NGO's Show Real Damage to the Amazon
10/1/99
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Title: NGO's show that the real damage is larger in the Amazons
Source: SEJUP (Servico Brasileiro de Justica e Paz)
http://www.oneworld.org/sejup/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 1, 1999
Yesterday, in Macapa, the capital of Amapa, 194 specialists on bio-
diversity ended their four day seminar entitled, "Consultative
Seminar on the Bio-diversity of the Amazons." The participants
created a map, showing new priority preservation sites in the Amazon
(which covers 60% of Brazil) with 525 risk sites -- 365 of them are
of extremely high biological importance because of the diversity of
species in these areas. This map will serve as the base for federal
government action for the year 2000. One of the unpublished results
of the seminar was the knowledge of high rates of bio-diversity
located on indigenous lands. For some specialists, it was a good
sign since indigenous reservations offer some grade of wildlife
protection, while others see the indigenous peoples as a threat. The
seminar was innovative because it obligated social and biological
researchers to resolve on a single map the areas of priority for
preservation projects. At times tensions were so high during the
seminar between the biologists and sociologists, that the biologist
almost mounted a petition against the sociologists.
Ipam (Institute of Environmental Research in the Amazons) in
collaboration with Imazon (Institute of Man and the Environment of
the Amazons), presented a study proving that satellite photo-images
taken of the Amazons only give a partial portrait of the destruction.
Besides the visible deforesting, the forests suffer slash and burn
fires and the exploitation of select wood. 90% of actual damages to
the forests do not appear through these traditional means of using
satellite images. The most recent contribution of Imazon research
team published in "Nature" (June 1998), shows that at least 50% of
the burned area of the Amazons were started accidently and not by
farmers intending to burn it for crop areas.