:00:02. > :00:05.Now it is time for Our World. We look at how the Brits -- the
:00:06. > :00:14.Brazilian authorities are turning back the destruction of the
:00:14. > :00:18.Amazonian rainforest. This is the refereeing, the story
:00:18. > :00:24.of an environmental battle that is actually being one. -- the rare
:00:24. > :00:31.thing. Battles do not get much bigger than this, this is the
:00:31. > :00:37.battle to save the Amazon. TRANSLATION: You cannot go into
:00:37. > :00:41.battle thinking that you are going to lose. For years, the received
:00:41. > :00:46.wisdom has been that the remorseless tide of destruction in
:00:46. > :00:53.the world's tropical forests cannot be stopped. Brazil is proving that
:00:53. > :00:58.it can. These huge conservation gains have never been achieved in
:00:58. > :01:03.the history of the world. The Amazon can cheap -- can achieve the
:01:03. > :01:08.end of deforestation. Vast farms have already been cut out of the
:01:08. > :01:16.Amazon, but in the last five years, Brazil has cut deforestation by
:01:16. > :01:26.more than 70%. I am in the Amazon to discover how this remarkable
:01:26. > :01:43.
:01:43. > :01:49.The reason it is so difficult to stop deforestation in the Amazon
:01:49. > :01:52.jungle is really quite simple. Like so many things, it is a question of
:01:52. > :01:58.economics. Leave the Foreign standing and it is worth nothing,
:01:58. > :02:05.but cut it down, then you have lots to sell, and then you have got land
:02:05. > :02:10.that you can farm on. For decades, that is what has been leading to
:02:10. > :02:16.deforestation. You only have to look at than that
:02:16. > :02:20.used to see that. Cleared land in the Amazon is worth many times
:02:20. > :02:30.landed with Forest on. With economic logic is powerful, how on
:02:30. > :02:35.
:02:35. > :02:39.earth can Brazil be winning? In a sleepy town on the edge of the
:02:39. > :02:48.Amazon, officers from the Brazilian environmental agency relax minutes
:02:48. > :02:53.before a jungle rate. Inside the HQ, the commander's plan the attack. He
:02:53. > :03:00.says do not worry about guns. The guns they had are likely to be
:03:00. > :03:06.hunting guns, nothing serious, nothing to worry about. For years,
:03:06. > :03:11.there was only one story in the Amazon, destruction. In the decade
:03:11. > :03:16.up to 2005, an average of 20,000 square kilometres of forest was
:03:16. > :03:21.lost each year. It really is an area the size of Wales every single
:03:21. > :03:30.year. Three-quarters of the country's carbon emissions were
:03:30. > :03:37.from deforestation. Concern about climate change was crying around
:03:37. > :03:42.the world, particularly in Brazil. -- was growing. In 2005, the
:03:42. > :03:46.government realised it had a unique opportunity, it could go green, cut
:03:46. > :03:54.carbon emissions, despite tackling deforestation, and crucially, it
:03:54. > :03:58.would barely affect economic growth. Brazil promised a 40% emissions
:03:58. > :04:04.reduction by 2020. It is the biggest voluntary commitment of any
:04:04. > :04:09.country in history. In order to do that, it declared war on
:04:09. > :04:15.deforestation, vowing to cut it by 80% in the same period. Many
:04:15. > :04:19.commentators said that it was impossible. How confident are you
:04:19. > :04:28.that Brazil can successfully protected the Amazon? Totally
:04:28. > :04:33.confident. You cannot go into battle thinking that you can lose.
:04:33. > :04:36.That is what Churchill thought. Brazil created vast new national
:04:37. > :04:46.parks and protected areas, so there could be no doubt who the land
:04:47. > :04:51.
:04:51. > :04:56.belonged to. So a barrier running along the arc of destruction.
:04:56. > :05:03.Exactly. If people start cutting down trees in the protected areas,
:05:03. > :05:08.the police are now able to act very forcefully to stop this. In the
:05:08. > :05:14.past, they were cut down because the state wanted them cut down. Now
:05:14. > :05:20.the state has decided it does not want that. Before that, policing
:05:20. > :05:28.was not very effective. How do you police an area the size of the
:05:28. > :05:32.Amazon? A big area has been cleared completely. I can see a logging
:05:32. > :05:41.track in the clearing. There up the ball down there, looking up at the
:05:41. > :05:46.helicopter. -- there are people. We have just landed the helicopter and
:05:46. > :05:56.the officers are going over to the truck. It has had freshly cut logs
:05:56. > :06:02.
:06:03. > :06:08.on it. The guys seem to have run off into the woods. They were here
:06:08. > :06:15.a moment ago. As we landed, they were still here, so they must be
:06:15. > :06:20.around here somewhere. IBAMA has only six helicopters and 600
:06:20. > :06:30.offices in the field. It has to control the area or 400 -- 4
:06:30. > :06:30.
:06:30. > :06:35.million square kilometres, the size of a continent. But new technology
:06:35. > :06:38.has come to the aid of the Amazon. At the IBAMA headquarters in
:06:38. > :06:47.Brasilia, they want to show me a powerful new weapon in their
:06:47. > :06:57.armoury. We are about to enter the nerve centre of Brazil's operations
:06:57. > :07:03.
:07:03. > :07:08.against deforestation. It is a little bit disappointing. It looks
:07:08. > :07:12.like an insurance company. He says that new satellite monitoring
:07:12. > :07:22.technology means that you cannot cut down the forest and expect to
:07:22. > :07:23.
:07:23. > :07:28.get away with it. How often do you get satellite images? Each two days.
:07:29. > :07:35.We send it to our Field people. you can literally watch a
:07:35. > :07:40.deforestation unfolding, sitting at your desk? Yes. We can arrive there
:07:40. > :07:48.and punish the people. So you stop them as they begin to cut the
:07:48. > :07:56.Forest? At S. It has made IBAMA much more effective, but they still
:07:56. > :08:06.do not get their man every time. They have run off into the forest.
:08:06. > :08:06.
:08:06. > :08:16.What do we do now? So we are going to wait here for a bit and see what
:08:16. > :08:17.
:08:17. > :08:25.happens. Now it is a waiting game. The
:08:25. > :08:30.helicopter has taken off. We are hoping the people will come back to
:08:30. > :08:40.get their equipment and then we will arrest them. I will be honest,
:08:40. > :08:40.
:08:40. > :08:46.I did not think this was going to work.
:08:46. > :08:56.But it is not just the attitude of the government that is changing.
:08:56. > :08:59.This is a very unusual event. These guys are cowboys, they are cattle
:08:59. > :09:07.ranchers and cowboys. They are here for the Amazonian farmer of the
:09:07. > :09:11.Year award. Farming in the Amazon jungle sounds like a contradiction,
:09:11. > :09:17.because you cannot farm in the forest, unless you cut the trees
:09:17. > :09:27.down first. But the prizes they are giving out tonight are four good
:09:27. > :09:32.
:09:32. > :09:39.land management and that means protecting the forest as well.
:09:39. > :09:44.TRANSLATION: This is more than a trophy. In the past, we did things
:09:44. > :09:48.that were not right. Our generation has the opportunity to prepare --
:09:49. > :09:58.repair those mistakes. I feel the good work that I had been doing has
:09:59. > :10:03.
:10:03. > :10:07.been recognised. I have a strategy for each of the adversaries. They
:10:07. > :10:15.are members of a new alliance of farmers, they want to improve
:10:15. > :10:21.environmental management on their land. The movement is inspired by
:10:21. > :10:27.this man. John Carter is an ex-US special forces soldier turned
:10:27. > :10:31.Amazonian rancher. He formed Alianca after squatters invaded his
:10:31. > :10:41.ranch in the Amazon and burned down the 4,000 hectares of forest that
:10:41. > :10:43.
:10:43. > :10:53.he had on his land. It inspired him to try and do something to stop the
:10:53. > :10:56.
:10:56. > :10:59.destruction in the Amazon. I flew with John out to his ranch,
:10:59. > :11:09.right on the Frontier with the rainforest. The law does not carry
:11:09. > :11:16.
:11:16. > :11:21.much weight out here. When his right was invaded and the
:11:21. > :11:27.police did not help, he came very close to taking the law into his
:11:27. > :11:37.own hands. How close were you to picking up your rifle and heading
:11:37. > :11:38.
:11:38. > :11:45.into the forest? Buried many times I did that. So you literally raised
:11:45. > :11:52.your gun to your shoulder? Yes. I had the finger to the trigger. My
:11:52. > :11:59.hand was shaking. What stop you? conscience. If I did that, I would
:11:59. > :12:09.become one of them. It gave the emotion and energy to help me
:12:09. > :12:20.
:12:20. > :12:24.consolidate what we build. But the only reason farmers endured
:12:24. > :12:29.the chaos of life in the Frontier was because they want to make money,
:12:29. > :12:39.and trees get in the way of that. So how can they be persuaded to
:12:39. > :12:41.
:12:41. > :12:48.protect the forest? John took me to see one of the
:12:48. > :12:53.members of his alliance. When Gilmar Burnier arrived here 26
:12:53. > :13:01.years ago, this whole area was dense rainforest, the government
:13:01. > :13:10.encouraged him to cut it down, to open up the land. TRANSLATION:
:13:10. > :13:18.Farmers came here with a dream. Now we are told the way we are doing it
:13:18. > :13:22.is wrong. We have cut down to much forest. We had authorities a riot
:13:22. > :13:27.with helicopters and machine-guns. They treat us like baddies. All the
:13:28. > :13:33.farmers were very upset about that. He is keen to work with John to
:13:33. > :13:39.improve things on his farm. Lots of other farmers seem to be as well.
:13:39. > :13:46.Alianca has been running for five years, it has almost 500 members,
:13:46. > :13:51.with farms covering almost 3 million hectares. TRANSLATION:
:13:51. > :13:57.John's idealism has been like a light to ours. I have planted new
:13:57. > :14:02.trees. The attitude of the farmers has really changed. We want to do
:14:02. > :14:08.the right thing. John believes the key to persuading
:14:08. > :14:15.farmers to change is to appeal to their pride.
:14:15. > :14:18.First, we say that they are a good person. He would do above and
:14:18. > :14:28.beyond, just when they know that someone is watching them in a nice
:14:28. > :14:34.
:14:34. > :14:40.John's powers of persuasion became apparent for me. We met a Ian black
:14:40. > :14:44.caiman, the top predator in the Amazon. John hopes that in time
:14:44. > :14:54.there will be financial incentives to do the right thing. Access to
:14:54. > :14:55.
:14:55. > :15:05.the right markets for beef and soya. The aim is to produce something the
:15:05. > :15:07.
:15:07. > :15:14.consumer can trust. You know the product is clean. You know they are
:15:14. > :15:24.truly producing her life. There is already dramatic evidence the power
:15:24. > :15:28.
:15:28. > :15:37.of the markets can change behaviour During the peak of Amazon
:15:37. > :15:42.deforestation, a new home emerged. New strains of tropical soya meant
:15:42. > :15:47.farmers were setting up some of the most ambitious agricultural
:15:47. > :15:54.enterprises on the planet. They were growing huge amounts of soya
:15:54. > :16:04.that was exported across the globe. The problem is some farmers were
:16:04. > :16:08.
:16:08. > :16:11.not sharing. You can see soya in many of the farms from here.
:16:11. > :16:20.Greenpeace used its planes to map these illegal farms and find out
:16:20. > :16:25.who they were selling to. We showed the problem. We tracked it from
:16:25. > :16:34.deforestation, through the chain, and found out that companies like
:16:34. > :16:39.McDonald's were buying soya that came directly from the areas that
:16:39. > :16:43.had been deforested. The idea was to recruit the power of the world's
:16:43. > :16:51.consumers to persuade the industry to change its ways. It seemed to
:16:51. > :16:55.work. TRANSLATION: We were coming under heavy criticism and realised
:16:55. > :17:02.that unless we responded and came up with a plan we would not be able
:17:02. > :17:07.to sell our products. This man is known as a persuader, a king of
:17:07. > :17:13.soya. For many years he was the biggest soya farmer in the entire
:17:13. > :17:18.world. Now he is an influential politician. TRANSLATION: When we
:17:18. > :17:23.started to talk to the pressure groups, we started to reach a
:17:23. > :17:28.compromise. Then I got annoyed. They would be charming to me in my
:17:28. > :17:35.office and we would plan together. Then they would go as and say
:17:35. > :17:43.horrible things. I called them and said, you are treating me like a
:17:43. > :17:48.mistress. You hold me by the hand but on the street you are ashamed
:17:48. > :17:52.of me. Either we go onto the streets and you hold my hand or it
:17:52. > :18:01.is over. From then on, we got married and it has ended happily
:18:01. > :18:09.ever after. Despite this lover's tiff the
:18:09. > :18:17.threat of losing markets abroad proved persuasive. In 2006, he
:18:17. > :18:27.agreed to a moratorium agreed that many companies would not buy soya
:18:27. > :18:29.
:18:29. > :18:37.from deforested land. McDonald's This combination of different
:18:37. > :18:44.pressures and improved monitoring and the changing attitudes amongst
:18:44. > :18:54.farmers and successful campaigning by pressure groups has come
:18:54. > :19:06.
:19:07. > :19:13.He is a little bit shocked to have been caught. We are just going to
:19:13. > :19:18.see if the agents are going to catch the other one.
:19:18. > :19:24.Last year saw the lowest level of deforestation in the Amazon are
:19:24. > :19:30.since records began in the 80s. Just over 6,000 square kilometres
:19:30. > :19:35.were cut. The underlying economics no have not changed. Does it worry
:19:35. > :19:45.you are damaging the forest? TRANSLATION: I know it is wrong.
:19:45. > :19:58.
:19:58. > :20:05.In one remote Amazonian state they found very unexpected ways to pull
:20:05. > :20:12.the economics back in favour of the trees. It is 3am and I am being led
:20:12. > :20:16.deep into the rainforest, wearing a bizarre traditional torch. We are
:20:16. > :20:23.equipped for action, about to head into the jungle to see a project
:20:23. > :20:28.that has achieved the Holy Grail of a forest conservation, reversing
:20:28. > :20:34.the logic of deforestation. It will be more profitable for local people
:20:34. > :20:44.like Tito to keep the forest standing than to cut it down. So
:20:44. > :21:01.
:21:01. > :21:11.The Player 20 happens before dawn, just as the sap begins to rise. --
:21:11. > :21:12.
:21:12. > :21:19.theme rubber tapping. This is the traditional method. It was one of
:21:19. > :21:23.the first businesses to draw people into the Amazon 150 years ago. The
:21:23. > :21:28.industry collapsed when a British adventurer stole scenes from the
:21:28. > :21:37.forest and huge rubber plantations were set up in Asia, which produce
:21:37. > :21:43.rather more cheaply. -- brother. So how have they managed to make wild
:21:43. > :21:51.Amazonian rather profitable again? Here is how. They use it to make
:21:51. > :22:00.these. The world's first rain forest friendly combines. Hundreds
:22:00. > :22:08.of millions of them every year. -- condoms. So these are official
:22:08. > :22:14.condoms? Yes. All of the activities here need subsidy? They would not
:22:14. > :22:20.be proper double on their own? How will you find the money? We are
:22:20. > :22:30.trying to avoid deforestation. If we do not have deforestation
:22:30. > :22:38.
:22:38. > :22:47.In the past year, there has been a huge backlash from the rural sector
:22:47. > :22:53.in Brazil. The Brazilian parliament has voted to cut the area of forest
:22:53. > :23:03.farmers have to keep on their land from 80 to 50%. The change can only
:23:03. > :23:06.
:23:06. > :23:14.be stopped if the President vetoes What are you doing? I am just
:23:14. > :23:24.getting started. Dilma Rousseff is studying the effect of fire on the
:23:24. > :23:29.forest. He is one of the world's leading Forest side to us. It feels
:23:29. > :23:38.like playing with matches in the middle of the forest. But it is in
:23:38. > :23:45.the name of science. Do I get the opportunity to set fire to the
:23:45. > :23:50.rainforest? He believes it is not too late to save the Amazon. 80% of
:23:50. > :23:56.the forest is still standing. He says the battle has reached a
:23:56. > :24:03.crucial phase. In six years, deforestation has come down 60%
:24:03. > :24:07.below its previous ten-year average. Brazil needs to be applauded. This
:24:07. > :24:14.is a huge accomplishment. Whether they can keep it up, that is
:24:14. > :24:21.another question. There is a theory that if the government becomes more
:24:21. > :24:28.relaxed, there will be a free fall. The next few months will determine
:24:28. > :24:32.the direction in which Brazil will go. There is only one way to
:24:32. > :24:42.appreciate the beauty of the rainforest and that is from right
:24:42. > :24:46.up in the canopy. It can be quite scary getting up there.
:24:46. > :24:52.It may be hard getting up here but once you are here, you get an
:24:52. > :24:59.incredible view of the canopy. For so many years, received wisdom has
:24:59. > :25:03.been the world's tropical rainforests are doomed. Brazil is
:25:03. > :25:10.demonstrating that the fire station can be tamed. Of course, its