The Rachel Carson of Brazil

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So instead of rationalizing or making excuses for his part in this devastation, Lutz—ten years ago, at the age of 44—quit his lucrative job, returned to his na tive city of Pôrto Alegre, and began making a living as a landscape architect. Later he founded a small consulting firm called "Convivial Technology" (using the phrase coined by author and social critic Ivan IIlich). Lutzenberger earns only a modest living from these activities, though, because he devotes most of his time to unpaid environmental defense work. His inside knowledge of the pesticide industry and his personal experience with organic agriculture have made him the nemesis of the agri-industrial/chemical complex in Brazil, a country which is the world's third largest user of biocides.

I first met Lutz in January of 1976, while giving a course in economics and ecology in Rio Grande do Sul. Our friendship was renewed in November of 1980, when I visited with him for several days in Porto Alegre. On both occasions I urged him to write something in English for American environmental magazines, but he insisted that he couldn't spare the time. Therefore, I offered to reconstruct our conversations and correspondence in the form of a written interview, and he agreed to read and edit my manuscript. This is the result.

DALY: When I was here five years ago, you had a limited reputation as a somewhat quixotic figure with an exaggerated affec tion for trees. But now you're famous all over Brazil, and receive ten times as many invitations to speak as you can possibly accept. What happened?

LUTZENBERGER: Since you were here, we've succeeded in raising our people's ecological consciousness a great deal. In fact, we've made much more headway than I ever expected, particularly among agronomists.

In Europe, the U.S., Australia, Japan, Canada, and—indeed—most parts of the world, there are healthy and burgeoning organic agriculture movements, but the average commercial agronomists in such areas are either unaware of the push for wholistic growing or are actively hostile to it. We now have the opposite situation here. There is almost no organic agriculture currently being practiced in Brazil, but most of our agronomists are eager for change and frustrated by not knowing how to bring it about.

DALY: I remember the beautiful demonstration garden you made in the park at Torres. You created a rich soil on top of pure sand and had everything so well balanced that insects were automatically controlled. Didn't that serve as an example of organic agriculture?

LUTZENBERGER: The park in Tories is in the process of decay . . . our state government didn't renew my contract a year ago. Of course, the government people don't like me. I attack them viciously for their attacks on the environment, since I feel that hard words are needed when speaking to that mafia. So I accept the fact that they'll retaliate. They spend almost nothing on the park now. It hurts me to see it.

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