Subject: BIOD: Brazil Announces Amazon Protection Plan
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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazil Announces Amazon Protection Plan
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
4/30/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
Brazil has unveiled an "ambitious" plan to triple the extent of the
country's protected forests, bringing about 10% of the Amazon under
protected status. While noting the arbitrariness of choosing 10%, and
acknowledging that this is clearly inadequate to maintain regional
biodiversity and ecosystem functions in the long-term; the recent
announcment is exciting and a significant step forward. It may prove
monumental--if properly enacted, and then built upon to ensure the
Amazonian ecosystem remains ecologically functional.
Any long term sustainability and non-degradation of the crucial
Amazonian ecosystem will require significant, widespread and connected
protected areas amongst which may be nested various sustainable forest
use activities. The key to successful sustainable forest use ventures
will be placing and managing small to medium scale activities within
the context of an intact landscape with large blocks of preserved
forests. Indications are that maintenance of large-scale forest
processes, composition and function may require maintaining virgin and
late-successional forest cover over 40-60% of the landscape.
Following are three news accounts regarding Brazil's declaration of
new protected areas.
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ITEM #1
Title: Brazil announces Amazon protection plan
Source: United Press International
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for reprint permission
Date: April 29, 1998
WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- In a move that environmental skeptics
are politely calling "ambitious," the president of Brazil announced a
commitment to triple his country's regions of protected Amazon
rainforest by the year 2000.
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's promise Wednesday is the first
in the world obtained by an alliance of the World Bank and the World
Wildlife Fund.
President Cardoso's commitment would add another 62 million acres (25
million hectares) of conservation units, bringing the total protected
Amazon in Brazil to about 10 percent. The commitment represents the
largest conservation measure ever undertaken by Brazil.
Francis Sullivan, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Forest-for-
Life campaign, says Brazil's new commitment is "fundamentally very
different" from previous, often dropped initiatives. This time, he
told United Press International in a telephone interview, "the
president is being very specific" about schedules, areas, and
enforcement.
As a gesture of good faith, Cardoso signed decrees that protect four
new tracts of rainforest that total 1.5 million acres (600,000
hectares), or about 2.4 percent of the total commitment.
While Environmental Defense Fund senior scientist Steve Schwartzman
calls the signing "a very clear initial expression of intention," he
told UPI, "not to be deluded."
He says, "The Brazilian government has a history of making grand
international public gestures" regarding protection of the resource-
and species-rich rainforest. "It would be much more reassuring if it
was taking decisive steps to prevent fires and illegal logging."
The Brazilian Amazon is roughly the size of Western Europe. Only 3.5
percent of the Amazon, or 32 million acres (13 million hectares), is
currently protected as national parks and biological reserves. Under
its lush canopy lives the world's largest conglomeration of plant and
animal species. It also contains one- fifth of the world's fresh water
supply.
The World Wildlife Fund, known as the World Wide Fund for Nature
outside North America, estimates that about 14 percent of rainforest
along the Amazon River has been destroyed over the years. Along the
highly developed Atlantic coast, the destruction is near complete at
93 percent. Two of the four tracts signed on today are vestiges of the
Atlantic rainforest.
The intention, says World Wildlife Fund's Sullivan, is to link up
existing areas to form large corridors of safe haven both north and
south of the Amazon River.
Even the most optimistic observers agree Brazil's goal is daunting.
Sullivan says, "This commitment is tantamount to setting up the
Parks and Wildlife Service in the United States. It will cover (the
equivalent of) three-fourths of the entire protected areas of the
U.S."
Some of the land, he admits, will be politically difficult for
Cardoso to protect. Some regions contain rich sources of gold and
other minerals as well as valuable trees like mahogany. Strips near
the country's northern border must be negotiated with the Brazilian
army, which had planned an extensive network of roads and outposts for
security reasons.
Sullivan says Cardoso's incentive comes largely from the World Bank.
While he says, "we don't see it as a compensation deal," the
international organization has the power to rally world governments to
offer grants and loans to Brazil.
He says the World Bank has already committed $30 million to $40
million to help set up the conservation units.
Exactly how the Brazilian government will protect the new parks is
still unclear. Sullivan says "a massive beefing up" of its
environmental agency is likely.
This federal office finally received some power of enforcement
earlier this year, after a bill establishing criminal penalties for
certain violations languished in the Brazilian Congress for seven
years. Previously, environmental inspectors were able to collect only
about 6 percent of the fines it imposed.
Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, a report from the Federal
Secretary of Strategic Affairs found that 80 percent of all logging in
the Amazon is illegal.
Noting this troubled history of forest management, forest advisor
Nigel Sizer of the World Resources Institute in Washington says the
commitment is "an important gesture by the Brazilian government.
Nevertheless, it does not address the fires, logging, and escalating
deforestation rates."
Of particular concern is the effects of El Nino, which has caused
drought all over eastern South America. In March, fires burned out of
control in northeast Brazil, causing the worst destruction ever
recorded. Even parts of virgin forest, historically protected from
fire by moist and dense root systems, went up in flames, probably at
least in part because loggers illegally thin out trees while safely
hidden under the forest canopy.
"Do you know how the fires finally stopped?" asked Melina Selverston,
director of the Washington-based Amazon Coalition. "The government let
it burn for three weeks. Finally, all the shamans in the area got
together and prayed for rain and that night it poured."
Now the dry season for regions south of the equator is approaching,
and Environmental Defense Fund's Schwartzman says the government has
done little to prepare for new fire threats. And this part of the
rainforest, he adds, is 30 times larger than the ravaged rainforest
that made headlines in March.
He says, "Don't get me wrong, protection of any kind is helpful. It
would just carry more credibility with me if the discussions had
involved the plethora of grass-roots environmental groups in Brazil.
Ten years ago, these people were a tiny minority. Now they have
democratically elected officials."
He summarizes, "It would be a mistake to represent this commitment
as anything more than a grand rhetorical gesture."
Selverston says she will also watch how native peoples, who have
lived in the forests for thousands of years, will be involved in
setting up the new areas.
Nevertheless, World Wildlife Fund's Sullivan credited Cardoso for
"taking the lead" in the worldwide forest-protection initiative.
In June 1997, the World Bank announced before the United Nations that
it would work together with conservation organizations to save 10
percent of the world's forests from destruction by the year 2000.
Other countries in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe as well as Latin
America have been approached to join.
Nearly two-thirds of the words original forest cover is gone. Of what
remains, 94 percent is unprotected and is disappearing at the rate of
nearly 42 million acres annually.
ITEM #2
Title: Brazil to triple protected area of Amazon forest
Source: Agence France-Presse
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for reprint permission
Date: April 29, 1998
WASHINGTON, April 29 (AFP) - The government of Brazil will triple the
amount of protected forest in the Amazon under a deal brokered by the
World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), officials announced
Wednesday.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn said the decision by Brasilia
was a major step forward in protecting the dwindling Amazon,
threatened in recent years by raging fires and deforestation.
"This decision will help preserve the abundant biodiversity in this
remarkable tropical region. It is a true gift to the Brazilian people
and, indeed to the world," Wolfensohn said in a statement, calling the
move "truly a remarkable one, both for its size and content."
Brazil's president Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed decrees Wednesday
for two new protected areas in the Amazon, and two in the Atlantic
forest, totalling almost 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres.)
Until Wednesday only 3.5 percent of the immense rain forest had been
protected, but the decision by the Brazilian government will increase
that amount to 10 percent, according to the WWF and the World Bank.
Brazil has decided to protect around 25 million hectares (62 million
acres) of the Amazon forest by 2000, an area equal to the size of
Britain, the WWF said. The government will receive at least 35 million
dollars in World Bank aid to protect the massive virgin forest.
Over the past three months, forest fires in Brazil have ravaged an
area the size of Belgium, and the country's Green Party has accused
the government of failing to do enough to prevent and extinguish
blazes.
The fires, started by arson, accident and the local farmers' slash-
and-burn clearing methods, raged uncontrolled for months in the
isolated Roraima province under a severe El Nino-related drought.
ITEM #3
Title: Brazil to protect area of Amazon the size of Britain
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for reprint permission
Date: April 29, 1998
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brazil pledged Wednesday to protect an
unprecedented 62 million acres of Amazon forest -- an area equivalent
in size to Britain -- by the end of the century.
The pledge announced by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is the
single-largest forest conservation bid in the Amazon, the home of one-
third of the planet's surviving tropical forests and one-tenth of its
plant and animal species.
By itself it would account for half of the goal set by the World Bank
and the World Wildlife Fund in their alliance to protect 10 percent of
the world's remaining forests by 2000.
"This is a testimony of our commitment to preserve the environment for
the benefit of our people, including the indigenous population and our
future generations," Cardoso said in videotaped statement shown at a
news conference.
Today only 4 percent of the Amazon forest is protected in Brazil,
though another 16 percent is part of Indian reserves.
Cardoso said Brazil and the World Bank signed an agreement to make
available part of the funds needed to protect the forest areas once
they have been selected.
"Money is not the issue," World Bank president James Wolfensohn told
the news conference. He said the bank had just replenished its Global
Environment Facility and there was $2.57 billion available for the
next three years.
"The issue is going to be getting the commitment from governments to
allocate areas," said Wolfensohn, who praised the Brazilian president
for his decision. "It is a true gift to the Brazilian people and,
indeed, to the world."
Environmentalists say the world's forests are disappearing at an
alarming rate.
Nearly two-thirds of the Earth's original forests have already been
lost. Of the remainder, 94 percent are unprotected and disappearing at
about 1.3 acres a second, the WWF said.
In recent months forest fires have raged in Brazil and Southeast Asia,
fueled by dry conditions caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon and
changing global climatic conditions.
In Brazil alone, forest fires have destroyed an area the size of
Belgium in the past three months.
The destruction of the world's forests will lead to a ecological
disaster affecting all of humanity, said Claude Martin, director
general of WWF-International.
"We cannot continue like this. We all need to stand together to solve
this global crisis," he said.
Martin urged rich industrialized nations to "put their money where
their mouths were" and cough up more funds for environmental
protection when they meet in London next month.
"If we don't draw the line, then our children are not going to have
forests," said Wolfensohn.
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