Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
brazil oozes natural beauty
Brazilian island wants to show the way to a green future, but businesses, backed by President Jair Bolsonaro, want to make it the next Cozumel
WHEN Guilherme Rocha surveys the golden sand beaches, turquoise waters and dramatic cliffs of this speck of an island in the South Atlantic, he sees a model of sustainable development for Brazil – and the world. A place where the number of visitors is limited, where the money they bring is used to promote electric cars, solar farms and mandatory recycling, where the tourist activities include lectures on climate change and ways to reduce carbon emissions.
“The world is turning a page,” says Rocha, the island’s administrator. “The era of dirty energy is over.”
Luiz Falcão considers the same tropical paradise and sees untapped potential – for more business. The owner of the Dolphin Hotel dreams of creating a world-class port to welcome cruise ships packed with passengers.
“This could be a Maldives, a Cozumel,” he says. “Here, we can have only 100 000 tourists. There, they receive 90 million.”
Those competing visions have made Noronha an unlikely battleground in the larger debate over growth across the western hemisphere’s second-largest nation. Will Brazil exploit its abundant natural resources to lift itself out of economic stagnation? Or will it use those resources to show humankind the way to a green future?
For a time here, the environmentalists appeared to be winning. Since the beginning of the year, this island of 3 000 residents and almost as many dolphins has banned disposable plastic, imposed mandatory recycling and launched a programme to neutralise carbon emissions by 2030.
Tourism has nearly doubled since 2012, but the number of visitors remains capped by law. Foreigners are charged more than $50 to use the beaches, and environmental regulations, strictly enforced, have restrained development.
But business leaders have a powerful new ally in Brasilia.
President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change sceptic who won office last year on promises to cut environmental red tape and promote development, posted his displeasure with the beach fees this summer on Facebook. He called them “robbery” and said they explain why “there is almost no tourism in Brazil”.
“Brazil is the No 1 country in the world in natural beauty, but one of the last in tourism revenue,” he tweeted. “Fernando de Noronha is an example of how not to do tourism.”
His take on Noronha mirrors his administration’s approach to the environment more broadly: Ease regulations, promote business, shout down critics.
What happens in Noronha can reverberate throughout Brazil. After officials here introduced the ban on plastic, they say, they received calls from local officials around the country hoping to do the same.
Noronha, a 70-minute flight from Recife on the Brazilian mainland, has much to attract visitors. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has declared the island a World Heritage Site, citing its “indescribable beauty”, its biodiversity and its endangered species, including green sea and loggerhead turtles. TripAdvisor has named Baia do
Sancho the world’s most beautiful beach. Spinner dolphins greet tourists in the morning; lemon sharks dive around them during the day, stingrays gather at their feet at dusk.
The island received 103 000 visitors last year. They generated nearly $9 million in taxes.
Marco Aurelio da Silva, a ranger at the Fernando de Noronha National Park, delivers lectures to visitors each week. Between instructions on how to behave during their stay – “Please don’t poke the sharks with your selfie sticks” – he tries to instil a sense of environmental responsibility he hopes they’ll take with them when they leave. We have to remember Planet Earth is our home. Who takes care of it? We do!”
Tourists have brought opportunities, but also challenges: Growing crowds are straining the primitive sewage system, taxing the limited water supply and wearing out unpaved roads.
The solution? Business leaders say it’s more development – building the new port, expanding the desalination plant, reinforcing the infrastructure.
Bolsonaro, Falcão, the hotelier hopes, will rein in local officials and clear the way for more businessfriendly decisions.
The president is already making changes. After his Twitter tirade, he sent Environment Minister Ricardo Salles to assess whether some tourist fees should be waived. Salles met with business, lifted a ban on sardine fishing, and replaced the head of the island environmental agency with a native who the business community hopes will ease restrictions.
In Noronha, where environmentalists have enjoyed an outsized influence, activists fear that Bolsonaro could threaten projects decades in the planning. Local officials worry that speaking out could make them the president’s next target.
They didn’t have to wait long to see their fear realised, with the reassignment of a local environmental official. José Martins is an oceanographer who worked on Noronha for three decades. A public critic of the spike in tourism, he was ordered to leave after Salles’s visit. | The
Washington Post