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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazil
Atlantic Forest Tops Global Ecology Concerns
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Forest
Networking a Project of forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
9/23/99
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Brazil's
Atlantic forests are some of the richest in the World--home
to 5
percent of the world's fauna and 7 percent of its flora. It is
also
amongst the most threatened. What
remains is a global treasure
of
immeasurable biodiversity value. It
must be conserved.
g.b.
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Title: Brazil forest tops global ecology concerns
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: September 22, 1999
Byline: Shasta Darlington
BARRA
DO SAHY - Fifteen years ago, Brazilians didn't even have a name
for the
lush, tropical rain forest that tumbles from seaside
mountains
to the ocean along much of the country's Atlantic coast.
They
came up with a name just in time. The "Mata Atlantica," or
Atlantic
rain forest, is now one of the five most-threatened regions
in the
world, according to environmentalists.
While
environmentalists around the globe cried out against
destruction
of the vast Amazon jungle, Brazilians hacked away at what
was
left of the Atlantic forest after centuries of logging and the
onslaught
of sugar plantations.
Only 7
percent of the original forest remains and that amount is
shrinking
as families continue to carve small farms out of the
jungle,
while highways, industry and beach developments take over
other
areas.
Environmentalists
are rushing to try to stop the devastation.
"Brazil's
Atlantic forest is one of the richest areas in the world,
but
unfortunately it is a hot spot in terms of environmental threat,"
said
Russell Mittermeier, president of the U.S.-based Conservation
International.
"It's one of the five top environmental priorities
globally."
Conservation
International and Brazil's SOS Mata Atlantica
environmental
group launched a "zero deforestation" plan in June.
Using
satellite images, they are scrambling to document thousands of
animal
and plant species in the most-endangered areas, promoting
alternative
forms of income and enforcing laws that make it illegal
to cut
down trees in the region.
Efforts
to focus the world's attention on the devastation already
have
paid off. Brazil's kiddie television queen Xuxa (pronounced
SHOO-shah)
Meneghel, one of Latin America's wealthiest and most
powerful
celebrities, was forced to cancel plans to build a water
theme
park in the forest.
GENERATIONS
OF EXPLOITATION
Generations
of Europeans and Brazilians have exploited the Atlantic
forest
since it greeted explorers 500 years ago.
The
coastal jungle may not have yielded gold or silver, but the
Portuguese
quickly found something of value in it: pau-brasil or
brazilwood,
a red dyewood that was exported for the European textile
industry
and gave Brazil its name.
Sugar
cane, coffee and cocoa plantations and rapid urban development
destroyed
even more the Atlantic forest, leaving a narrow strip
distributed
mostly in steep mountain regions that shantytowns,
ranchers
and industry continue to wipe out despite tough-sounding
laws.
The
once-abundant forest along the coast in Brazil's most populous
state
of Sao Paulo is now scarred by industrial developments such as
the
Cubatao steel complex and beach homes built by wealthy sun-
seekers
in places such as Barra do Sahy, about 100 miles (160 km)
southeast
of Sao Paulo.
But
even after centuries of destruction, the forest that stretches
from
Brazil's chilly southern coast to the steamy northeast still
hosts
regions with the highest recorded tree diversity in the world.
In the
towering tree tops and tangles of vines, ruddy-maned golden
lion
tamarin monkeys feast on insects and the rare maned sloth waits
for the
cover of night to dine on flowers and leaves.
The
forest also is home to 60 percent of all Brazilians. Huge swaths
were
cut away for Brazil's major cities Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
and the
destruction continues.
Between
1990 and 1995 a piece of the forest the size of a soccer
field
was destroyed every four minutes - two times the rate of
devastation
in the Amazon, which spans half the country and supports
a
fraction of the 165 million Brazilians.
Conservation
International declared the Atlantic forest one of the
world's
five most critical environmental hot spots earlier this year.
But it
was a Brazilian entrepreneur who literally put the Atlantic
forest
on the map.
BUSINESSES
JOIN THE FIGHT
Oddly
enough, it was Roberto Klabin, part-owner in Latin America's
biggest
pulp and paper company, who helped found the SOS Mata
Atlantica
environmental lobbying group in 1986 and headed a hard-
hitting
donations drive.
"In
1986, there was this thick vegetation that everybody had to drive
through
on the way to the beach, but nobody really knew what it was
or paid
any attention to it," Klabin said. "But a bunch of us decided
to find
out when we realised how quickly it was disappearing."
SOS Mata
Atlantica compiled research on specific areas within what is
today
known as the Atlantic forest and worked to draw attention to
deforestation
in the region as a whole.
By
1990, SOS Mata Atlantica pushed a law through Congress banning the
cutting
of trees in the coastal rain forest that it dubbed "Mata
Atlantica."
The group also published an atlas pinpointing the areas
most at
risk of devastation.
"Environmentally,
Brazil was equated with the Amazon even though
deforestation
there was only 15 to 18 percent," said Gustavo Fonseca,
a
Conservation International director.
"But
SOS ... made sure that over the last 10 to 15 years the wider
public
has become aware of the Atlantic forest and its problems,"
Fonseca
added.
Klabin,
a dapper businessman who wears designer cuff links and claims
that
profits and environmentalism are compatible, initially put some
environmentalists
off. But he soon won them over with his cash-
raising
skills.
"As
a businessman, I have access to a lot of people and companies
that
others maybe can't talk to that easily," Klabin said from his
modern
Sao Paulo office. "We started to change the mentality in
Brazil."
Klabin
convinced giant Brazilian bank Bradesco and Kolynos toothpaste
maker,
among others, to promote environmentally friendly products and
donate
part of the revenue. He also was a driving force behind the
$30
million in funds donated to the cause by international agencies
over
the last 10 years.
"(Klabin)
has provided leadership for businessmen in Brazilian
society,
which hasn't traditionally invested in the environment,"
Fonseca
said.
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