Brazil Flies in Fireman to Protect Indigenous Land
9/1/98
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Title: Brazil Flies in Fireman to Protect Indigenous Land
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 9/1/98
Byline: William Schomberg
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Firemen began tackling blazes that threaten
one of Brazil's biggest and best-preserved Indian reservations on Tuesday
as the government freed up nearly $13 million to bolster firefighting
efforts nationwide.
Burning farmland was spotted by satellites just 2.5 miles (4 kms) east of
the Xingu National Park, a densely forested area on the southern fringe of
the Amazon Basin that is bigger than Belgium and home to 17 indigenous
groups.
But winds in the area turned north overnight, reducing the immediate risk
to the park despite the proximity of the fires, officials said.
``The fire has not reached the Xingu Indian area,'' said a spokesman for
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who met with environmental officials
to discuss ways of avoiding a disaster in the Xingu park.
Cardoso, who was widely criticized for his response to devastating fires
in the far north of the Amazon earlier this year, agreed to free up $12.8
million for a new program to prevent, detect and fight fires across the
nation.
Most of the money represented an advance of funds pledged by the World
Bank to support the firefighting plan, but which had not yet been handed
over.
This year, the El Nino weather phenomenon has made Brazil's dry season
more ferocious than usual, with the number of suspected fires across the
country virtually doubling to about 22,000, environmental officials say.
Firemen were also fighting flames on Tuesday in or close to two of
Brazil's most stunning national parks, the Chapada dos Veadeiros and
the Chapada Diamantina, in the central highlands.
Brazil declared a ``red alert'' for the first time under the plan on
Monday amid fears that several fires were advancing on the Xingu park
where the vegetation is extremely dry.
Up to now, attempts to stop the fires have been limited to the efforts of
300 farm laborers, some of them flapping at the flames with nothing more
than uprooted bushes and branches.
A first contingent of 30 firemen from Brasilia arrived in the area on
Monday on an air force plane. Another 80 firefighters, armed with portable
water tanks, were due to fly to the nearby town of Sao Jose do Xingu by
Wednesday.
Army units would provide the firefighters with logistic support, the
government's Environmental Institute (IBAMA) said.
``All the necessary planning has been done to make sure the Indians do not
run any risk,'' IBAMA president Eduardo Martins told reporters.
The Xingu park, covering 6.42 million acres (2.6 million hectares), was
created in 1961 as a reservation for several indigenous groups, many of
which were nearly wiped out in violent clashes with white settlers and
roadbuilders and by the diseases the outsiders brought.
The park is considered a showpiece of Brazil's attempts to protect Indian
culture. Traditional ceremonies are still strictly observed and television
crews from around the world have filmed the colorful Kuarup festivals
where men daubed in thick red paint wrestle to commemorate the dead.
It is also prized for its rich biodiversity. As a ``transition'' region,
the park is home to species from Brazil's ``cerrado'' savannahs and the
Amazon rainforests further north.
But like most of Brazil's Indian areas, the Xingu is under pressure from
outsiders. Village leaders say the rivers that loop through the park on
their way to the Amazon are polluted from grain farms upstream.
Hunters and miners enter the area with ease and men from several villages
say they have recently spotted groups of armed loggers stealing precious
mahogany trees from the park.
Satellite images show the deep green of the forests stretching
uninterrupted to the park's perimeter where they run right up against
cleared land used for grazing cattle that is burned yearly by ranchers to
clear scrub.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.