Brazil Atlantic Forest Tops Global Ecology Concerns
9/23/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
Brazil's Atlantic forests are some of the richest in the World--home
to 5 percent of the world's fauna and 7 percent of its flora. It is
also amongst the most threatened. What remains is a global treasure
of immeasurable biodiversity value. It must be conserved.
g.b.
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Title: Brazil forest tops global ecology concerns
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 22, 1999
Byline: Shasta Darlington
BARRA DO SAHY - Fifteen years ago, Brazilians didn't even have a name
for the lush, tropical rain forest that tumbles from seaside
mountains to the ocean along much of the country's Atlantic coast.
They came up with a name just in time. The "Mata Atlantica," or
Atlantic rain forest, is now one of the five most-threatened regions
in the world, according to environmentalists.
While environmentalists around the globe cried out against
destruction of the vast Amazon jungle, Brazilians hacked away at what
was left of the Atlantic forest after centuries of logging and the
onslaught of sugar plantations.
Only 7 percent of the original forest remains and that amount is
shrinking as families continue to carve small farms out of the
jungle, while highways, industry and beach developments take over
other areas.
Environmentalists are rushing to try to stop the devastation.
"Brazil's Atlantic forest is one of the richest areas in the world,
but unfortunately it is a hot spot in terms of environmental threat,"
said Russell Mittermeier, president of the U.S.-based Conservation
International. "It's one of the five top environmental priorities
globally."
Conservation International and Brazil's SOS Mata Atlantica
environmental group launched a "zero deforestation" plan in June.
Using satellite images, they are scrambling to document thousands of
animal and plant species in the most-endangered areas, promoting
alternative forms of income and enforcing laws that make it illegal
to cut down trees in the region.
Efforts to focus the world's attention on the devastation already
have paid off. Brazil's kiddie television queen Xuxa (pronounced
SHOO-shah) Meneghel, one of Latin America's wealthiest and most
powerful celebrities, was forced to cancel plans to build a water
theme park in the forest.
GENERATIONS OF EXPLOITATION
Generations of Europeans and Brazilians have exploited the Atlantic
forest since it greeted explorers 500 years ago.
The coastal jungle may not have yielded gold or silver, but the
Portuguese quickly found something of value in it: pau-brasil or
brazilwood, a red dyewood that was exported for the European textile
industry and gave Brazil its name.
Sugar cane, coffee and cocoa plantations and rapid urban development
destroyed even more the Atlantic forest, leaving a narrow strip
distributed mostly in steep mountain regions that shantytowns,
ranchers and industry continue to wipe out despite tough-sounding
laws.
The once-abundant forest along the coast in Brazil's most populous
state of Sao Paulo is now scarred by industrial developments such as
the Cubatao steel complex and beach homes built by wealthy sun-
seekers in places such as Barra do Sahy, about 100 miles (160 km)
southeast of Sao Paulo.
But even after centuries of destruction, the forest that stretches
from Brazil's chilly southern coast to the steamy northeast still
hosts regions with the highest recorded tree diversity in the world.
In the towering tree tops and tangles of vines, ruddy-maned golden
lion tamarin monkeys feast on insects and the rare maned sloth waits
for the cover of night to dine on flowers and leaves.
The forest also is home to 60 percent of all Brazilians. Huge swaths
were cut away for Brazil's major cities Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
and the destruction continues.
Between 1990 and 1995 a piece of the forest the size of a soccer
field was destroyed every four minutes - two times the rate of
devastation in the Amazon, which spans half the country and supports
a fraction of the 165 million Brazilians.
Conservation International declared the Atlantic forest one of the
world's five most critical environmental hot spots earlier this year.
But it was a Brazilian entrepreneur who literally put the Atlantic
forest on the map.
BUSINESSES JOIN THE FIGHT
Oddly enough, it was Roberto Klabin, part-owner in Latin America's
biggest pulp and paper company, who helped found the SOS Mata
Atlantica environmental lobbying group in 1986 and headed a hard-
hitting donations drive.
"In 1986, there was this thick vegetation that everybody had to drive
through on the way to the beach, but nobody really knew what it was
or paid any attention to it," Klabin said. "But a bunch of us decided
to find out when we realised how quickly it was disappearing."
SOS Mata Atlantica compiled research on specific areas within what is
today known as the Atlantic forest and worked to draw attention to
deforestation in the region as a whole.
By 1990, SOS Mata Atlantica pushed a law through Congress banning the
cutting of trees in the coastal rain forest that it dubbed "Mata
Atlantica." The group also published an atlas pinpointing the areas
most at risk of devastation.
"Environmentally, Brazil was equated with the Amazon even though
deforestation there was only 15 to 18 percent," said Gustavo Fonseca,
a Conservation International director.
"But SOS ... made sure that over the last 10 to 15 years the wider
public has become aware of the Atlantic forest and its problems,"
Fonseca added.
Klabin, a dapper businessman who wears designer cuff links and claims
that profits and environmentalism are compatible, initially put some
environmentalists off. But he soon won them over with his cash-
raising skills.
"As a businessman, I have access to a lot of people and companies
that others maybe can't talk to that easily," Klabin said from his
modern Sao Paulo office. "We started to change the mentality in
Brazil."
Klabin convinced giant Brazilian bank Bradesco and Kolynos toothpaste
maker, among others, to promote environmentally friendly products and
donate part of the revenue. He also was a driving force behind the
$30 million in funds donated to the cause by international agencies
over the last 10 years.
"(Klabin) has provided leadership for businessmen in Brazilian
society, which hasn't traditionally invested in the environment,"
Fonseca said.