"How are you going to distribute wealth if no production?"

Retrieved from http://www.amazonia.org.br

Aldrey Riechel

The researcher, historian and geographer Bertha Becker is a reference on matters related to the Amazon. It has several researches in the area and a great resume his role as set out in the region. And his presence could not miss the event that happened in the past in Sao Paulo to discuss the "Challenges and Prospects for Regional Integration".

All played a few minutes of attention. That young students have been talking to her, and then go in cliques saying, "Alas said that she speaks to us after. That nervous, journalists and researchers who are more familiar with the matter.

Bertha has become accustomed to the media and knows how to conduct an interview. Questions planned no good: she always answers before they reach the final mark. During his speech, makes new questions, leaving the more difficult for the journalists: "Because we only want to sell carbon and with the bag Chicago?".

If you try to change the theme soon, she says, "Wait. There's more." And when at last he becomes a happy, also indicates that it is time for the next question. "Yes now the other question."

And this same way she knows to end the interview when you get tired of responding. With her gentle and subtle almost nothing says "Right?". But the effect does not last long. Then come other people standing in line for minutes of your attention.

In talking with the site Amazonia.org.br, Bertha talked about his proposal bioproduction that contepla the installation of production plants in some areas of the Amazon. Thus there would be no isolation, and there would be no production of goods timber, using advanced technology for processing of raw forest by a complete chain. These centers would be called, according to Bertha, "cities of bioproduction, research and environmental services."

Here's the opinion of the researcher on the subject.

Check out the interview below:

Amazonia.org.br - How could successfully integrate a region that is as diverse as the Amazon?

Bertha Becker - My proposal is unity in diversity. That's my motto. Why? Because it's good. You have more connectivity, you need more information, information networks.

Sister Cities are crucial for you to expand connectivity without destroying nature. So why unity in diversity? Unit because we have to break the trajectory of the Amazon and the continent, a path dependent on a colonial past. A colonial past that has brought export of raw materials without value, disease, land ownership, slave labor or near slave. That compares with an institutional framework that does not help innovation and social mobilization. So this situation is perpetuated over the centuries, there were small changes, but the deeper meaning is the same.

While we do not stop this, we will not grow, and do not develop the risk of integration is further accentuate this trend last week. What is the challenge? It put an end to economic inequality, the legacy of the past, and while respecting cultural differences. This is the challenge.

Amazonia.org.br - E is also needed a physical connection ...

Bertha - Need! A major criticism of environmentalists is upon the roads, but I do not. The most important is what I say. Hence the environmental issue. Of course I can not just making road, already have experience of highways that burst with the forest and everything else, then you have as a great alternative to river transport. They are wonderful rivers of the Amazon until now that has decent equipment pra allow passage. First thing: modern equipment, the twenty-first century, to make the movement of river. Supported by the circulation air transport network. What is called intermodal, which is what most fits with the region: an area that when you use rivers and small stretches of highway, when essential. Intermodality, adjusted to natural conditions.

Amazonia.org.br - The lady said, of "BioTown" that ....

Bertha - Bioproduction! Cities that are loose in time, ghosts, living only on the civil service, such as, Western Humaitá ... Humaitá is even a little more human, Labréa and others have chosen, I did a network. They must be equipped to have research centers and industrial centers of extraction of non-timber production, forestry and environmental services. They have to be equipped to be research centers, and centers of industry, extractive production.

Amazonia.org.br - And you think that these centers of production ...

Bertha - How do you distribute wealth if no production? Now the most important thing is what kind of production. It is an appropriate production, regional and does not destroy the environment. But it is production! We live in a capitalist system! Will stop producing? What paleface!

Amazonia.org.br - And you think that these centers of production will not bring more people and generate ...

Bertha - No! I think everything has to be planned. Not so! I'm having an idea! The idea of a model that has yet to be decorticating, collaborated, have to plan. Not? Why is a skeleton, brain ...