11/04/02 -- Amazonian Rainforests: Surging Threats, Never Lose Hope

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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Amazonian Rainforests: Surging Threats, Never Lose Hope

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

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

http://www.EnvironmentalSustainability.info/ -- Eco-Portal

http://www.ClimateArk.org/ -- Climate Change Portal

November 4, 2002

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

The pace of Amazonian rainforest loss and diminishment is

accelerating from a variety of causes. The following articles

emphasize emerging threats such as soybean production and massive new

infrastructure projects; as well as mahogany logging, which is an

existing but still growing cause of deforestation. As Bill Laurance

(in my opinion the World's preeminent rainforest scientist) states:

"Historically, the Amazon has been nibbled away at the edges, but now

what's been happening is like somebody going right in and chopping it

right up."

The solution? Brazil and other countries with remaining large

primary forests must be paid to maintain these critical ecosystem

engines in an intact and fully operable state. Governments and

forest dwellers will need to be "encouraged not to cut down trees by

being offered a system of rewards." This will require financing

strict protection of most remaining primary, old-growth and important

remnant forests suitable for restoration; and embedding small and

medium scale eco-forestry practices practiced by local forest

dwellers in this intact ecological matrix.

Such an ecologically based landscape approach is the only meaningful

definition of "sustainable forestry" in the Earth's remaining ancient

forests. The World's weather patterns, carbon cycling, biodiversity

and many other requirements for ecological sustainability depend upon

protecting and restoring large forest expanses. Ending commercial

scale development of ancient forests is a global imperative - and the

over-developed countries must pay the not yet over-developed

countries to maintain critical ecological systems. Below is a good

collection of recent Brazilian rainforest conservation news, much

more of which can be found at: http://forests.org/brazil/ .

Clearly the World's forests, with only 20% their pre-human

agricultural extent still existing in primary and mostly natural

forest cover, have been over-exploited and have overshot their

capacity to sustain global ecological processes and patterns. One

can never lose hope that one day - before ecological collapse is

assured - humanity will embark upon the age of ecological restoration

which will require strictly protecting large remaining natural areas

as its basis. Never lose hope - the sooner we commence, the more

likely we will succeed.

g.b.

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ITEM #1:

Title: Lust For "Green Gold" Drives Amazon Destruction

International Mahogany Trade Reeks of Power, Corruption and Blood

Source: Greenpeace USA Action Alert!

Date: October 30, 2002

The wood oozes glamour and prestige in the gleaming showrooms of the

north. But its plunder drives the destruction of the Amazon

rainforest, corruption and even murder.

The wood is mahogany, but it's also known as "green gold". For good

reason. One log earns an astonishing $130,000 by the time companies

like Stickley furniture transform it into the solid mahogany dining

tables for sale in such places as family destination Colonial

Williamsburg.

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/features/greengold.htm

Take Action!

Urge Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, The White House Council on

Environmental Quality, and the Bureau of Oceans and International

Environmental and Scientific Affairs to support the addition of

mahogany to CITES appendix II.

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/actionframe.pl?action_id=151

ITEM #2:

Title: Another theme for Lula's team: mahogany

Priorities include the Atlantic Forest and changes in the Forest

Code

Source: O Estado de S.Paulo

Date: October 30, 2002

Even before he takes office, the President-Elect Luiz Inácio Lula da

Silva will have to decide if he will support proposals to include

mahogany in Annex II of CITES convention. At the beginning of

November, the Environment Minister, Jose Carlos Carvalho, will

present the new government's position at the CITES meeting in Chile.

Mahogany is already included in Annex III of the CITES convention,

which imposes restriction on its exploitation. Sectors of the current

government are opposed to the inclusion of mahogany in Annex II.

Under Annex II regulations, the exportation of the endangered species

would depend on the importer having a licence.

The co-ordinator of Greenpeace's Amazonia campaign, Paulo Adario,

disagrees. "The inclusion in Annex II would open up the international

market to Brazil", he said. He added that English importers no longer

want to buy Brazilian mahogany because its legality could not be

proved.

Minister Carvalho does not consider the question to be urgent because

"Brazil has already imposed a moratorium on the exploitation of

mahogany until March".

The co-ordinator of Forest Resource Management at IBAMA, Paulo

Fontes, thinks that increased vigilance, incentives for management

and the creation of lines of credit for management projects, would be

more efficient in the control of mahogany than its inclusion in Annex

II. He said that there are studies which prove the existence of

mahogany stocks and the species' capacity for regeneration. "We need

to show that the standing forest is more profitable", said Fontes.

Without this change in attitude, he said, the country will continue

to see fires, deforestation and illegal extraction.

Guatemala and Nicargua proposed the inclusion of the species in Annex

II alleging that producing countries need international assistance to

prevent the extinction of mahogany.

Mahogany is one of the principal environmental questions facing the

current government and Lula's future government, along with the

preservation of the Atlantic Forest and proposed changes to the

Forest Code.

ITEM #3

Title: Brazil non-GM soy seen threatening rain forests

Date: November 4, 2002

LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Green groups have praised Brazil's

rejection of gene-modified (GM) soybean production but fear the

policy will take a heavy toll on the Amazon rain forests.

"Soya farming really is emerging as the critical driver of Amazonian

deforestation," William Laurance of the Panama-based Smithsonian

Tropical Research Institute told Reuters.

Andy Tait of the Greenpeace environment group added: "Ironically,

Brazil's choice to produce non-GM soya is resulting in huge tracks of

land being cleared."

Brazil, the world's second largest producer and exporter of soybeans

with over 24 percent of global output, has resisted the trend that

has seen the United States and other producers shift to gene-modified

varieties over the past decade.

But its stand is fraught with dangers, Tait said.

"Contamination is coming in from Argentina, one of the main GM soya

producers. A lot of the soya in the south of Brazil is already

contaminated."

Brazilian farmers seeking to grow non-GM soybeans had been forced to

move continuously north and into the rain forests, where industrial

farming methods meant trees had to go.

NEW ROADS

"Historically, the Amazon has been nibbled away at the edges, but now

what's been happening is like somebody going right in and chopping it

right up," Laurance said.

The government was spending heavily to improve infrastructure under

its Advance Brazil programme.

"Much of the infrastructure that this programme is going to involve

is for instance peeling about seven and a half thousand kilometres of

highways...transportation projects, channelling and damming three

large river systems and so on," Laurance added.

He estimated that by 2020 as much as 42 percent of the Amazon forest

might have disappeared or suffered severe damage.

"We have to realise that the Amazon as the world's largest remaining

area of intact forest is going to be dramatically transformed by

these avalanches of projects trying to accommodate industrial soya

farming," Laurance said.

Amazonia covers some 7 million square kilometres of land, with about

5 million square kilometres in Brazil.

It accounts for much more of the world's rainfall than previously

supposed, recent research shows, and ecologists fear that

deforestation will threaten the world's water

Studies have also suggested that the Amazon may be soaking up as much

as eight percent of man's annual carbon dioxide emissions.

ITEM #4

Title: Brazil pressed not to fell rainforests

Date: November 1, 2002

LONDON - Environmentalists battling to save the Amazon rainforest

said yesterday that Brazil should be encouraged not to cut down trees

by being offered a system of rewards.

Supported by new findings, ecologists are to present a major new

action plan aimed at saving one of the world's most precious natural

resources from extinction.

The plan will be put forward to South American government

representatives meeting in London yesterday.

Roberto Smeraldi, Amazon director of Friends of the Earth, told

Reuters that under the plan, Brazil should be compensated for not

felling its forests. "There is no alternative," he said.

He called for crop diversification and more productive cattle

ranching in the short term.

Research has suggested unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could spell

an end to the rainforests and lead to extreme weather phenomena such

as that produced by the El Nino effect.

Brazil is planning huge transport and hydroelectric schemes over the

next five years. But ecologists warned that that planned dams could

mean flooding an area of rainforest equivalent to half the size of

Britain.

Over the next two decades, Brazil's development programmes could

devour more than 40 percent of the rainforest, the plan says in a

contribution from Bill Laurance from the Smithsonian Tropical

Research Institute in Panama.

Amazonia accounts for much more of the world's rainfall than

previously supposed, recent research shows, and ecologists fear that

deforestation will threaten the world's water supply.

Studies have suggested that the Amazon rainforest may be soaking up

carbon dioxide belched out by industry. The forest could mop up as

much as eight percent of man's annual emissions.

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