Bulldozing the Amazon
9/3/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Bulldozing the Amazon
Source: Lapeer Community News
Date: 9/3/97
SAO PAULO, Brazil-- A new internationallly-financed assualt on the Amazon
rain forest is under way, with investment banks and multinational agencies
financing dozens of infastructure megaprojects that will rip open the
heart of the Amazon Basin. Roads, railways, gas and oil pipelines,
industrail waterways, mining operations and hydrielectric
dams are being built or planned. The aim is to provide foreign consumers
with cheaper grain minerals and lumer by reducing transport costs. Seven
of these projects--- Total cost, more then 3 billion--are among President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso's priorities, due for completion by 1999. They
include the paving of existing dirt roads normally impassable during the
tropical rainy season and the dredging of the Amazon tributaries to turn
them into industrial waterways for giant grian barges