ITEM #1

Title:  New Brazil roads could destroy rainforest 

Source:  Copyright c 2000 Ananova Ltd

Date:   November 13, 2000 

                                                

A study in Brazil says that a plan to repair and build four major

roads could harm more than one-third of the country's Amazon

rainforest over the next 20 years.                         

                                                

The study was prepared by scientists at the National Institute of

Amazon Research and two US universities - Oregon State University and   

Michigan State University.

                                                

Work on the roads in four states, totalling 3,500 kilometres (2,170

miles), is part of a $40 million economic development programme known

as Advance Brazil.                         

                                                

The study claims that the programme could destroy between 28% and 42%

of the forest's 4 million square kilometres (1.6 million square

miles).                                          

                                                

Researchers fear that once the work is finished, the roads will

provide easy access by loggers and ranchers to a swath of untouched

vegetation, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the

forest - thereby speeding up deforestation.

 

 

ITEM #2

Title:  Brazil preserves world's largest tropical wetland                  

Source:  Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network

Date:   November 14, 2000 

By:  Environmental News Network staff                                               

 

The United Nations Thursday created a new biosphere reserve in

Brazil's Pantanal region, the planet's largest tropical wetland

ecosystem.                                 

                                                             

Biosphere reserves are protected ecosystems where priority is given

to conservation, research and sustainable development.                                    

                                                             

They are recognized under the United Nation's Educational Scientific

and Cultural Organisation's "Man and Biosphere Programme," which has

created nearly 350 reserves in 85 countries worldwide.

                                                             

The news comes at a critical stage in the battle to preserve the

Pantanal, as conservationists fight plans to revive an abandoned

project that would create an industrial waterway through the heart of

the region.        

                                                             

Biologists hope its new status will attract fresh funding and

investment enabling new, detailed analysis of one of the most

biologically diverse but least-studied environments on Earth.                                       

                                                            

Brazil's government recently negotiated a US$165 million loan from

the Inter-American Development Bank for sustainable development, eco-

tourism and sanitation projects in the region.                                     

                                                            

The Pantanal covers an area roughly half the size of France, spread

across the frontier region between Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. Most

of the region - around 140,000 square kilometers - is in Brazil's

central-western states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul.                                                        

                                                            

The Pantanal is home to hundreds of bird species, including kites,

hawks, macaws and toucans, as well as jaguars, alligators, river

otters, iguanas, anacondas, anteaters, monkeys and capybaras, the

world's largest rodents.                                                     

 

The new sanctuary, which includes higher ground surrounding the

Pantanal, spans 250,000 square kilometers and is the world's third

largest biosphere reserve.         

                                                             

Glenn Switkes, head of Latin American campaigns for a California-

based non-governmental organization called the International River

Network, said: "It's a symbolic gesture and a step in the right

direction, as so little of the Pantanal is protected.                               

                                                            

"Although the United Nations isn't very rigorous in terms of

enforcement and has no legal power, their reserves do tend to have a

moral force and in this case at least makes Brazil aware that there's

a global interest in the Pantanal. Hopefully, more substantial

measures will follow."                                                    

                                                            

The IRN is part of "Rios Vivos," a coalition of 300 South American

NGOs and allied organizations in Europe and the United States. It was

set up to fight a decade-old plan to establish a 2,100-mile

industrial channel from the town of Caceres in Mato Grosso to Nueva

Palmira in Uruguay. The idea was to build a hidrovia for barges, open

24 hours a day, 365 days a year, supposedly facilitating the export

of soybeans to Europe.

                                                            

Keeping waterways open all year round would have required dredging

and curve-straightening in many parts of the River Paraguay, due to

the Pantanal's flood-and-recede ecosystem, with obvious and

potentially devastating effects on the local flora and fauna.                        

Brazil pulled out of the project - a joint venture with the

governments of Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina - three years

ago, bowing to international criticism surrounding the scheme's

environmental impact.

                                                             

But now the world's largest river shipping firm, American Commercial

Barge Lines, is seeking permission to build a port at Morrinhos, a

natural backwater in the Pantanal.     

                                                             

The move is being seen as an underhanded bid to implement the old

hidrovia project in stages and has sparked a global protest campaign

initiated by Rios Vivos.

                                                             

The coalition is pressing Brazil's federal government - which is, by

law, responsible for protecting the Pantanal and regulating

interstate river traffic - to undertake the licensing process.

                                

A spokesperson for The Brazilian Institute for the Environment and

Natural Renewable Resources, the regulatory arm of Brazil's

Environment Ministry, said Thursday it would assume responsibility

for licensing the project, though the move has yet to be made public.                                  

 

Said Switkes: "That's a direct result of Rios Vivos' international

campaign.

                                                            

"If this decision is left to Mato Grosso's government, the project

will almost certainly be approved. Their economic plan is almost

totally dependent on converting the savannah surrounding the Pantanal

to soy monoculture use."                                                       

                                                             

According to the IRN, millions of hectares of savannah have already

suffered this fate, leading to agrotoxic pollution of river systems

and silt build-up in the Pantanal basin. Mato Grosso's government has

also agreed to fund construction of a paved road through the Pantanal   

to Morrinhos if the port project is given the green light.                                                      

                                                            

The issue is to be discussed at a public audience in Mato Grosso next

week. Renato Pavan, ACBL's consultant in Brazil, insisted: "This

project will go ahead. Of course it's important that the environment

is preserved, but that should be through sustainable development. Our         

project will meet every requirement of Brazil's environmental law."                                         

                                                            

But Switkes said the scheme would spell doom for the Pantanal: "It is

the most important wetland region on the planet and, instead of being

preserved with a local economy based on tourism, it risks being

destroyed for the gain of a few multinational grain traders."              

                                                             

"Exactly the same thing happened with the Mississippi, which started

out as a very complex river system and is now so polluted that if you

do manage to catch a fish in it, the safest thing to do is throw it

back."