Brazil's Rainforest Plan Under Fire
11/30/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
It would truly be a shame if Brazil addressed its current economic
crisis partly by cutting back programs to conserve the Amazon
rainforest. Such short term thinking! Yet this appears to be
happening.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil's Rainforest Plan Under Fire
Source: Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 25, 1998
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Hundreds of international groups blasted
Brazil's government on Tuesday for making drastic cuts in programs
aimed at saving its rainforests.
The cuts are part of an austerity program to save $24 billion in 1999
and $80 billion by 2002. Pledges of such reductions helped Brazil
secure an International Monetary Fund rescue package of $41.5 billion
earlier this month.
``Programs that would fight predatory exploitation of mahogany forests
and boost eco-tourism in the Amazon will be adversely affected,''
Claudionor Alexandre Barbosa da Silva, president of the Amazon Work
Group (GTA) told the Estado de Sao Paolo.
From 1978-96, more than 200,000 square miles or 12.5 percent of the
Amazon jungle were destroyed, mainly by farmers, ranchers and loggers.
The GTA, which represents 355 non-government organizations, is irate
about a government announcement to cut 90 percent of funding allocated
for programs to fight the devastation.
Da Silva pointed to the Pilot Program to Protect Tropical Forests,
which had its budget slashed from $61 million to just $6.3 million.
``It's absurd and unjust,'' he told the newspaper.
The Atlantic Forest, which once spanned Brazil's 4,500-square-mile
eastern coast when the Portuguese first arrived in 1500, has been
reduced to just 3 percent of its original area.
The GTA began a campaign Monday to lobby members of Brazil's congress
to fight the proposed cuts.