Wind and Rain Cut Fire Risk to Brazil Indian Park
9/1/98
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Title: Wind and Rain Cut Fire Risk to Brazil Indian Park
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 9/1/98
Byline: William Schomberg
BRASILIA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A change of wind direction and some rain have
reduced the risk of fires reaching one of Brazil's biggest and best-
preserved Indian reservations, environmental officials said on Tuesday.
Farmland was blazing about six miles (10 km) east of the Xingu National
Park by Tuesday afternoon, further away than a previous estimate of just
2.5 miles (four km), a spokeswoman for the government's Environment
Institute (IBAMA) said.
Firemen began tackling the fires on Tuesday amid concerns they could
spread into the 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 turned north from Monday to Tuesday and some scattered showers
fell in the region, increasing humidity and slowing the spread of the
fires, the IBAMA spokeswoman said.
``The chief fire officer in the area says the fires are unlikely to reach
the park,'' she said.
Earlier Tuesday, senior Brazilian officials denied reports in local
newspapers that the park was ablaze.
``The fire has not reached the Xingu Indian area,'' said a spokesman for
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who met with environmental experts to
discuss ways of avoiding a disaster.
Cardoso, who was widely criticised for his slow response to devastating
fires in the far north of the Amazon this year, agreed to free up $12.8
million for a new programme to prevent, detect and fight fires across this
huge nation.
Most of the money represented an advance of funds pledged by the World
Bank but which had not yet been handed over.
This year, the El Nino weather phenomenon has made Brazil's dry season
even more arid and forest fires even worse than usual. The number of
suspected fires across the country stand at about 22,000, environmental
officials say.
Firemen were also fighting flames on Tuesday in or near two of Brazil's
most stunning national parks, Chapada dos Veadeiros and 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 labourers, some of them flapping at the flames with nothing more
than uprooted bushes and branches.
Brazil's air force flew a first 30 firemen to the area Monday. Eighty more
firefighters, armed with portable water tanks, were due to reach the town
of Sao Jose do Xingu by Wednesday, and army units were called in to
provide logistical support.
``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 havve filmed the colourful Kuaru 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
cattle ranches which are burned yearly to clear scrub.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.