Facing Destruction, Greenpeace Launches Amazon Campaign in Brazil
5/31/99
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Title: Facing Destruction, Greenpeace Launches Amazon Campaign in
Brazil
Source: Greenpeace
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: May 31, 1999
At the beginning of the 1999 environmental week, Greenpeace announced
its new global priority: the Amazon. "The fight against the
destruction of the Amazon rainforest will be one of Greenpeace's top
priorities going into the next Millennium," stated Thilo Bode,
executive director of Greenpeace International at a press conference
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Greenpeace will first concentrate on destructive logging
activities in the Brazilian Amazon. Recent studies identify the
logging industry as the main threat to ancient forests all over
the world including the Amazon. In the new report "Facing
Destruction: A Greenpeace Briefing on the timber industry in the
Brazilian Amazon" 2,500 logging companies and sawmills in the
Amazon have been identified.
The report further identifies 26 foreign owned transnational
companies (TNCs) which are now operating in the Amazon.
According to the Brazilian government 80 per cent of all logged
timber in the Amazon is illegal.
As recently as 1970, 99 per cent of the Amazon remained intact.
Today, the Brazilian government estimates that 553,086 km2 of
the Brazilian Amazon, or roughly, an area the size of France has
been deforested. That is 14 per cent of the Brazilian. Moreover,
the destruction continues. During the last four years, an area
the size of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined
(77,285 km2) has been lost.
With the depletion of Southeast Asian and Central African
Forests, the Amazon is being targeted by TNCs as the essential
source of tropical timber in the coming decades. The logging
industry in the Amazon is the door opener to the destruction of
the remaining ancient forests in this region. Roads built by the
logging industry provide access for other forms of destructive
forest use such as cattle ranching or soy plantations.
Besides protesting against the destructive logging, the
Greenpeace campaign will also seek economic alternatives for the
Amazonian people. "We want people to look at the forest as an
opportunity for development, not as an obstacle to it", stated
Roberto Kishinami, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil. The
campaign will focus on finding sustainable economic alternatives
such as rubber tapping or marketing of fruits and plants from
the forest for the 20 million people who live in the Amazon
region. "The time to look at the Amazon as a "park" is gone. It
is obvious that any effort to save the forest must address the
question of a sustainable economic development," said Kishinami.
Greenpeace has been campaigning in the Amazon since 1992.
Following the Greenpeace campaign, the Brazilian government
declared a moratorium on the exploitation of mahogany, aiming to
preserve this endangered specie. In order to reinforce its
presence in the Amazon region, Greenpeace will open an office in
the city of Manaus in the state of Amazonas.
According to Greenpeace there are several ways of putting an end
to the destruction of ancient rainforest in the Amazon. The
network of forest areas protected as ecological reserves should
be increased. Logging should only be allowed in specified areas
in accordance with strict ecological and social criteria,
through certified operations. The reserve areas in the
rainforest for rubber-tapping and other non-wood-production
activities should be expanded. And there should also be a proper
demarcation of all indigenous lands.
Note to editors:
Mr. Bode will also meet Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the President
of Brazil and Jose Sarney Filho, the Minister of Environment in
the federal capital Brasilia. On Wednesday, Mr. Bode will go to
Manaus to visit with Greenpeace staff working in the Amazon.
Greenpeace on the Internet at http://www.greenpeace.org