The future of the Amazon
亞馬遜雨林的未來
Deathwatch
臨終看護(hù)
Brazil has the power to save Earth’s greatest rainforest—or destroy it
巴西有能力拯救地球上最大的雨林——或者摧毀它
ALTHOUGH ITS cradle is the sparsely wooded savannah, humankind has long looked to forests for food, fuel, timber and sublime inspiration. Still a livelihood for 1.5bn people, forests maintain local and regional ecosystems and, for the other 6.2bn, provide a—fragile and creaking—buffer against climate change. Now droughts, wildfires and other human-induced changes are compounding the damage from chainsaws. In the tropics, which contain half of the world’s forest biomass, tree-cover loss has accelerated by two-thirds since 2015; if it were a country, the shrinkage would make the tropical rainforest the world’s third-biggest carbon-dioxide emitter, after China and America.
盡管人類源起稀樹草原，但長期以來一直依仗森林獲得食物、燃料、木材和崇高的靈感。現(xiàn)在仍有15億人靠森林為生，是森林維持著地方和地區(qū)的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。對其余的62億人來說，森林為氣候變化提供了緩沖——雖然很脆弱而且正在失靈。現(xiàn)在，干旱、山火和其他人為的變化正在加重砍伐林木所造成的損害。在有著全球一半森林生物量的熱帶地區(qū)，自2015年以來林木覆蓋面積減少的速度加快了三分之二。如果把熱帶雨林看作一個國家，這種面積收縮令它成為僅次于中國和美國的世界第三大二氧化碳排放國。
Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the Amazon basin—and not just because it contains 40% of Earth’s rainforests and harbours 10-15% of the world’s terrestrial species. South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hastening the process—in the name, he claims, of development. The ecological collapse his policies may precipitate would be felt most acutely within his country’s borders, which encircle 80% of the basin—but would go far beyond them, too. It must be averted.
亞馬孫流域的熱帶雨林面臨的風(fēng)險最高——不僅是因?yàn)樗嫉降厍蛴炅置娣e的40%，而且是世界上10%至15%的陸地物種的家園。亞馬孫雨林可能已瀕臨臨界點(diǎn)，一旦過界，即使人們放下斧頭，也無法停止或逆轉(zhuǎn)南美洲這一自然奇觀逐漸轉(zhuǎn)變成像干草原那樣的地方。巴西總統(tǒng)正在加速這一進(jìn)程——他聲稱這是為了發(fā)展。他的政策可能引發(fā)的生態(tài)崩潰將在他自己國家的境內(nèi)造成最嚴(yán)重的影響，因?yàn)閬嗰R孫流域有80%都在巴西境內(nèi)。但受影響的地區(qū)將遠(yuǎn)不止巴西。這一進(jìn)程必須被遏止。
Humans have been chipping away at the Amazon rainforest since they settled there well over ten millennia ago. Since the 1970s they have done so on an industrial scale. In the past 50 years Brazil has relinquished 17% of the forest’s original extent, more than the area of France, to road- and dam-building, logging, mining, soyabean farming and cattle ranching. After a seven-year government effort to slow the destruction, it picked up in 2013 because of weakened enforcement and an amnesty for past deforestation. Recession and political crisis further pared back the government’s ability to enforce the rules. Now Mr Bolsonaro has gleefully taken a buzz saw to them. Although congress and the courts have blocked some of his efforts to strip parts of the Amazon of their protected status, he has made it clear that rule-breakers have nothing to fear, despite the fact that he was elected to restore law and order. Because 70-80% of logging in the Amazon is illegal, the destruction has soared to record levels. Since he took office in January, trees have been disappearing at a rate of over two Manhattans a week.
早在一萬多年前人類在亞馬孫定居以來，就一直在蠶食著當(dāng)?shù)氐挠炅�。上世紀(jì)70年代以來，人們開始大規(guī)模采伐。過去50年里，巴西已將雨林原始面積的17%(超過法國國土面積)用于修道路和水壩、伐木、采礦、種大豆和畜牧。政府曾花費(fèi)七年時間來減緩這種破壞，但因執(zhí)法力度減弱和對過去毀林行為的赦免，到2013年破壞又重新加速。經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退和政治危機(jī)進(jìn)一步削弱了政府的執(zhí)法能力。現(xiàn)在巴西總統(tǒng)興高采烈地向雨林舉起了圓鋸。雖然國會和法院已經(jīng)阻止了他取消亞馬孫流域部分保護(hù)區(qū)的一些嘗試，但他已經(jīng)明確表示違規(guī)者不必?fù)?dān)心，盡管選民選他是為了恢復(fù)法律和秩序。由于亞馬孫流域七八成的砍伐都是非法的，造成的破壞已飆升至創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄水平。自西總統(tǒng)1月上任以來，每周消失的森林面積超過兩個曼哈頓。
The Amazon is unusual in that it recycles much of its own water. As the forest shrivels, less recycling takes place. At a certain threshold, that causes more of the forest to wither so that, over a matter of decades, the process feeds on itself. Climate change is bringing the threshold closer every year as the forest heats up. Mr Bolsonaro is pushing it towards the edge. Pessimists fear that the cycle of runaway degradation may kick in when another 3-8% of the forest vanishes—which, under Mr Bolsonaro, could happen soon. There are hints the pessimists may be correct. In the past 15 years the Amazon has suffered three severe droughts. Fires are on the rise.
亞馬孫的不尋常之處在于它大部分的水資源可以自循環(huán)。隨著雨林不斷萎縮，自循環(huán)的規(guī)模也變小了，到了某個閾值會導(dǎo)致更多森林枯萎，所以幾十年后萎縮的過程就不再需要外力推動了。氣候變化導(dǎo)致雨林溫度不斷上升，使閾值每年都在降低。博索納羅正在把雨林推向這一絕境。悲觀主義者擔(dān)心，如果雨林再消失3%至8%，失控退化的循環(huán)可能就會啟動——而在博索納羅當(dāng)權(quán)之下這可能很快就會發(fā)生。有跡象表明悲觀主義者可能沒錯。過去15年中，亞馬孫遭受了三次嚴(yán)重的干旱。雨林火災(zāi)次數(shù)正在上升。
Brazil’s president dismisses such findings, as he does science more broadly. He accuses outsiders of hypocrisy—did rich countries not fell their own forests?—and, sometimes, of using environmental dogma as a pretext to keep Brazil poor. “The Amazon is ours,” the president thundered recently. What happens in the Brazilian Amazon, he thinks, is Brazil’s business.
巴西總統(tǒng)對這些發(fā)現(xiàn)不予理會，就像他對待其他科學(xué)研究一樣。他指斥外人虛偽——富國就不砍伐森林了嗎?有時他也指責(zé)他們用環(huán)境教條作借口讓巴西陷于窮困�！皝嗰R孫是我們的�！边@位總統(tǒng)近期大吼道。他認(rèn)為如何處置巴西境內(nèi)的亞馬孫雨林是巴西自己的事。
Except it isn’t. A “dieback” would directly hurt the seven other countries with which Brazil shares the river basin. It would reduce the moisture channelled along the Andes as far south as Buenos Aires. If Brazil were damming a real river, not choking off an aerial one, downstream nations could consider it an act of war. As the vast Amazonian store of carbon burned and rotted, the world could heat up by as much as 0.1°C by 2100—not a lot, you may think, but the preferred target of the Paris climate agreement allows further warming of only 0.5°C or so.
但事實(shí)并非如此。在巴西之外，“森林死亡”還將直接傷害亞馬孫流域的其他七個國家。它將減少沿安第斯山脈向南移動的空氣中的水分，最遠(yuǎn)可影響到布宜諾斯艾利斯。如果巴西是在建壩攔堵一條真正的河流，而不是堵塞一條空中河道，下游國家可能視之為宣戰(zhàn)。隨著大量儲存著碳的亞馬孫雨林被焚燒和腐爛，到2100年全球可能會升溫0.1°C。你可能會覺得這并不是很多，但《巴黎協(xié)定》的首選目標(biāo)只允許進(jìn)一步升溫0.5°C左右。
Mr Bolsonaro’s other arguments are also flawed. Yes, the rich world has razed its forests. Brazil should not copy its mistakes, but learn from them instead as, say, France has, by reforesting while it still can. Paranoia about Western scheming is just that. The knowledge economy values the genetic information sequestered in the forest more highly than land or dead trees. Even if it did not, deforestation is not a necessary price of development. Brazil’s output of soyabeans and beef rose between 2004 and 2012, when forest-clearing slowed by 80%. In fact, aside from the Amazon itself, Brazilian agriculture may be deforestation’s biggest victim. The drought of 2015 caused maize farmers in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso to lose a third of their harvest.
西總統(tǒng)的其他論點(diǎn)也經(jīng)不起推敲。是的，富國已經(jīng)將森林夷為平地。但巴西不應(yīng)重蹈覆轍，而應(yīng)該吸取它們的經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)，比如說法國就已經(jīng)在亡羊補(bǔ)牢，重新造林。猜疑西方腹黑僅僅是妄想癥而已。知識經(jīng)濟(jì)中，隔離在森林里的遺傳信息的價值遠(yuǎn)高于土地或枯木。即使不是如此，砍伐森林也不是發(fā)展的必然代價。2004年至2012年，巴西的森林砍伐放緩了80%，而其大豆和牛肉產(chǎn)量卻有所增加。事實(shí)上，除了亞馬孫雨林自身，巴西的農(nóng)業(yè)可能是森林砍伐的最大受害者。2015年的干旱導(dǎo)致巴西中部馬托格羅索州(Mato Grosso)種植玉米的農(nóng)戶損失了三分之一的收成。
For all these reasons, the world ought to make clear to Mr Bolsonaro that it will not tolerate his vandalism. Food companies, pressed by consumers, should spurn soyabeans and beef produced on illegally logged Amazonian land, as they did in the mid-2000s. Brazil’s trading partners should make deals contingent on its good behaviour. The agreement reached in June by the EU and Mercosur, a South American trading bloc of which Brazil is the biggest member, already includes provisions to protect the rainforest. It is overwhelmingly in the parties’ interest to enforce them. So too for China, which is anxious about global warming and needs Brazilian agriculture to feed its livestock. Rich signatories of the Paris agreement, who pledged to pay developing ones to plant carbon-consuming trees, ought to do so. Deforestation accounts for 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions but attracts only 3% of the aid earmarked for combating climate change.
鑒于所有這些原因，世界應(yīng)該讓西總統(tǒng)明白他破壞公共資源的行為不會被容忍。在消費(fèi)者施壓之下，食品公司應(yīng)該像在2005年前后那樣，棄用在非法采伐的亞馬孫土地上生產(chǎn)的大豆和牛肉。巴西的貿(mào)易伙伴應(yīng)以其良好行為為條件與其開展交易。歐盟和以巴西為最大成員國的南方共同市場(Mercosur)6月達(dá)成的協(xié)議已經(jīng)包含了保護(hù)熱帶雨林的條款。執(zhí)行這些條款絕對符合各方利益。對全球變暖感到焦慮并需要巴西農(nóng)業(yè)來喂養(yǎng)其牲畜的中國也該如此�！栋屠鑵f(xié)定》的富裕簽約國承諾向發(fā)展中國家付費(fèi)來種植樹木吸碳，它們也應(yīng)履行承諾。森林砍伐占全球溫室氣體排放的8%，但對此的援助僅占全球氣候變化援助的3%。
The wood and the trees
殺雞取卵
If there is a green shoot in Mr Bolsonaro’s scorched-earth tactics towards the rainforest, it is that they have made the Amazon’s plight harder to ignore—and not just for outsiders. Brazil’s agriculture minister urged Mr Bolsonaro to stay in the Paris agreement. Unchecked deforestation could end up hurting Brazilian farmers if it leads to foreign boycotts of Brazilian farm goods. Ordinary Brazilians should press their president to reverse course. They have been blessed with a unique planetary patrimony, whose value is intrinsic and life-sustaining as much as it is commercial. Letting it perish would be a needless catastrophe.
如果說博索納羅對熱帶雨林的焦土戰(zhàn)術(shù)中還有一絲希望的話，那就是它讓亞馬孫的困境更難被忽視——而且不僅僅是對外人。巴西農(nóng)業(yè)部長敦促西總統(tǒng)繼續(xù)履行《巴黎協(xié)定》。如果導(dǎo)致其他國家因巴西不加控制地砍伐森林而抵制其農(nóng)產(chǎn)品，最終可能會傷害巴西農(nóng)民。巴西民眾應(yīng)該敦促他們的總統(tǒng)改變方向。他們有幸擁有地球上這獨(dú)一無二的遺產(chǎn)，它不僅有商業(yè)上的價值，也有其本身內(nèi)在的價值以及維系生命的價值。任其衰朽將帶來一場不必要的災(zāi)難。
注：雙語全文源自EC0
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