9/22/02 -- ACTION ALERT: Support Efforts by Brazilian Communities to Create Amazon Reserve

ACTION ALERT

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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Support Efforts by Brazilian Communities to Create Amazon Reserve

Illegal Logs Seized, Peaceful Protestors Attacked

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

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TAKE ACTION:

Support Brazilian Rainforest Protestors

http://forests.org/emailaction/brazil_protests.htm

September 22, 2002

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

Forest communities in Brazil’s Pará state, in the eastern Amazon,

are blockading the transport of illegal logs, while demanding

establishment of the World’s largest extractive reserve. Extractive

reserves are protected areas designated for conservation and

sustainable use of natural resources by the people who live in the

area. The three-day protest was inspired by Chico Mendes, a

world-renowned activist, who was murdered 14 years ago trying to

protect the Amazon rainforest.

For three years forest communities have sought to create the Verde

Para Sempre (Forever Green) extractive reserve. With an area of

1.3 million hectares, almost half the area of Belgium, the reserve

would stop industrial forest destruction while promoting community

based, ecologically sustainable forest uses. But rampant

predatory logging threatens to overwhelm these and other local

eco-forestry efforts in the Amazon and the World’s other remaining

rainforest wildernesses.

The Jaraucu river, which is being blockaded by whole communities

of men, women and children; is the main transport route for

illegal timber in an Amazonian region well known for land

squatting and illegal logging. Farmers and loggers invade forest

areas, open illegal roads and threaten the traditional local

people, who depend on the forests for survival. The river

blockade mounted by local communities has already stopped two

illegal logging barges. But their situation is tenuous as

peaceful protestors have already been attacked.

Please take the time to support these brave forest defenders. In

international solidarity with these local forest communities,

Greenpeace and other supporters; Forests.org asks that you lobby

the Brazilian government to stand up against forest destruction

and demand the creation of the Verde Para Sempre extractive

reserve at http://forests.org/emailaction/brazil_protests.htm .

Remind the Brazilian government of their global ecological

responsibility to maintain the Amazon as an operable whole through

much higher levels of designation of large rainforests for strict

protection and community based eco-forestry activities.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Illegal logs seized after attack on peaceful protest in

the Amazon

http://production.greenpeace.org/features/details?features_id=2869

9&l

ang=en

Date: September 22, 2002

BRAZIL/Porto de Moz - After only three days, the river blockade

mounted by local communities in the Amazon has stopped two illegal

logging barges carrying over 200 mahogany logs. The barges have

been impounded and the owner fined almost 200,000 Brazilian Reals -

nearly US$ 60,000.

The communities’ successful protest supported by Greenpeace

activists on the ground is the first of its kind in almost 20 years

as the people that depend on the forest for their livelihood stand up

against forest destruction and demand the creation of an extractive

reserve.

Extractive reserves are protected areas designated for

conservation and sustainable use of the areas’ natural resources by

the people who live in the area. The three-day protest was inspired

by Chico Mendes, a world-renowned activist, who was murdered 14 years

ago trying to protect the Amazon rainforest. His model of protest,

known as empates or physical blockades of forest areas, was widely

used in the 1980’s.

Chico Mendes also developed the model for extractive reserves in

the 80s with other traditional forest dwellers and the National

Council of Rubber Tappers and was later adopted by the Brazilian

federal government.

This is the first time a blockade of this type has been carried

out since he died. The communities’ goal is to create Verde Para

Sempre (Forever Green), the largest extractive reserve in the world,

which would help stop forest destruction and promote the sustainable

use of natural resources. The proposed area is 1.3 million hectares,

almost half the size of Belgium.

Over 40 small riverboats anchored across the 100-meter wide

Jaraucu river — the main channel for the transport of illegal timber

in the region this time of year. The blockade saw this first

transport over the weekend as metal barge carrying 113 illegally

harvested logs was stopped.

The skipper of the tugboat, André Campos, is the brother of the

Mayor of Porto de Moz, a small town at the mouth of the Xingu river.

The barge tried to ram the blockade at high speed. A Greenpeace

inflatable boat was able to deflect the barge into the riverbank,

saving five small boats from destruction, and 86 local people,

mostly children and elderly people, from serious injury or death.

The barge crew reacted violently and three people were injured.

Protesters from Greenpeace and a journalist from the Brazilian TV

network Record, also had to be rescued from the local airport at

Porto de Moz by police after coming under threat from the logging

community.

Ibama (the Brazilian Environmental Agency) agents seized the

illegal logs on board the first barge and then later, together with

Greenpeace and community members, impounded a second barge with 90

illegal logs onboard, also owned by a member of the Campos family.

Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon Campaign Coordinator, is on the

scene and describes the area as no man’s land. “It’s criminal that

officials who are entrusted with public safety, like the Mayor of

Porto de Moz, instead protect only their commercial interests,

while the people of the region live in fear as their environment is

destroyed. Eighty percent of the worlds’ ancient forests are

already destroyed, and the very people who could preserve the

remainder are subjected to intimidation and violence.”

Two barges transporting over 200 illegal logs were impounded

by IBAMA (Brazilian Environmental Agency) after a three days

blockade by 40 small river boats in the Jaraucu river.

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