10th Anniversary of Chico Mendes Murder Sees
Rainforest in Worst State Ever
12/16/98
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CHICO MENDES MURDER
SEES RAINFORESTS IN WORST STATE EVER
GREENS FEAR LEGENDARY PRESERVATIONIST
MAY HAVE DIED IN VAIN
Source: Rainforest Action Network
Status: Distribute freely with credit given to source
Date: December 16, 1998
RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK
For immediate release - December 16, 1998
Press contacts: Cara Naylor, Mark Westlund - 415/398-4404
"The unprecedented loss of old growth forest is a catastrophe of
global proportion. It hastens climate change, obliterates the habit
of millions of species, and lays waste to the homelands and way-of-
life of traditional forest peoples. The spirit of Chico Mendes lives
on in everyone who stands up against this senseless destruction, and
if we join together we can protect the Amazon as a lasting memorial to
Mendes' vision."
- Randall Hayes, President, Rainforest Action Network
In the ten years since the assassination of Brazilian environmental
leader Chico Mendes, the Amazon rainforest he died to protect is in
greater danger of destruction than ever, environmentalists fear.
Despite an outpouring of public support for rainforest conservation,
commercial logging operations in the Amazon's old growth forests still
clear an area the size of Delaware each year, and oil exploration
threatens to disrupt delicate ecosystems and traditional indigenous
communities all across the Amazon basin.
"Citizens of the industrialized North already realize that we must
drastically reduce our demand for old growth forest products and
insist on sustainable forms of energy, " said Rainforest Action
Network founder Randall Hayes, "but until transnational corporations
follow suit we cannot guarantee that Chico Mendes did not die in
vain."
Chico Mendes was a leader of the movement in Brazil to establish
protected forest reserves for extracting sustainable natural products,
such as tree-rubber. Previously, vast tracks of rainforest were being
clearcut-logged and converted into cattle pastures. He was shot to
death December 22, 1988, by two cattle ranchers, one of whom remains
at large.
"Human emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, due largely to
deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels," Hayes noted, "and
average global temperatures have been steadily rising. The fires and
droughts that have ravaged Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Russia, Africa, Canada and Florida this past year
may be a sign that we are already well on our way to a climate
nightmare in the 21st century."
Data from the United Nations-sponsored International Panel on Climate
Change indicate that we can burn only 25 percent of known fossil fuel
deposits before incurring the worst effects of climate change.
Only 22 percent of the world's old growth forests remain intact; in
the United States, less than 4 percent of the old growth forests are
still standing. Rainforest Action Network is calling for an end to
continued logging of remaining old growth forests in order to
challenge companies to stop selling old growth products.