Brazil announces Amazon protection plan
United Press International - April 29, 1998 12:41
%DOMESTIC %US %RAINFOREST V%UPI P%UPI
By ELIZABETH MANNING
UPI Science News
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.
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Copyright 1998 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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