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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
VICTORY:
Historic Victory for Brazilian Amazon
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05/18/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Leaders
of Brazil's Congress last night shelved proposed legislation
that
would have increased Amazonian deforestation.
Environmental
Defense,
in sending out this announcement, summed it up perfectly:
"Thanks
to all who sent faxes or emails yesterday. Our partners in
Brazil
felt that an international campaign would be very important,
and in
conjunction with their mobilization, it made a difference.
This is
a critical victory."
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil Environmental Movement Wins Historic
Victory for
Forest
Source: Environmental Defense
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: May 18, 2000
Leaders
of Brazil's Congress last night shelved proposed legislation
to
increase the area and rate of Amazon forest destruction, handing
the
ranchers' and large landowners' caucus (ruralistas) of the
Congress
a major, and precedent-setting, defeat.
The representatives
of the
rural oligarchy had pushed a draft law through a joint
House/Senate
Committee that would have loosened restrictions on Amazon
deforestation,
and could have caused a 25% increase in annual rates of
clearing
and burning.
Massive
e-mail and fax protests to Congress and the President, and
broad
national media coverage orchestrated by Brazilian environmental
and
grassroots groups killed the measure before it could come to the
House
floor. The humiliating defeat marks the first time that the
Brazilian
environmental movement has prevailed over the ranchers'
powerful
special interest group.
Environmental
organizations such as the Instituto Socioambiental,
parliamentary
leader Senator Marina Silva (Worker's Party - Acre) and
Amazon
union and grassroots groups struck a chord that echoed in
Brazilian
public opinion in denouncing the destruction law as
irresponsible
and contrary to the national interest. Government
officials
at one point blocked the massive flux of protest emails to
Senate
offices - but backed down when the move was derided as
censorship
in the press. Press and TV coverage overwhelmingly opposed
the
measure, as did the Environment Ministry. The ranchers' proposed
changes
to the Forestry Code summarily rejected an alternative
proposal
negotiated in the National Environment Council (CONAMA) among
many
interest groups (including the ranchers).
The
latifundistas' caucus, with some 200 votes in the Congress,
represents
the rural oligarchy - the 1% of the landowners who control
some
50% of Brazil agricultural land (while 50% of the farmers have
only
3%). The group has specialized in holding government-sponsored
legislation
hostage to parochial, pork- barrel concerns considered
unseemly
even by the standards of the Brazilian Congress. These
maneuvers
have yielded tens of billions in official debt forgiveness,
overwhelmingly
for the few, largest debtors, while health care,
education,
and environment budgets suffered deep cuts. In this case,
the
group threatened to derail a vote on the minimum wage, considered
critical
by the government, to keep the government out of the
Committee
vote.
"The
ranchers' caucus is the human face of the inequality, injustice,
class
privilege, and impunity that have plagued Brazil for 500 years,"
said
Environmental Defense senior scientist Stephan Schwartzman. "The
fight
over this legislation was really between the 19th century and
the
21st, over the future of the Amazon. Its important that the 21st
century
won."
For
further information :
Steve
Schwartzman sschwartzman@environmentaldefense.org
202-387-3500;
Environmental Defense
Adriana
Ramos adriana@socioambiental.org -011-55-61-349-5114
Instituto
Socioambiental
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