Amazon In Danger

  The stakes are high. The Amazon is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth. Losing the Amazon would mean losing some of the best habitat for remaining populations - from jaguars and ocelots to spider monkeys and sloths. In fact, scientists assume we have yet to discover many important species, including medicinal plants, in the rainforest and its canopy.

But rainforest destruction is worth large sums of money to powerful forces within Brazil. Large agribusiness interests in the Amazon are stopping at nothing to seriously weaken the Brazilian Forest Code. They are now pushing for not one,
 
but two, terrible new proposals that would destroy the health of the Amazon. Now business interests are attempting to weaken or remove protections for areas of the rainforest that are currently considered "permanently" protected - like watersheds, mountain tops, and buffers along the Amazon River and its tributaries. Since rivers are like transportation highways in the Amazon, this could dramatically increase access to pristine rainforest and speed up illegal logging.

Business interests are also attempting to put Brazilian states, rather than the Brazilian federal government, in charge of creating and enforcing forest laws. Because state authorities often profit from the agribusiness sector, this could lead to considerably more destruction.

And as if all of that weren't bad enough, these proposals are attempting to change current laws that push for reforestation of illegally deforested areas. Under one of the new proposals, palm plants could be classified as native species. That might not sound like much, but what it means is that agribusiness could plant non-native palm trees in place of native rainforest species and then push to use them for the production of palm oil - the same lucrative and destructive business we see wiping out the Indonesian rainforest.

All in all, this translates to government-supported destruction of the Amazon rainforest on a scale and with a speed the likes of which we've never seen.

The only thing that's stopping this from becoming reality is worldwide pressure - you've already helped send more than 200,000 letters to pressure the Brazilian government - and Greenpeace is on the ground in Brazil and in the Amazon delivering that pressure. So far, we've managed to stop the proposals from coming up for a vote at the Brazilian Environmental Commission - so far.

As one of the largest and most experienced environmental groups fighting against the powerful agribusiness sectors in Brazil, Greenpeace is able to analyze the politics, build and amplify public attention worldwide, and defend the biodiversity of the Amazon. Thanks to your support we have one of the few permanent offices in the Brazilian Amazon, which allows us to monitor and fight rainforest destruction first hand.

This is an issue of global importance. Destruction of the Amazon rainforest not only ruins wildlife habitats and biodiversity, but also releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases, giving us less time to stop global warming.

Written by Randy
Thursday, 18 December 2008 16:48

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