"Social movements and organisations
do not accept the export of ethanol and other agrofuels (from Brazil)
and say that the production of ethanol in Brazil is not sustainable"
Brasília, 06/05/2008: On the eve of the signing of
a bilateral energy cooperation agreement between Germany and Brazil,
Minister Marina assured the German Minister of the Environment that
criteria exist for guaranteeing that ethanol production in Brazil
is sustainable.
Brazilian Civil Society is unaware of the existence of any such criteria,
supposedly adopted by Brazil for the production of agrofuels, and
does not know in what form they have been adopted or implemented by
the government. In addition, according to the declaration produced
by the national conference on agroenergy (Curitiba, OCT 2007) social
movements and organisations from all over the country reject the production
of export and the worldwide expansion of agrofuels and repeated their
denunciation of the violations of human rights throughout the chain
of production of ethanol in Brazil, as well as the impacts on biodiversity.
Recently a group of German organisations (FIAN, Misereor, EED, and
Bread for the World) carried out an international investigation in
Brazil to verify the denunciations, and alert the governments and
people of Europe.
The government of President Lula is trying to exclude sugar cane ethanol
from the world debate on the price of food and the impacts of competition
between food and energy. In her declaration, Minister Marina Silva
integrates the government task force to sell ethanol at any cost.
We consider that the Brazilian government should at the present time
- instead of supporting the sugarcane sector - undertake the essential
democratic debate on the serious impacts of the expansion of agribusiness
for energy on peasant populations and biodiversity.
We, the movements and organisations of Brazilian civil society named
below, say that the root of the problem should be addressed - the
model of production and the unusustainable consumption of energy -
and that the agrofuels are a false solution to climate change. We
uphold food and energy sovereignty for the people, agrarian reform,
local and agroecological peasant production as the true solution to
the global food, environmental and energy crisis.
Signatories to the final document of the national conference
on agroenergy:
Assinaram o documento final da Conferência Nacional de Agroenergia:
Via Campesina Brasil: Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra
(MST), Movimento dos Pequenos Produtores (MPA), Movimento das Mulheres
Camponesas (MMC) e Movimentos dos Atingidos Por Barragens (MAB), Pastoral
da Juventude Rural (PJR), Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT),
a Federação dos Estudantes Agronomia do Brasil (FEAB);
Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI); CUT, REBRIP, FBOMS,
GT Energia do FBOMS, Terra de Direitos, Amigos da Terra- Nat Brasil,
FASE, Plataforma DHESCA Brasil, IEEP, REPAS, Cooperbio, Rede Ecossocialista,
Fetrasp, Feraesp, SindPetro.
Signatories
to this declaration:
FIAN Brasil- Rede de Informação e Ação
pelo Direito a Se Alimentar, Centro Ecológico, Inesc - Instituto
de Estudos Socioeconômicos e Rede Social de Justiça e
Direitos Humanos
