Brazil Launches Ambitious Plan to Save Rain Forest
4/29/98
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Title: Brazil Launches Ambitious Plan to Save Rain Forest
Source: CNN
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 4/29/98
BRASILIA, Brazil (CNN) -- Up to 62 million acres of threatened Amazon rain
forest would be preserved under a program unveiled Wednesday by the Brazilian
government.
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said his country -- in cooperation with the
World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund -- would protect 10 percent of its
forests by the year 2000.
The cost of the project -- which would set aside an area the size of Britain --
is estimated at between $84 million and $156 million, much of which will come
from the World Bank.
"This is a testimony of our commitment to preserve the environment for the
benefit of our people, including the indigenous population and our future
generations," Cardoso said.
"We cannot do it alone," he said. "Issues of this magnitude transcend national
borders."
World Bank president James Wolfensohn said the bank had recently replenished
its environmental fund and has nearly $2.6 billion available to preserve
forests around the world during the next three years.
"Money is not the issue," he said. "The issue is going to be getting the
commitment from governments to allocate areas."
He praised Cardoso's commitment as "a true gift to the Brazilian people and,
indeed, the world."
As a first step, Cardoso has created four protected areas totaling almost 4
million acres. Most of the land is in two national parks in Roraima, a northern
Amazon state in which an area the size of Belgium was devastated by wildfires
earlier this year.
The two other areas are in the southeastern Atlantic Forest, home to the golden
lion tamarin, an endangered species.
Overall, Cardoso's ppledge, if fulfilled, would be the largest forest
conservation effort in the Amazon, home to a third of the planet's surviving
tropical forests and a tenth of its plant and animal species.
Currently, only 4 percent of Brazil's Amazon forest is protected, although
another 16 percent is part of Indian reserves.
In 1995 alone, 11,200 square miles of rain forest was razed in Brazil, mostly
by loggers, ranchers and farmers. Although destruction has declined in recent
years, about 13 percent of the 2 million-square-mile Amazon is gone.
Some scientists believe that the destruction has exacerbated global warming
because trees help to absorb carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels.
"For that reason, Brazil's participation ... has a symbolic significance," said
Garo Batmanian, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil. "This is the first
step, and many other steps must be taken."
Reuters contributed to this report.