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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazil's
Rainforest Plan Under Fire
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
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Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
11/30/98
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
It
would truly be a shame if Brazil addressed its current economic
crisis
partly by cutting back programs to conserve the Amazon
rainforest. Such short term thinking! Yet this appears to be
happening.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil's Rainforest Plan Under Fire
Source: Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: November 25, 1998
RIO DE
JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Hundreds of international groups blasted
Brazil's
government on Tuesday for making drastic cuts in programs
aimed
at saving its rainforests.
The
cuts are part of an austerity program to save $24 billion in 1999
and $80
billion by 2002. Pledges of such reductions helped Brazil
secure
an International Monetary Fund rescue package of $41.5 billion
earlier
this month.
``Programs
that would fight predatory exploitation of mahogany forests
and
boost eco-tourism in the Amazon will be adversely affected,''
Claudionor
Alexandre Barbosa da Silva, president of the Amazon Work
Group
(GTA) told the Estado de Sao Paolo.
From
1978-96, more than 200,000 square miles or 12.5 percent of the
Amazon
jungle were destroyed, mainly by farmers, ranchers and loggers.
The
GTA, which represents 355 non-government organizations, is irate
about a
government announcement to cut 90 percent of funding allocated
for
programs to fight the devastation.
Da
Silva pointed to the Pilot Program to Protect Tropical Forests,
which
had its budget slashed from $61 million to just $6.3 million.
``It's
absurd and unjust,'' he told the newspaper.
The
Atlantic Forest, which once spanned Brazil's 4,500-square-mile
eastern
coast when the Portuguese first arrived in 1500, has been
reduced
to just 3 percent of its original area.
The GTA
began a campaign Monday to lobby members of Brazil's congress
to fight
the proposed cuts.
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