “residence.”  They cut down a few trees, plant a few crops…and then lay claim to land that is actually owned by someone else, sometimes an absentee landowner.  Many times, the courts have found in the favor of the squatters…because they are actually doing something to “improve” the land…in spite of the fact they have entered it and developed it illegally.

Land use has been changing ever since Man showed up on the planet.  We turned prairie into farmland.  The East Coast of the U.S. cut down forests to build cities.  Brazil built its new capital city in the middle of virgin territory in the 1960s.  We build canals to provide drinking water to Los Angeles.  And we scar the earth with quarries, copper mines, oil fields, wars, etc.  Not to mention what Nature does with fires, floods and hurricanes. I’m not saying its’ right or wrong.  It just is.  Some people will call it progress and some will call it willful negligence.

That is a debate for another day, but while we ponder this heavy philosophical question will the anti-ethanol faction (big oil, grocery manufacturers, etc) stop trying to bury our best hope for long-term energy solutions under a bogus land use issue.

Land use, especially rainforest protection, is a big issue and one that deserves careful thought, but we should remove the U.S. corn and ethanol industry from the equation.