EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section openly for its daily and global information contribution on sustainable development. If you want to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Everyone knows Angelo Rabelo in the Pantanal, the largest freshwater wetland in the world. 30 years ago, they remember him wearing a military suit and in command of the Environmental Military Police of Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil), training almost a hundred forest guards. Today, they link him as leader of the Homem Pantaneiro Institute, a civil society organization that protects the ecosystem, manages protected areas and links local communities to be part of the preservation of the wealth of their territories. This is an extremely biodiverse space and the largest jaguar refuge in the world. For the former colonel, changing hats was not difficult: “I have been controlling poaching and illegal trafficking of these felines all my life in one way or another.”
Rabelo has a degree in military brigade officer training and in Law from the Dom Bosco Catholic University. He also has a master's degree in Public Security Management from the Center for Advanced Security Studies. And, as he recalls in a video call with América Futura, he has been implementing sustainability programs for decades in both the public and private sectors. His experience in the environmental field led him to meet with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, days before the president flew to Dubai, to follow up on COP28. “He brought together an expert from each ecosystem in Brazil, he wanted to understand them all, not just talk about the Amazon. I wanted to understand Brazil in its richness and plenitude,” he explains. That was one of the premises that he remembers having debated the most: “That the Pantanal has the same attention that the Amazon has. And that we work not only on reforestation, but also on the recovery of biodiversity.”
The former colonel – and the entire scientific and environmental community – unabashedly celebrate the change of Government in Brazil. “I would say that we are living in an exceptional moment, with Lula's Government, the Minister (of the Environment) Marina (Silva) and the governors. The one from Mato Grosso do Sul, for example, is a biologist. He is changing everything,” he adds. For Rabelo, during Jair Bolsonaro's mandate “many actions and programs were violently destroyed.” This is, he says, a great time to reverse it.
The carbon market, a way to preserve the jaguar
Among Rabelo's many priorities is that the Pantanal continues to be the largest refuge for jaguars in the world. Half of the largest cats on the planet live in that territory, but fires and deforestation seriously threaten this sanctuary. Although in the 80s and 90s, the main threats were animal trafficking and poaching, the current problem is the presence of landowners and ranchers who see the jaguar as a danger to their livestock. That is why the Colonel – as he is known in Brazil – has been focusing more and more on this conversation with the inhabitants and farm owners. “We have programs today dedicated to going farm to farm proposing efficient technology that already exists to reduce these conflicts and not wipe out the small population that remains,” he explains.
This species lives in 18 countries in America and its home is commonly ecosystems below 2,000 meters above sea level. such as tropical forests, montane forests, tropical savannahs and mangroves. Due to human intervention, jaguars have disappeared from 46% of their original territory and are extinct in countries such as El Salvador and Uruguay, according to WWF. In the rest of the continent, the species is in a state of near threat (NT) and its populations are decreasing, according to data from the IUCN Red List of species.
It is within this framework of challenges that Rabelo posed that the Jaguar Connection project also emerged in Brazil, an initiative promoted by Grupo ISA, a Colombian company specialized in energy with a presence throughout the region. The program supports the mitigation of retaliatory hunting, implementing a human-feline coexistence initiative where we work for a healthy coexistence between rural communities and wildlife. In addition, it provides technical and economic support to the best forestry initiatives throughout the Jaguar Corridor to be able to issue and market certified carbon credits.
Recently, they made public the creation of the REDD+ Project Serra do Amolar, in the Brazilian Pantanal, a World Natural Heritage and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It is the first certified with more than 231,000 approved carbon credits, after the audit and review process by the international VERRA standard and by an independent audit. These will be sold on the international voluntary market.
María Adelaida Correa, Corporate Director of Sustainability of the Colombian company ISA, emphasizes the relevance of the jaguar for ecosystems: “It is not free to choose the jaguar. We did it because it is an umbrella species. That is, the fact that the jaguar continues in its ecosystems is a sign that the system is healthy, that the food chain that follows it is present.”
Asked about how to guarantee that the economic benefits of this carbon market remain in the communities, Coronel is blunt: “There is a part of the carbon markets that are not working correctly, yes. But we cannot discredit this enormous opportunity at first. It is an irresponsible act. Climate change is coming very strong and this is a great opportunity.” For Rabelo, environmental education is very important, but it is not enough. “The market had to enter into the protection of ecosystems. Of course, companies intend to profit, but also to contribute to society,” he says.
#colonel #protects #Pantanal #largest #jaguar #reserve #world