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FACING DESTRUCTION - GREENPEACE LAUNCHES AMAZON CAMPAIGN IN BRAZIL
31 May 1999
Rio de Janeiro/Brazil -- At the beginning of the 1999 environmental week, Greenpeace announced its new global priority: the Amazon. "The fight against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest will be one of Greenpeace's top priorities going into the next Millennium," stated Thilo Bode, executive director of Greenpeace International at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Greenpeace will first concentrate on destructive logging activities in the Brazilian Amazon. Recent studies identify the logging industry as the main threat to ancient forests all over the world including the Amazon. In the new report "Facing Destruction: A Greenpeace Briefing on the timber industry in the Brazilian Amazon" 2,500 logging companies and sawmills in the Amazon have been identified.
The report further identifies 26 foreign owned transnational companies (TNCs) which are now operating in the Amazon. According to the Brazilian government 80 per cent of all logged timber in the Amazon is illegal.
As recently as 1970, 99 per cent of the Amazon remained intact. Today, the Brazilian government estimates that 553,086 km2 of the Brazilian Amazon, or roughly, an area the size of France has been deforested. That is 14 per cent of the Brazilian. Moreover, the destruction continues. During the last four years, an area the size of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined (77,285 km2) has been lost.
With the depletion of Southeast Asian and Central African Forests, the Amazon is being targeted by TNCs as the essential source of tropical timber in the coming decades. The logging industry in the Amazon is the door opener to the destruction of the remaining ancient forests in this region. Roads built by the logging industry provide access for other forms of destructive forest use such as cattle ranching or soy plantations.
Besides protesting against the destructive logging, the Greenpeace campaign will also seek economic alternatives for the Amazonian people. "We want people to look at the forest as an opportunity for development, not as an obstacle to it", stated Roberto Kishinami, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil. The campaign will focus on finding sustainable economic alternatives such as rubber tapping or marketing of fruits and plants from the forest for the 20 million people who live in the Amazon region. "The time to look at the Amazon as a "park" is gone. It is obvious that any effort to save the forest must address the question of a sustainable economic development," said Kishinami.
Greenpeace has been campaigning in the Amazon since 1992. Following the Greenpeace campaign, the Brazilian government declared a moratorium on the exploitation of mahogany, aiming to preserve this endangered specie. In order to reinforce its presence in the Amazon region, Greenpeace will open an office in the city of Manaus in the state of Amazonas.
According to Greenpeace there are several ways of putting an end to the destruction of ancient rainforest in the Amazon. The network of forest areas protected as ecological reserves should be increased. Logging should only be allowed in specified areas in accordance with strict ecological and social criteria, through certified operations. The reserve areas in the rainforest for rubber-tapping and other non-wood-production activities should be expanded. And there should also be a proper demarcation of all indigenous lands.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
- Rebeca Lerer, Greenpeace Brazil, +55 11 3061 9530 or mobile: +55 11 9971 2937
- Mika Railo, Greenpeace International press desk, +31 20 5249 548
NOTES:
- Mr. Bode will also meet Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the President of Brazil and Jose Sarney Filho, the Minister of Environment in the federal capital Brasilia. On wednesday, Mr. Bode will go to Manaus to visit with Greenpeace staff working in the Amazon.
Background documents:
- Visit the Greenpeace International Forests Campaign website