CONTEXTUALIZATION 

The state of Rondônia is located in the western part of the Northern region of Brazil and occupies an area of 237.59 thousand km², in which 52 municipalities are distributed. According to data from the 2010 Demographic Census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the estimated population of the state is 1.56 million, with a population density of 6.58 inhabitants/km².

In 2018, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was R$ 44.9 billion, corresponding to 0.6% of the national GDP and 12.4% of the regional GDP. The composition of the state’s GDP indicates greater participation of the service sector, leveraged by trade, followed by agricultural and industrial activities (mainly food, meat packing industry, and mining).

The occupation process of Rondônia resulted from the incentives to replace the forest with various forms of cultivation and livestock. The annual deforestation rate in the state increased until 2004, when it reached 3,858 km². From then on, a sharp decrease was observed in the rates until 2010, when the minimum amount of 435 km² was registered. However, it has been in an upward trend since 2011, reaching 1,273 km² in 2020.

In the Amazon, fire is one of the most used instruments in rural production activities due to the culture of cut-burning for cleaning the land and transforming the forest into pasture. Although the use of controlled fire sometimes fulfills roles in some ecosystems, forest fires and burn-offs produce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), impact soil fertility, destroy biodiversity, weaken ecosystems, destroy transmission lines, worsen air quality, increase the risk of road accidents, and limit air traffic, among other aspects.

THE PROJECT

The project of the Military Fire Department of the State of Rondônia (CBMRO) is part of the state strategy to prevent forest fires and unauthorized burn-offs and aimed to support actions to monitor, prevent, and combat deforestation resulting from forest fires and unauthorized burn-offs in the state in order to contribute to reducing GHG emissions.

To reach its goals, the project focused its activities on the instrumentalization of the CBMRO's Air and Ground Operations Base in Porto Velho and four operational units located in the municipalities of Ji-Paraná, Guajará-Mirim, Cacoal, and Vilhena through the acquisition of aircraft, vehicles, equipment, and communication and personal
protection kits.

The coordinated actions from the CBMRO's Air and Ground Operations Base in Porto Velho and the four aforementioned operational units extend to 14 other municipalities in Rondônia, covering a considerable part of the total area of the state.

The project also supported training CBMRO's personnel and civil servants of partner organizations in environmental management, in addition to training CBMRO pilots to operate the aircraft acquired by the project.

INTERVENTION LOGIC

The project is part of the “monitoring and control” component (2) of the Amazon Fund Logical Framework. Its direct effect was thus defined: “the Military Fire Department of Rondônia (CBMRO) better structured for monitoring and combating deforestation caused by forest fires and illegal burn-offs.”

The occurrence of forest fires is related to the duration of the dry season and the use of fire in production activities. It is also usually a stage of the illegal deforestation process with views to land grabbing¹ when, after the removal of larger trees (and the most valuable), fire is used to open new areas for agricultural purposes.

The structuring of CBMRO to expand forest fire monitoring and firefighting actions and to train managers directly contributes to reducing the loss of vegetation cover resulting from forest fires and unauthorized burn-offs. This, in turn, contributes to the general objective of the Amazon Fund to “reduce deforestation with sustainable development in the Amazon.”

Finally, it is worth mentioning that, originally, there were plans to construct an air and land operations base at the federal public airport of Porto Velho. However, this activity is no longer necessary as the Government of the State of Rondônia made one of its hangars, located at the Governador Jorge Teixeira International Airport, in Porto Velho,
available to CBMRO for an indefinite period. The resources not used to construct this base were redirected to supplement the purchase amount of the Grand Caravan aircraft.

Click on the following image to view its objectives tree, that is, how the project's outputs and linked to the expected outcomes and impact.

¹ Land grabbing, in Brazil, is the illegal practice of taking possession of vacant (public) land, including, often, the falsification of documents.

ACTIVITIES CONDUCTED

The project was structured around two components, namely:

• Instrumentalization of the CBMRO's Air and Ground Operations Base in Porto Velho and CBMRO's four other operational units in the state of Rondônia.

Within the scope of this component, an extensive list of essential equipment for the final activity of CBMRO was acquired, especially a single-engine turboprop aircraft; six lightduty trucks for quick and initial actions; five heavy-duty forest trucks; in addition to six towing tanks, an accessory that confers fire extinguishing capacity for trucks.

The Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft acquired by the project has priority use in the transportation of military firefighters in the logistics of forest firefighting, in addition to monitoring actions in support of state environmental inspection agencies. This aircraft is capable of operating on rural runways and can take up to 11 people.

Additionally, communication and location equipment, such as mobile transceivers, mobile firefighting kits, including hoses, backpack fire pumps, and complete personal protection and logistical support kits, such as 150 sets/uniforms with respectiv accessories, tents, flexible backpacks, and portable electric generators for up to 150 combatants, were purchased.

• Promote training of CBMRO's personnel and partner organizations.

This action promoted the training of CBMRO's personnel and partner organization in environmental management, including the participation with CBMRO's civil servants in a postgraduate course in Environmental Sciences and training CBMRO's pilots to operate the aircraft acquired by the project.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that, originally, there were plans to construct an air and land operations base at the federal public airport of Porto Velho. However, this activity is no longer necessary as the Government of the State of Rondônia made one of its hangars, located at the Governador Jorge Teixeira International Airport, in Porto Velho,
available to CBMRO for an indefinite period. The resources not used to construct this base were redirected to supplement the purchase amount of the Grand Caravan aircraft.

Result and impact indicators

The Project activities contributed to the results related to the “monitoring and control” component (2) of the Amazon Fund Logical Framework.

Direct effect 2.1: The Military Fire Department of Rondônia (CBMRO) better structured for monitoring and combating deforestation caused by forest fires and illegal burn-offs.

The main indicators used to monitor this objective were:

• Number of hot spots in the state of Rondônia (outcome indicator)
  Target: not defined | Result achieved: 4,797 (2020)

Although the occurrence of hot spots depends on several factors in addition to those addressed in the project, it should be noted that the baseline, corresponding to the average verified in the period 2003-2012 (ten-year period prior to the approval of the project) was 9,255 hot spots in the 14 municipalities that make up the area covered by the project. In the period between 2013-2020, the verified average was reduced to 5,573 outbreaks, i.e., a decrease of approximately 40% in the number of hot spots, which indicates a sustained result in the positive evolution of this indicator.

• Number of forest fires or unauthorized burn-offs directly fought by CBMRO (outcome indicator)
  Target: not defined | Result achieved: 1,457

During 2020, 1,457 forest fires and unauthorized burn-offs were combated and, in 2012 (project baseline), 831 forest fires or burn-offs were combated, which shows a 75% growth in CBMRO’s combat capacity. It should be added that, based on the project with the Amazon Fund, the firefighters of the state of Rondônia have been increasing their performance and raising the level of actions to combat forest fires, as shown in the following table:

• Number of pilots effectively trained using the knowledge acquired (outcome indicator)
  Target: 6 | Result achieved: 5
• Number of CBMRO´s civil servants and partner organizations trained in environmental management (output indicator)
  Target: not defined | Result achieved: 134

The training actions involved 104 civil servants of partner organizations and 30 civil servants of CMBRO´s staff in environmental management, including the training of three CBMRO military personnel in a postgraduate course in Environmental Law at Universidade Federal do Paraná.

Institutional and administrative aspects

Regarding institutional and administrative aspects, CBMRO reported that the greatest legacy of the project was to expand the capacity of the corporation in conjunction with other governmental agencies. The establishment of partnerships during the execution of the project took place through technical cooperation agreements with several institutions in order to carry out activities in firefighting operations through the implementation of forest fire prevention and firefighting brigades.

Such partnerships are usually mobilized each year on the occasion of the launch of the Forest Fire Season Operations Plan (Potif), in which joint action strategies are defined in seasonal periods in which there is a higher occurrence of burn-offs and forest fires.

At the municipal and state levels, cooperation agreements were signed with the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainable Development of Porto Velho (Sema) and the State Secretariat for Environmental Development (Sedam). At the federal level, the agreements were signed between the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (Ibama) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), the latter responsible for managing federal protected areas (PA).

According to CBMRO, the integration of efforts allowed results to be achieved more efficiently since it reduced the costs necessary to implement firefighting actions.

Risks and lessons learned

Generally speaking, it can be said that the “Greener Rondônia” project executed the planned activities satisfactorily, having achieved good results. The “number of forest fires or illegal burn-offs combated directly by CBMRO” indicator saw a favorable evolution throughout the project, as well as the training action of managers.

As for the risks and lessons learned, the complexity and delay in the bidding processes of firefighting kits were mentioned, keeping in mind that the bidding process occurs centrally in the state administration. A positive lesson was the flexibility in project management, which allowed the change of the supplier and the equipment with a higher unit price, related to the acquisition of the aircraft, which resulted in operational gains.

Finally, it should be noted that the specific characteristics of the Amazon, with a large territorial extension and areas of difficult access, make the work of firefighters riskier and more complex, requiring different strategies in relation to fire.

The presentation of these diverse strategies and the comparison of the positive impacts observed in four other projects similar to the “Greener Rondônia” project, previously supported by the Amazon Fund, can be found in the “Ex-Post Effectiveness Assessment Report of Fighting Forest Fires and Unauthorized Burn-off Projects¹.

¹ Available at: https://amz.bndes.net/export/sites/default/en/.galleries/documentos/monitoring-evaluation/
Independent-evaluations/CBM-Effectiveness-Evaluation-Report.pdf.

Sustainability of results

In an assessment carried out in 2020, CBMRO reported that firefighting, personal protective equipment (PPE), and vehicles obtained in 2013 and 2014 continue to be used. The acquired aircraft, given its multifunctionality, was cited as one of the greatest legacies of the project for the future, achieving not only the general objective but also contributing directly to society since it monitors, inspects, and transports servers, brigade members, and equipment throughout the year.

In the long term, the sustainability of the results achieved with support from the Amazon Fund, given the nature of this project, depends mainly on the budgetary conditions of the state of Rondônia, which is responsible for maintaining the main equipment acquired within the scope of the project, as well as providing the funding resources of CBMRO.

It should be mentioned that the training and qualifications of public civil servants, carried out as a result of the project, tend to produce lasting and increased effects, if we consider that the diffusion of knowledge that naturally occurs in organizations does not depend on additional public funds.

Finally, despite the progress already made with support from the Amazon Fund, it is understood that it remains to further expand the response capacity of CBMRO, so that it is structured to verify the nature of the hot spots pointed out by the monitoring systems and is adequately equipped, with human and material resources, to combat all identified forest fires and unauthorized burn-offs.