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Yanomami na Imprensa
Data: 31 - Outubro - 2007
Titulo: Sale of the sanctuary
Fonte:
Guardian Unlimited
Untitled Document
Sale of the sanctuary
Brazilians are angry that foreigners are making online purchases of chunks of Amazon
rainforest in an effort to stop deforestation
Gallery: Brazil 's deforestation
* Jan Rocha in Sao Paolo
* The Guardian
* Wednesday October 24 2007
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Mato Grosso , Brazil . Photograph: Staffan Widstrand/Corbis |
How do you save the Amazon rainforest? Easy. All you need is a bit of cash and a
computer. Then go to the site of Cool Earth and, with a click of the mouse, you can "Add
to cart" half an acre of endangered rainforest for just £35. Cool Earth claims this will
keep locked up 130 tonnes of CO2 - "the same as the annual carbon footprints of 10
British families" - and protect 400 unique species. So far, the site says, more than
31,000 acres have been saved.
One of Cool Earth's main supporters is Johan Eliasch, the Swedish-born businessman and
Tory funder chosen by Gordon Brown to be his forest adviser, with the task of looking at
mechanisms that stimulate "deforestation avoidance". Besides selling the odd half-acre on
the website, Eliasch says he is persuading fellow millionaires to follow his example by
buying chunks of rainforest. He claims to have bought 400,000 acres , and it is this land
that is being offered for sale on the site.
But is this really the best way to save the rainforest? Brazilians, especially the
military, have always been touchy about foreign designs on the Amazon. And news that
foreigners are buying up large swaths of their rainforest, for whatever reason, has
infuriated Amazonians. In Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, the director of one NGO
involved with small-scale sustainable development projects says: "Johan Eliasch is not
welcome here."
The problem with Eliasch's "green colonialism" is the implication that Brazilians are not
capable of saving the rainforest from destruction, and ignoring the many organisations
already in the field, particularly those of the original inhabitants of the rainforest.
Yanomami Indian leader Davi Kopenawa, on a visit to the UK to raise support for
indigenous health needs, says: "The forest cannot be bought. It is our life; we have
always protected it."
He is not alone. The Alliance of Forest Peoples, which represents indigenous groups and
the many communities that live sustainably from the forest, says the way to save the
forest is to protect the indigenous and extractive reserves, where satellite data shows
deforestation has largely been held at bay so far. Indigenous reserves alone cover a
fifth of the Brazilian Amazon.
For the many environmental organisations with years of experience in Amazon campaigning,
the only answer is to stop all deforestation. Nine of the biggest green NGOs - including
Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth and the Nature Conservancy - and leading Brazilian
organisations such as ISA, for indigenous peoples, and the Amazon Institute for
Environmental Research have put forward a seven-year plan to reduce deforestation to zero
by 2015. An area the size of France - almost a fifth of Brazil's Amazon region - has been
deforested, mostly in the last 40 years.
Zero deforestation would bring a huge reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions that make
Brazil one of the top five climate polluters in the world, and stop the loss of
biodiversity. The NGOs believe the key is economic, so that standing forest has more
value than what replaces it. They want the government's generous financial incentives,
historically channelled into destructive practices such as cattle ranching and crops, to
be redirected to "environmental services" - a plan that is supported by three of the nine
state governors of the Amazon region.
Of course, the key player is the Brazilian government, and the problem is that it speaks
with many voices. Its powerful works minister, Dilma Roussef, leads the
"developmentalist" sector demanding infrastructure, roads and dams. Environment minister
Marina Silva advocates a mosaic of giant conservation units and environmental safeguards
before the infrastructure. Yet her ministry is behind a controversial new "forests for
hire" scheme to allow selected Brazilian logging companies into areas of previously
out-of-bounds national forests. The idea is that it will be easier to control such
logging, but the voracity and ruthlessness of Amazon loggers make critics liken it to
putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Domino effect
The proposal by agriculture minister Reinhold Stephanes that deforested Amazon land
should be used for sugar cane production has caused another uproar. President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva had promised that Brazil's booming ethanol production would not threaten
the rainforest, but the influential biofuel lobby will plant sugar cane wherever it can,
and experience with other boom crops, such as soya, suggests the problem will be the
domino effect - high sugar cane prices will push less profitable crops on to cheaper land.
A new factor is about to be introduced into the equation: climate change. Rainfall in
Brazil's major agricultural regions is influenced by the rainforest. Destroying the
Amazon could trigger drought in other regions and seriously affect crops.
That vital connection is about to be made clear - with discreet but vital support from
the UK government - in a report called the Economics of Climate Change. "It will be a
sort of Brazilian version of the Stern report," says an informed insider.
Almost 20% of the Amazon rainforest has already been cleared, and scientists believe that
40% is the tipping point. The race against time to find ways of stopping deforestation has begun.
Untitled Document
Coordenação Editorial: Bruce
Albert (Assessor Antropológico CCPY) e Luis Fernando Pereira (Jornalista
CCPY)
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