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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazilian
Government Plan Aimed at Halting Amazon Devastation
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
3/14/98
OVERVIEW,
SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
The
Brazilian government is expected to announce within the next week
a new
set of measures to address the escalating destruction of the
Amazonian
ecosystem. Indications are the plan
will include barring
new
settlement in virgin forests, increase agricultural aid to replace
slash
and burn techniques, and no longer granting title to forest
lands
cleared illegally. While laudable, the
emphasis is largely upon
shifting
agriculture. There needs to be
additional measures to
counter
the rapid escalation in new industrial logging plans, and
outright
illegal logging, occurring throughout the Amazon.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Government Plan Aimed at Halting Amazon
Devastation
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyrighted 1998, contact source to reprint
Date: March 14, 1994
RIO DE
JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) The Brazilian government plans to unveil
specific
measures to try to halt the rapid devastation of the Amazon
rain
forest, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The
so-called green package, to be disclosed publically next week,
includes
such measures as barring new settlements in virgin forests,
said the
Rio daily, O Globo.
Public
and private agencies have long maintained that the main cause
of the
destruction was the burning and logging of huge tracts of land
to
create grazing pastures for livestock.
The
government is also expected to increase aid to small farmers to
reduce
their dependency on a technique for clearing land known as
slash
and burn, and to restrict credit in areas covered with forest.
The
government also will no longer grant land ownership titles in
regions
that have been deforested without authorization.
Instead,
the government will offer financing to farmers who plant
crops
or engage in projects suited to the Amazon ecosystem, such as
raising
exotic fish.
In
January, the government announced that destruction of the Amazon
rain
forest reached record levels in 1995 before finally leveling off
in the
last two years.
The
latest figures show deforestation nearly doubled between 1994 and
1995
from 5,958 square miles to 11,621 square miles. The latter figure
is
larger than the state of Vermont.
Between
1978 and 1996, more than 200,000 square miles or 12.5 percent
of the
Amazon's rain forest were destroyed.
President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed a law in February imposing
strict
penalties for ecological crimes.
But
environmentalists say he watered down the law by vetoing nine
articles,
including one that established a three-year prison sentence
for
farmers who cut down and burn forest areas.
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