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Author Topic:   Greenpeace: Brazil rainforest destruction 'a national shame'
Lost Leo
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posted May 20, 2005 09:42 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Greenpeace: Brazil rainforest destruction 'a national shame'
Amazon loss at near-record levels, government says

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Environmentalists on Thursday blamed government inaction and pro-business policies for the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, which authorities a day earlier said was disappearing at a near-record pace.

The Brazilian Amazon lost an area of 26,130 square kilometers (10,088 square miles) of rain forest in the 12-month period ending in August 2004 -- a rate of about six football fields every minute, the Environment Ministry said Wednesday.

That figure was almost 6 percent higher than 24,600 square kilometers (9,500 square miles) destroyed in the same period a year earlier and only slightly lower than the record of 29,000 square kilometers (11,200 square miles) set in 1995.

"Clearly the administration has failed up to implement the Action Plan to protect the Amazon," said Paulo Adario, coordinator of Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign. "The fact that annual average destruction has been more than 23,000 square kilometers (8,880 square miles) for the last three years is simply unacceptable. It's a national shame."

Adario said that most shockingly, 70 percent of the destruction occurred between May and July 2004, when the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had implemented a much heralded action plan to curb deforestation.

Adario said agribusiness was largely to blame, with almost half the destruction occurring in Mato Grosso, a state governed by Blairo Maggi, one of the world's largest soybean farmers.

"The administration has to decide if it wants to fight Amazon deforestation or to promote the expansion of agribusiness to pay Brazil's external debt."

In recent years, Brazil has become a major agricultural producer, with the world's largest beef herd and a rapid expansion in soy bean production that has it poised to overtake the United States as the world's largest soybean producer.

"While few sectors of the government pursue sustainability, the majority promote actions that have a negative impact, providing incentives for real estate speculation in the direction of the forests," the World Wildlife Fund-Brazil said in a statement.

Many soybean farmers claim they buy only cleared land. But environmentalists argue the success of soybeans has driven up the value of cleared jungle, leading to a cycle in which cattle ranchers sell off pasture land and then clear new areas, selling the wood to loggers.

Environmentalists also say the paving of a 1,780-kilometer (1,100-mile) highway from Cuiaba, the capital of Mato Grosso state, to the port of Santarem in Para state will open a vast swatch of rainforest to development, further speeding destruction.

Scientists say the deforestation reduces the area's rich biodiversity and contributes to global warming. Burning in the Brazilian Amazon releases about 370 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year about 5.38 percent of the world total.

Brazil's rainforest is as big as western Europe and covers 60 percent of the country's territory. Experts say as much as 20 percent of its 1.6 million square miles (4.1 million square kilometers) has been destroyed by development, logging and farming.

Last year, the government announced that 23,750 square kilometers (9,170 square miles) of rainforest had vanished in 2003, but on Wednesday it corrected the figure to 24,600 square kilometers (9,500 square miles).

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Petron
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posted May 20, 2005 10:00 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Last year, the government announced that 23,750 square kilometers (9,170 square miles) of rainforest had vanished in 2003, but on Wednesday it corrected the figure to 24,600 square kilometers (9,500 square miles).


The Brazilian Amazon lost an area of 26,130 square kilometers (10,088 square miles) of rain forest in the 12-month period ending in August 2004 -- a rate of about six football fields every minute, the Environment Ministry said Wednesday.


oh my god i think i'm gonna puke.......

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Tranquil Poet
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posted May 21, 2005 12:43 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Humanity is going to destroy itself and all the animals.

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DayDreamer
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posted May 21, 2005 05:35 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I agree. We are helping in speeding up our own destruction!

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted May 21, 2005 07:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Hello LL, how are you? Been a while since I saw you here.

I don't know what we can do to stop the reduction of the rain forests in a real sense. It affects us all but it's not our country. Any ideas?

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DayDreamer
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posted May 22, 2005 12:30 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Maybe that's where, a war really needs to be waged. Same with the automobile and oil industries...

The polar ice caps up here have dramatically receeded in the last 20 years alone!! I'll have to AOL and Google the pic I saw comparing it's change in that time frame.

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RAINBOW WARRIOR
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posted May 25, 2005 10:57 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
yes very sad,it happened in our country too,
in the early 1800's our Kauri Tree's were cut down for ship building etc..they cleared the land for the dairy sheep and agricultural industries who stepped in afterwards. the thing is our political leaders at the time allowed these business leaders to come in and make deals.and i think alot of the religious leaders had no say in it for the people in general.
i think we have to have faith in the justice system & our leaders.

A POLITICAL LEADER WILL THINK FOR HIMSELF
THE BUSINESSMAN WILL ORGANIZE THE DEAL'S
& A RELIGIOUS MAN WILL COMMUNICATE FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE.

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Lost Leo
unregistered
posted May 27, 2005 05:24 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Hey jW, yeah I bounce in on rare occasions... usually when I'm insanely bored at work.

The Brazilian gov't has done an horrifyingly poor job at containing deforestation and has allowed a wedge to be cut thru the heart of the Amazon. Chances are, it will never recover... furthermore accelerating Global Warming.

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ozonefiller
Newflake

Posts: 0
From:
Registered: Aug 2009

posted May 29, 2005 03:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ozonefiller     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Well the destruction of the rainforest is just another faint cry for those that can't seem to understand that these are just all the deeds done by a government that have seem to do well preserving the wellbeing of the remnants of the Integralismo, to the safeholds of the Brazilian judical system!

If you think that what they do to the trees are bad, you gotta see how they treat the Brazilian citizens!

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