Brazil’s Forests: Managing Tradeoffs among Local, National, and International Interests

World Bank lending was held at least partly responsible when there were reports of accelerated rates of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1980s, and those reports significantly influenced the design of the Bank's new forest strategy in 1991. However, the possibility of guilt by association with any deforestation in Brazil's Amazon basin since that time continues to hobble the Bank's involvement in the Brazilian forest sector. With obvious tradeoffs between short-term benefits to a variety of stakeholders and the long-term global and national benefits, whether the government would effectively be able to protect these areas of the Amazon without substantial transfer of resources to compensate the losers, is questionable. A policy of completely protecting all of the Amazon while neglecting Brazil's other forests— a stance that the international environmental community persuaded the Bank to adopt in 1991—was not the right policy.