Study performed by 10 Brazilian scientists reveal that the living stock greenhouse gas during 2003-2008 for the Amazon and “cerrado” biome varies between 813 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2008 at least 1.090 Gigatons of CO2e in 2003. The total emission associated with the Amazon live stocking varies between 499 and 775 million tons of CO2e, about the open pasture, between 229 and 231 million tons of CO2e. In other Brazilian regions, the sector emission varies 84 to 87 million tons of CO2e.

According to the study that will be presented at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen on December 12th. Now, in “cerrado”, the researchers detected that 56.5% out of the deforestation happened in the current period resulted from the establishment of new pasture contribution to the total Brazilian emission that can reach about 50%, for instance 2005.

By the other hand, in years of smaller deforestation, the cattle raising contribution to the emission decreased proportionally.

Three main sources of emission were analyzed: deforestation for the pasture and subsequent burns of the deforested vegetation; pasture burns and cattle enteric fermentation. However, this study does not consider soil emissions from degraded pasture, agriculture production of animal food, meat transportation and processing.

The emission data from fire used for pasture maintenance and cattle enteric fermentation include the whole country.

The study outcome also points to the possibility of getting a reduction in greenhouse gas emission, depending on the cattle raising in Brazil. Considering that cattle raising can account up to 50% of gas emission in the country, the activity can be an important player concerning green house gas emission mitigation efforts in Brazil.

Government and Society

The study suggests a series of mitigation policy advises to be implemented by public and private management. Most of these policies offer opportunities to reach social, economical and environmental additional and complementary benefits to the climate change mitigation.

The mitigation opportunities include deforestation reduction, less burning in the pasture, recovering of degraded soil and pasture, the regeneration of the secondary forest, enteric fermentation reduction, crop-cattle integration, among others.

The survey remind us that a great policy challenge is to reduce the general perception of that law is not enforced when Federal lands are occupied, as well as for crimes and environmental violation: the lack of command in the political implementation and monitoring on those areas disfavor investments on the recovering of degraded lands, reforestation associated with the intensification and creation of a long term sustainable pasture management in the production already existent. There is a clear relation among the impunity, the uncontrolled agrarian speculation and the forest degradation, especially in the Amazon, the survey is enhanced.

Throughout the world, is clear that the establishment of a sustainable and long term wide approach, as REDD could expressively favor the necessary transition to a low carbon cattle raising sector in Brazil.

Productive chain

According to the study, an adequate industrial zoning must be established to attend the cattle raising sector, avoiding the historical lack of planning and the uncontrolled expansion of the cattle raising activity. According to the scientists, the government has a key role in this issue, not only because the zoning requires regulatory intervention, but also because most of the investments for this segment come from state developing Banks.

Actions to expand the organization and transparency within the chamber of commerce would facilitate the adoption of the selective payment, important issue to stimulate and reward the investments about cattle producers. Besides, the role of the retail sector is essential on proposing strategies in relation to the supply and demand of beef.

The study considers that the GEE balance of the product should be taken into account in the production chain, instead of having the product in a “environmental black list”. Besides that, tracking and verification policies should be implemented, allowing certification by a third party.

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Source: INPE