The measures that regulate access to forest resources in Brazil are characterized by the coercive nature of their command and control, and therefore remain in direct conflict with economic incentives that drive private activities, which makes their implementation and enforcement difficult.
Notwithstanding this, in the last years, enforcement of the laws and regulations concerned with the access and use of forest resources in the country, and particularly in the Amazon, has improved considerably, and more modern instruments of control, monitoring and inspection of deforestation and timber exploitation activities in the natural forests of Amazonia have been instituted and implemented, providing new partnerships and some integration of actions among federal and state governmental agencies. The development and the recent start, although still partial, of SISPROF’s operation in the Amazon region is an outstanding testimony of such an effort.
Effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the enforcement of laws and regulations depend on many things: political willingness to exercise control, difficulties to overcome contrary to local political interests, lack of severity in implementation, loopholes that favour fraud, insufficient financial and material resources, the size or dimension of a target region, like the Amazon, where there are enormous areas and agents to be monitored, etc., etc.
Effectiveness or ineffectiveness of enforcement certainly depends on whether or not the control instruments have been rightly conceived to be comprehensive enough in incorporating and attending to all the requirements, dispositions and principles of the law and its regulations. In this respect, it could be said that SISPROF has tried its best to cope with such a necessity. In the case of Amazonia, as we have endeavoured to show, any modern system of control had to be sufficiently inclusive to take into account the whole chain of custody of extraction and processing of forest resources, ranging from where they are obtained (landholdings) to the units where they are finally processed.
A remarkable feature of the system, as we underscored, lies in its form of control providing latitude for not overcharging or imposing an additional burden on forest management in Amazonia, an activity that needs more favourable treatment in the region. In fact, the system is capable of paying for itself without compromising that objective. SISPROF will undoubtedly allow Brazilian society to have a more transparent and reliable assurance of the performance of forest-based or related activities implemented at the management unit level. Federal government, and IBAMA, will be more capable of reporting on the monitoring of these activities, and on their progress towards sustainability. SISPROF must become fully operational in order that its instruments achieve greater effectiveness, as well as to facilitate more integration and sharing of competence among federal and state government institutions in Amazonia. On the basis and experience of the system’s more complete functioning, international cooperation with other Amazonian countries could also be envisaged, especially for harmonizing efforts concerning reporting on progress towards the objectives of SFM as foreseen, for instance, in the regional Tarapoto process of criteria and indicators. On these grounds, the experience of IBAMA with the implementation of SISPROF shall be of great value to other similar institutions in the region.
Finally, it must not be forgotten that, although necessary, SISPROF is not sufficient to hold deforestation or to revert the predatory pattern of forest resource exploitation in Amazonia. More powerful incentives move people in the direction of converting forest areas to other more profitable land uses in the absence of concrete economic value for those areas. Indeed, it is difficult to curb such behaviour with legal and control instruments only. To increase the chances and profitability of SFM in Amazonia, other more efficient, incentive-oriented policy mechanisms are needed and must urgently be established. The full functioning of SISPROF and its instruments will certainly be an indispensable support for any such coming mechanism aimed at transforming forestry into a permanent, sustainable activity in the Brazilian Amazon.
