"Guardians of the forest" - an immoral speech.

The human being is essentially gregarious. This characteristic led to the emergence of cities, which, therefore, provided the development of human societies in all aspects. In effect, the urban world allows man to make full use of his potentials. However, many populations around the world still remain excluded from the benefits of urbanization, which even limits access to full citizenship. A huge social debt in many countries.

In this sense, it should be considered as a moral duty for all national societies to create conditions so that human groups forced by poverty to remain isolated can decide whether or not to join urban life.

In the case of the Amazon region, of continental dimensions, with very low levels of socioeconomic development, this theme is especially relevant. There are thousands of small isolated communities, scattered in the forest, on the banks of rivers, where human beings live like animals, without access to anything. They have no health, no education, no food security, nothing. Sadder, these people have no hope of changing their own destiny.

Even so, there are those who, shamefully, defend the permanence of these populations in their eternal state of isolation. Among these are some NGOs that develop REDD + offset projects (Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). Now REDD + projects are the instruments that aim to guarantee to the buyer of carbon credits that the forest in which they invested their resources will remain untouched. If the forest, which is the carbon stock, is deforested or burned, the investment literally turns into smoke. The "mechanism" proposed by these NGOs, then, is to keep these people, already so suffering and despoiled, in isolated communities as "guardians of the forest". Now, to propose that is immoral and cowardly! It is to use and abuse the misery of others.

To make up for this indecency with some morality, there is the unsustainable discourse that these people are being protected, because if they went to the city they would run social risk, inflating the urban peripheries, exposing themselves to all kinds of precariousness.

Anyone who accepts this argument seems to forget that everyone should have the right to risk to prosper. This is perhaps the most precious right for any human being. So much so that there is no one who, having left his community in the forest and coming to the city, decides to return to his precarious life. In the city, it can be tougher in some ways, but there is at least hope, although it is often frustrated. But, it is still hope, something impossible to have in a situation of isolation in the forest.

NGOs try to hide the harsh truth with small investments in the construction of little schools (which, in general, do not have a teacher, by the way), carrying out income-generating projects that never prosper, among other useless things. Everything to make us believe that there will always be a contingent of slaves to keep investments in "carbon stock". Wanting to reduce the brave people of the Amazon to "guardians of the forest" is a boon.

Why don't the leaders of these NGOs go, the "environmentalists", the investors who finance this shame, themselves being such "guardians" ?! Why don't you send your children to study in the "little schools" that they build for the miserable ?! Now, it would be wanting too much. These NGOs and their sponsors live in luxury in upscale neighborhoods in big cities, travel the world in first class, stay in five-star hotels, send their children to the best universities around the world ...

Amazonians who want the best for the region, for their children and for themselves must reject the empty and deceptive discourse of sustainability and environmental conservation, as well as the "green" economy. What we should all want is the normalization of economic life in the region, with full exploitation of all natural resources already, for our generation, with respect for the environment, but with a primary focus on economic development. The great legacy that we must leave for future generations is not an untouched forest, but rather PROSPERITY. It is prosperity that will allow all Amazonians to achieve a great destiny, both individual and collective.

Belisário Arce

CEO

PanAmazônia Association