By Henrique Saunier

Translated by Felipe Sá

Photo: Idesam/Aliança Apuí

The forest fires that hit Apuí (Amazonas) this year sparked a worldwide red alert resulting in the creation of the Aliança Apuí (Apuí Alliance, in English), a group that got together to take effective and smart actions to avoid that the burnings continue in the same proportions. In addition to equipping and training people to work in a voluntary “Fire Brigade”, the Apuí Alliance will distribute 11,500 seedling in early December focusing on areas affected by the fire.

Currently, the Apuí Alliance is coordinated by Idesam and the Municipality’s Secretariat of the Environment with the support of WeForest, WWF and FARM, all united with the same goal of controlling the burnings and fires in the region and making the data on deforestation and heat sources more transparent.

With various action lines, the Apuí Alliance has already trained around 20 people as well as purchased fire fighting supplies and equipment and carried out an educational work on fire prevention in schools and producer associations.

Aligned with this prerrogative, besides taking practical actions against the fires, the group seeks to base its work on studies and analysis of the affected areas. The last study, still unpublished, signed by Idesam’s senior research associate, Gabriel Carrero, analyzes the burnings and fires estimating the damage at Apuí’s agricultural expansion frontier.

Carrero concludes that actions to reduce burns and fires should be focused on the establishment of firebreaks around both agriculture and newly cleared forest areas. Therefore, like the work that Idesam has been developing with producers in the last 10 years, techniques that don’t involve the use o fire for the formation and maintenance of agricultural areas should be further encouraged.

For Idesam’s representative in the coordination of the Apuí Alliance, Pedro Soares, the training offered is a key part of the Alliance for the municipality to have an increasingly prepared fire fighting and prevention structure. “These activities leave a legacy for Apuí and the idea is for this group of people to be able and equipped to act in the event of heat sources and to make Apuí’s producers and society in general more aware of the right ways to manage fire. But in fact, all our activities will be to prevent future burns and to avoid the situtation we faced this year”, Soares adds.

Seedlings donation

In addition to capacity building activities with theoretical and practical classes with volunteer brigade members of Apuí, another lecture will be held in the first week of December, targeting producers from the municipality. According to Idesam’s technician in Apuí, Vanilse Constante, the Alliance will also conduct the first tests of a new water pump with brigade members trained by the project.

One of the activities carried out by Aliança Apuí in partnership with Ibama’s PrevFogo

Another scheduled activity is the distribution of 11,000 seedlings that can be planted in areas affected by the burns. Vanilse Constante explains that all seedlings come from donations due to an environmental fine applied to a local farm.

Constante highlights that all the equipment purchased by the project will be passed on to the SEMMA (Apuí’s Secretariat of the Environment) and that the brigade members will also receive training on how to properly handle the tools.

One of these volunteers is Maurício Damacena, who also knows the importance of a better prepared Brigade to handle not only fire occurrences but also other accidents in the municipality.

“The level of fire in the municipality has been very high, but a Fire Brigade would be very good not only to put out a fire, it also assists in vehicle accidents, domestic accidents, so it is something that meets other demands of our region. The course we did was great, we learned new techniques, with practical and theoretical classes, including legislation, fighting different types of fires and first aid. In the practical part we were able to have a hands-on experience and do procedures that we will use in our daily work”, says Damacena.

Currently, the municipality of Apuí doesn’t have an official fire brigade, being covered by PrevFogo, coordinated by Ibama, at some times of the year.

By Henrique Saunier

Translated by Felipe Sá

Photo: Matheus Pedroso/Idesam

A little over two months after Idesam released a Technical Note with short and medium-term recommendations for the critical situation of the fires in Apuí, the Institute moves forward with one more action of the Apuí Alliance which made an analysis that associates the sources of heat of the fires and the region’s deforestation. According to data from INPE in the analysis signed by Idesam’s senior associate researcher, biologist Gabriel Carrero, from August 2018 to August 2019 28 thousand hectares were deforested in Apuí, equivalent to nearly 26 thousand soccer fields.

With this anaylisis that encompasses the first of all four thematic axes of the Apuí Alliance – “creation of strategic intelligence” – more actions can be taken with technical basis and with better knowledge of the most affected areas in the municipality. The other axes of the Alliance include: a “situation room”, which consists of a plan to promote fire prevention and its replacement as a method for pasture clearing; “fire-extinguishing”, which aims to qualify and equip the local brigade; and “recovering from the damage”, that carries out the planting of agroforestry and silvopastoral systems.

Currently, the Apuí Alliance is coordinated by Idesam and Apuí’s Secretariat of the Environment and is supported by WeForest, WWF and FARM. All organizations are united with the same purpose of controlling burnings and fires in the region and making data about deforestation and heat sources more transparent.

In this first analysis it was possible to spot the main areas and the profile of actors engaged in deforestation. The most critical regions are concentrated in the eastern and north-eastern portions of the Juma River Settlement Project, close to Dom Pedro, Nova Vida, Cacoal, Vale do Camaiú and Vila do Sucunduri.

To the biologist Gabriel Carrero who has been closely following the municipality’s situation for years, the analysis confirms a process that has been intensified since Apuí was founded. According to the researcher, forest areas are being occupied for the expansion of agricultural farms, especially by newcomers wanting to invest in the Amazon’s land and livestock market.

“The escalation of the expansion of farming areas not only reflects the arrival of people with money to invest, but also changes in the political and economic scenario since the approval of the new forest code in 2012, along with infrastructure improvements, agribusiness strengthening and reduction of control and inspection actions”, Carrero ponders.

Pedro Soares, Climate Change manager at Idesam, highlights that this preliminary study is just one of the actions already taken after the cases of forest fire in Apuí became bad news in both national and international media. Besides this first analysis of the situation, a second technical analysis with further details is in the final stages of preparation and will support decision-making. This analysis will quantify the extent of the areas affected by burnings and fires and how much of it took place in pasture, deforested and native forest areas.

“We are developing a transparency and accountability platform for the Apuí Alliance. A training of the Apuí Fire Brigade with the Fire Department was held in late October. Other than that, we followed the Brigade’s field activities together with Ibama’s PrevFogo (National Center for Forest Fire Prevention and Fighting)”, pointed out Soares, who said that the purchase of equipment needed to improve fire fighting is one of the next steps to be taken.

Actions

The southern region of the Amazonas state is an agricultural frontier in the Amazon, being pressured by what takes place in the states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia. Among the five municipalities listed as the most critically deforested ones, Apuí, Lábrea and Novo Aripuanã took a leap and they remain among the most deforested municipalities in the Amazon.

The actions suggested by the researcher in order to reduce burnings and fires should be focused on setting up firebreaks both around agricultural areas and newly cleared forest. He stresses that techniques that do not involve the use of fire for creating and maintaining farming areas need to be encouraged.

Among other actions, the Institute also proposes a positive agenda for the municipality that promotes forest restoration and encourages sustainable production. One of the strategies adopted by Idesam in its projects in the region and that should be more widespread is the use of agroforestry systems (SAFs, in Portuguese) and silvopastoral systems (SSPI, in Portuguese). This shows that it is possible to conciliate farming and forestry production with the conservation of native forests. The proposals also seek to consolidate the productive lives of locals by improving production, promoting low environmental impact techniques and combating invasions and land grabbing (grilagem).

*The complete analysis is available here (in Portuguese).