eu faco tudo isso, so esqueco de lembrar outras pessoas…. ! ;-)

bjao,

COMMENT:
mas será que basta? ;|

June 27, 2003

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by http://www.forests.org

The rate at which Brazil’s rainforests are disappearing has leapt

by 40 per cent in a single year. This follows several years of

marginal declines. In the year to August 2002, an area the size

of Belgium was lost. There are plenty of explanations and blame

to go around. As we have highlighted previously, a major new

threat is the clearance of primary rain forests to grow soy beans

– largely for industrial cattle feed in Europe.

Given this terrible global ecological news, there has been a

scramble to be seen as defining and beginning to implement

solutions. The Brazilian government promises to announce new

measures shortly. Meanwhile WWF has provided a list of

reasonable policy responses (see below). All but one of their

suggestions is reasonable. However, their goal of 12% protection

for the Amazon is woefully inadequate, and threatens the

ecological sustainability of the Amazon and the Earth.

The Amazon basin drives global climatic cycles, harbors most of

the World’s life forms, and is a major component of the

biogeophysical processes that make the Earth habitable. On what

basis and authority does WWF acquiesce to losing over 85% of the

Amazon, in the process fragmenting and making it ecologically

impotent? Is this how much is needed for bioregional ecological

sustainability? Or is this what is easily achieved so WWF can

claim victory, gather cash, grow the empire and move on? What is

the basis for lobbying to protect only 12% of the largest largely

intact rainforest? I await a response.

My immediate suggestions: 1) Europe and the World must be called

upon to end rainforest destruction subsidies by discontinuing

soya and other agricultural imports from areas previously covered

in primary forests; 2) Brazil must commit to placing under strict

protection as “Global Ecological Reserves” over 50% of the Amazon

in large core areas that are connected – sustainable development

should be practiced in surrounding buffers; 3) and a major and

sustained international program of financial and technical

assistance to Brazil to support protection and conservation

management of the Amazon is needed.

Brazil and neighboring countries have a global responsibility to

commit to protecting the Amazon as a Planetary ecological marvel.

The rest of the World has an equal or greater responsibility to

commitment to pay – and pay well in perpetuity – for them to do

so. The Earth and society as we know it will not survive loss of the Amazon as a functional whole.

g.b. (not minzinho: Guaco Bey)

Apagar as luzes de cômodos desabitados também ajuda! Tomar banho em menos tempo, ir a pé ou de ônibus quando as circunstâncias permitem… sempre há um jeitinho de colaborar com o meio ambiente. :)