Environmentalists Slam Brazil Over Fires
9/6/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
The significance of increased fires in the Amazon can not be
overemphasized. If humanity loses the Amazonian rainforest, we lose
one of the most important ecosystem engines, composed of priceless
biodiversity, which together helps to drive planetary ecological
functionality. International mechanisms to respond to global
ecological crises are inadequate. It is problematic that some of the
international players that are calling for economic austerity in
Brazil (which includes a 1/3 reduction in environmental spending) are
responsible for providing and coordinating international funding for
environmental objectives. Too often these roles work at cross-
purposes. Saving the Amazon is worth the price it would cost to
fully fund environmental programs, from International grants if
necessary, while helping Brazil weather its recession. It is
ludicrous to cut Amazon conservation programs as a response to cyclic
economic recession--any short term savings will end up being many
times more costly in the future; as ecosystems no longer function,
land productivity is diminished, and development aspirations are lost
due to lack of natural resources. There needs to be improved
international mechanisms to respond to ecological catastrophes in a
timely and comprehensive manner with funding, expertise and other
assistance. Things can not continue as they are, or the unraveling
of the Planet's ecological fabric will continue until all is ripped
asunder. The recurring Amazonian fires and the inadequate
International response are indicative of a deepening planetary
malaise from which we can run, but we can never hide. There will be
unspeakable consequences if at this juncture in history the World and
its institutions do next to nothing to address the rainforest crisis.
g.b.
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Title: Environmentalists slam Brazil over fires
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 6, 1999
Byline: Joelle Diderich
BRASILIA - Environmentalists accused the Brazilian government of
doing too little to prevent and combat fires, set by farmers, that
have cast a thick haze over cities and made people sick.
Satellite images showed a sharp jump in the number of hot spots -
areas where there is a high probability that a fire is burning - in
the last days of August in the west-central states of Mato Grosso and
Mato Grosso do Sul.
A fire-induced haze has disrupted air traffic and triggered a rise in
respiratory infections and other distress among people living in the
area, especially children, state government officials said.
Roberto Smeraldi, head of a programme to protect the Amazon with
Friends of the Earth, said the Environment Ministry failed to keep
its promise earlier this year to put more emphasis on prevention and
training programmes.
"This year the Environment Ministry seemed to be taking what we
considered a more conscious, more forward-looking stance in terms of
how to combat the fires, but this has failed to translate into
practical measures," he said.
Local officials said they did not have enough money and firefighters
to battle the fires, which are traditionally set between July and
October to prepare the soil for planting.
High rates of poverty and illiteracy in the mainly agricultural
centre-west meant government efforts to highlight the dangers of
setting unsupervised fires during the dry season had been largely
ignored.
Activists also said the problem was made worse by a lack of federal
money. The Environment Ministry's budget was cut by a third as part
of a sweeping government austerity programme.
"There is no money," said Garo Batmanian, executive director in
Brazil of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "The rest of the
government only acts, only realises that this is an issue, when the
problem begins."
Government officials were not immediately available to respond, but a
local news agency said Environment Minister Jose Sarney Filho was
irritated by the criticism.
"I didn't know that the government was now responsible for the
drought in Brazil," Sarney Filho was quoted as saying by Agencia
Estado.
Officials at the government's Environment Agency (Ibama) said that
hot spots across Brazil fell to 30,123 in August from 33,229 in
August 1998, a reduction of 10 percent.
But environmental organisations said that figure was still too high.
"I would say the fires this year are more or less within normal
levels, but we are talking about normal levels which are terrible,"
said Smeraldi. "These are normal levels which lead to irreversible
damage to the environment every year."
Experts say damage from the fires ranges from the destruction of
local flora and fauna to long-term impact on human health and loss of
revenues from tourism.
Fires set in grazing pastures frequently burn out of control,
spreading to forests where they creep through ground-level foliage,
destroying young trees and reducing the soil's protection against
erosion once rains return.
Batmanian said hotels in the Pantanal, the world's largest intact
wetland, which covers a large swath of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do
Sul, also reported a sharp drop in eco-tourism because of the fires.