Mahardika Putra Purba Spotlights Tasso Azevedo
By Mahardika Putra Purba, Travel Scholar and Speaker Ambassador at the 2019 Planetary Health Annual Meeting
I had the honor of being Tasso Azevedo’s speaker ambassador during the 2019 Planetary Health Annual Meeting. Tasso Azevedo is a consultant and social entrepreneur in the field of forests, sustainability, and climate change and the general coordinator of the System for Estimation of GHG emissions (SEEG) and the initiative for Annual Mapping Land Cover in Brazil (MapBiomas), which now has also been used in different parts of the world, including the country where I came from, which is Indonesia. Tasso was the founder and director of the Institute of Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (IMAFLORA), Director of the National Forest Program at the Ministry of Environment, Secretary-General of the National Forest Commission, and former Chief and Director General of the Brazilian Forest Service. Tasso was one of the key people involved in the design and implementation of the National Plan to Combat Deforestation in the Amazon, Amazon Fund, and the Brazilian targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. During the Speaker Ambassador Program, I had the privilege to talk with Tasso in person about deforestation and its relation to carbon emissions, which is timely and relevant to the country where I came from, and discuss how possible it is for us to tackle these issues based on some of the success stories he had during his work in the government. Tasso explains that in the nineties, for some years, Brazil was the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, and today Brazil still sits in the top five of greenhouse gas emitters. Despite having advancements in renewable energy, such as the use of electric cars and ethanol fuel, Brazil still has challenges in land-use change, particularly in regards to deforestation, which is why the country still has enormous greenhouse emissions.
In 2003 Tasso was working in government, running as Director-General of the Brazilian Forest Service. At that time, Tasso stuck to the idea that no matter what his country is doing in other areas, if they don’t actually succeed in decreasing deforestation, they will never have a success story in combating greenhouse emissions in Brazil. Tasso and his team worked very hard to fight deforestation, and as a result, Brazil’s deforestation dropped up to 80% between 2004 and 2012. Tasso mentioned that this was possible because of four main elements/actions that happened at that time: First, deforestation monitoring where they mapped land cover monthly and tracked its changes; second, a focus on law enforcement (punishing illegal activity within the forest); third, land tenure clearance to recognize Indigenous land and establish protected areas (most of the deforestation is linked to the process of land grabbing, which is a strategy to occupy and then own the land); and last, transferring the responsibility and liability over deforestation all the way to the supply chain of the different products.
Tasso highlights what actually allowed him and his team to do those actions. There are at least three strategies: First is the idea of giving important signs of expectations. Deforestation can be affected by whether or not there is an expectation being punished. If there’s no expectation that someone who did it will get caught, then that person will keep doing it. Therefore, we have to give a sign that if they do something illegal, there will be consequences. In a simple way, Tasso explained, if you have an illegal deforestation area, clear cut, you can map the area digitally, and you can make a sign that everything that comes from or produced from that place is illegal, and then you make all the changes of custody responsible for that. For example, let’s say that if you buy animals from that area, it means you are doing something illegal. Another thing that Tasso promotes is the idea of legacy. Politicians often have a sense that they want to do something that people will remember in the future. Tasso promotes and convinces politicians to create massive areas of protected forest and do good things, in order for these politicians to have a legacy for people to remember. And the last thing is to embrace the interest of the decision makers. No matter what their interest is, you don’t have to agree on it; however, try to think about how you can leverage their interests to the benefit of your cause.
In the short but meaningful time Tasso and I shared during the conference, he was a true mentor to me and was a brilliant person. I took home a lot of knowledge on how to combat deforestation, which is still happening rampantly in my country. I am also inspired to share his knowledge and to look at the root of the problem from different perspectives in order to understand the issue thoroughly before designing a program that can actually address the issues themselves.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Planetary Health Alliance or its members.
