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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Brazil President Vows to Fight Reduction of Amazon Reserve Area

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

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05/17/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Following is an update on the draft bill that seeks to drastically

reduce protections granted to Brazil's Amazonian rainforest. Brazil's

President states he will fight to defeat the bill that would reduce

reserve areas on lands being developed from 80 percent to 50 percent.

Indications are that the bill is not popular with the Brazilian

public. Its legislative proponents, on the behest of large

agricultural and other Amazon development interests, are attempting to

make villains of environmental groups working in rainforest

conservation.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Brazil president vows to ``fight'' Amazon draft law

Source: Copyright (c) 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Date: May 16, 2000

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's president vowed Tuesday to ''fight'' to

defeat a draft bill in Congress that would sharply cut the legally

protected Amazon reserve area, home of the world's largest tropical

forest.

The draft law, which has outraged environmentalists, was passed by a

parliamentary commission last week and is expected to be debated on

the floor of Congress next week. It would cut the reserve area of the

Amazon jungle to 50 percent from 80 percent of the total.

``I am sure lawmakers will think and act like all Brazilians who love

the Amazon,'' said President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who pledged

last week to veto the draft law if passed in Congress. ``We will fight

to maintain 80 percent of the environmental reserve area of the Amazon

forest.''

Environmentalists say the bill would seriously accelerate the

destruction of the Amazon rain forest -- the world's largest tropical

forest, which is sometimes considered as the ``lungs of the world''

for its immense production of oxygen.

A small group of lawmakers who oppose the bill protested outside

Congress on Tuesday by planting a tree.

The Amazon jungle is home to roughly 50 percent of the world's plant

and animal species. Its area measures more than twice the size of

France.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Geraldo Quintao criticized nongovernmental

organizations for their involvement in efforts to protect the Amazon.

He joined a string of lawmakers who have been attacking the NGOs.

``Why should we Brazilians be so submissive and allow these

supranational groups to come here and intervene in our lives,''

private Agencia Estado news agency quoted Quintao as saying.

Last week a senator in the upper chamber of Congress proposed that

Congress form an investigative commission to examine nongovernmental

organizations operating in the Amazon to judge which ones are

legitimate.

Some NGO's ``work with million-dollar donations from companies with

untrustworthy interests,'' said Sen. Bernardo Cabral of the right-wing

Liberal Front Party (PFL).

Garo Batmanian, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, told

Reuters Tuesday, ``I think if they want to investigate the NGOs, it is

their prerogative, but what we are seeing is now that public opinion

is against this bill. They (supporters of it) are trying to create

enemies of the bill.''

``They are trying to discredit the NGOs because they can't deal with

the issues,'' he added.

Environmentalists said the plan to cut the Amazon reserve area would

turn back the clock five years, allowing loggers to cut down tropical

forest roughly equal to the size of Belgium every year.

Since 1995 logging and other destruction of rain forest has been

gradually reduced to roughly 6,800 square miles in 1999 from about

12,000 square miles.

Environmentalists fear that increasing encroachment by farmers in the

Amazon will not only reduce the size of the world's largest tropical

forest but farming on its outskirts will also endanger biodiversity.

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