Marcelo Calazans
Marcelo is the director of FASE-ES and a member of Oilwatch Sudamérica, the Environmental Justice Brazilian Network, and the Espirito Santo Forum of those affected by oil and gas. He has worked on carbon trading since the beginning and with rural struggles in Brazil for over 25 years.
“We are against offsets. They are directly associated with the expansion of the current energy development model, which is consumerist and productivist, and designed by State bodies who create this to expand their own power. The Brazilian experience makes it so clear – offsets cannot compensate for violated rights nor point us in a direction towards a positive transition as a civilization.
In the state of Espírito Santo along the Atlantic coast is growing infrastructure for the pre-salt oil. This is also where the expansion of chemical and industrial plantations of fast-growing eucalyptus is located. Offsets do not prevent destruction inside the “sacrifice zones”. Instead, offsets reinforce environmental racism, vulnerablization of life and local economies of thousands of fishing families, farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Quilombolas, precarious workers and urban favelas.
Offsets deepen North-South inequality and environmental injustice in the South at the local level, fragment community ties, demobilize local struggles of resistance, and strengthen corrupt governments. The function of a green market is to create destructive projects. Only a fool, or the very uninformed can still believe in offsets.”