354 Latin America

–Suriname: 13) Broader strategy to protect the world’s biodiversity
–Paraguay: 14) WWF celebrates gov for only cutting 8 ½ of every 10 trees?
–Bolivia: 15) 3.7-million-acre national park in northeastern Bolivia
–Guatemala: 16) Collapse of Mayan culture
–Amazon: 17) Summary / Wealth of biodiversity so immense we can’t even estimate it
–Brazil: 18) 433 sq. miles cleared in one month! 19) Restoration in only 65 years? 20) Cattle confiscation drive planned, 21) Selective logging finally documented and it doubles deforestation estimates, 22) New enviro-minister goes after the least significant cause of deforestation, 23) New enviro-minister says even more rainforest will have to be cut down, 24) Three new protected reserves, 25) World will have no political authority in Brazil? 26) More on the lost tribes of the Peru-Amazon border, 27) Anti-hunger program to be funded by confiscations, 28) More on April’s deforestation record, 29) Con-servationist fined £137 million for illegally cutting down Amazon rainforest, 30) Con-servationist claims fine is wrong and will go take it to court, 31) Ecological Farmers of the Amazon,

Suriname:

14) The Guiana Shield region of South America could play a significant role in efforts to fight global warming as part of a broader strategy to protect the world’s biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversty wilderness areas, said a leading conservationist speaking in Paramaribo, Suriname at a gathering of tropical biologists. In an address to the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), Conservation International (CI) President Dr. Russell Mittermeier said the largely intact forests of Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana serve as a refuge for biodiversity and a massive store of carbon. Protecting these forests could help reduce the risk of global mass extinction and offset the worst effects of climate change, he said. “The [Guiana Shield] has the most intact rainforest on the planet,” he said. “It’s really a region that has all of its options left.” Mittermeier pointed to the emerging policy mechanism known as REDD or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation as a potential way to fund tropical conservation efforts. Because deforestation accounts for around a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than the entire transportation sector — efforts to reduce deforestation can help fight climate change. While REDD was explicitly excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, policymakers meeting at climate talks in Bali last December signaled that forestry would play a role in future emissions mitigation schemes. Mittermeier noted that Guyana president Bharrat Jagdeo has already offered up his country’s forests for permanent protection by an international body in exchange for development aid and technical assistance. Meanwhile several REDD initiatives are already in development, including a CI project on the island of Madagascar. Mittermeier said CI is in talks with the government of Liberia to establish a carbon conservation program. The West African country — ravaged after years of war — contains one of the few remaining expanses of Guinean forest, a critically endangered biodiversity hotspot. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0609-mittermeier.html

Paraguay:

14) The World Wildlife Fund today congratulated the Republic of Paraguay for its efforts in reducing deforestation rates by 85 percent. This was achieved through the implementation of the Zero Deforestation Law which prohibits the transformation and conversion of forested areas in the eastern region of Paraguay. Before the law came into force in December 2004, Paraguay had the second highest deforestation rate in the world. Through satellite monitoring, WWF has verified that deforestation in the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest, a habitat for endangered species such as the Jaguar and Harpy Eagle, has decreased from between 217,453 — 420,079 acres, an area larger than Rocky Mountain National Park, annually before the implementation of the law, to a current level of approximately 40,000 acres annually, a reduction of more than 85 per cent. “At a time when governments are getting into the debate on the role of deforestation in greenhouse gas emissions and therefore climate change, Paraguay is already setting an important precedent in tackling the problem,” said Leonardo Lacerda, Conservation Manager with WWF’s global forest program in presenting the Paraguayan Government with a Leaders For A Living Planet award. http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2006/WWFPresitem875.html

Bolivia:

15) From the air, this 3.7-million-acre national park in northeastern Bolivia seems a vast carpet of lush timberland, cloaking jaguars, howler monkeys, and giant anteaters beneath. Outside the tiny window of a three-seat plane, the terrain rises from rainforest to flooded savannah. There is not a person in sight. But in the distance is a trail of lighter, younger canopy the width of a road, a remnant from when logging paths carved this forest into pieces. That was before The Nature Conser¬vancy, its Bolivian partner Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN), the Bolivian government, and three international energy companies devised a plan to protect 1.5 million acres threatened with deforestation and degradation. The idea was simple: This national park in the Amazon basin, perhaps the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World,” would do its part to fight climate change. It is perhaps the best current example of how poor countries and rich countries can come together in the fight against climate change. It is a model of research and monitoring; it’s a lesson in the benefit of involving the central government; and it’s a cautionary tale about the need to include the local community as a full partner. The Noel Kempff Climate Action Project is a prime global case study. As negotiators work this week and next in Bonn to craft a new climate agreement to take effect in 2013, a consensus has emerged on the crucial role forest protection plays in re¬ducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and en¬¬vironmentalists are looking at an international carbon-trading model as an incentive to save forests. It is called REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. Now countries are looking to devise two-year pilot projects, in which rich nations pay poorer ones to conserve their forests. Not everyone agrees this mechanism is valid, mainly because its track record is so short. But here in Bolivia, a REDD program that’s been under way for more than a decade has lessons for some of the concept’s more controversial features, including measurement impediments, the role that indigenous communities should play, and the support required from national governments. The money hasn’t arrived yet because the Bolivian government – a full partner in the project with a right to 49 percent of the carbon offsets – has yet to cash in its shares. Staff turnover, political uncertainty, and structural changes have also affected the project, leaders say. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/05/bolivia-gets-clean-by-staying-green/

Guatemala:

16) There are various theories surrounding the collapse of Mayan civilization; some theorists refer to the intense deforestation activities and exhaustive use of the soil. Others have narrowed it down to rapid population growth and armed conflicts between cities as well as drought and repeated earthquakes. Whatever the cause of the Maya’s Downfall, the Rainforests with their capacity to self-heal, grew back at incredible speed. That doesn’t mean “great! Let’s grab a chainsaw and chop a tree! It will grow back anyway” because facts tell a very different story. The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which incorporates El Mirador has lost around 70% of its forests in the last decade alone. The amount of annual deforestation in Central America is at a worrying rate of 3.7 per cent. If there is no slowdown to this process, entire forests will be wiped out, along with their ancient ruins. Between 1990 and 2005, Guatemala lost some 17.1% from its rainforests. In other parts of the world, the story is basically the same. To be more specific, between 2000 and 2005 the deforestation around the world rose at a shocking 25.6 per cent annually. Nature has the ability to regenerate and rainforests can grow back without the need of artificial forestation or any outside interventions. People may have to understand that even if rainforests can regenerate themselves, exploiting the forests for their resources must be strictly limited if we are to have any forest left. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/what-we-can-learn-from-lost-cities-in-the-rainf
orest/1253

Amazon:

17) The Amazon Rainforest is so large and filled with life, that its defenders aren’t sure exactly what they are protecting from harm. “The wealth of biodiversity is so immense, we cannot even estimate the amount we don’t know,” says Cláudio C. Maretti, Brazil-based director for conservation for the World Wildlife Fund. “Every new expedition you do to the Amazon, you might find one new species of fish. Every other, you might find some new bird or frog.” The Amazon Rainforest stretches across nine countries and covers just as much land as the continental United States. It is considered the world’s richest and most varied natural habitat, with several million species of insects, plants, birds and fish calling it home. It also plays an important role in regulating Earth’s temperature as its dense vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen into the air. But this wonderful land and habitat has been reducing in size for the last 40 years, almost 20% of the forest is gone. “We have been deforesting at enormous rates,” Maretti says. The chief drivers of this deforestation are large-scale business interests involved in logging, mining, agriculture and, especially, cattle ranching. Some of this activity is sanctioned by the government; much of it is not. Greenpeace estimates as much as 80 percent of the logging is illegal. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that 50,000 square miles of forest, more than three times the size of Switzerland, are lost each year because of clearing and degradation. Majority of this clearing and degradation occurs in the more tropical areas of South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Cambodia lost nearly 30% of its primary forests from 2000 to 2005, according to FAO. Vietnam lost close to 55% of its primary forests. And Nigeria lost nearly 56% of its primary forests over the same period, the worst rate of forest loss in the world, according to FAO. http://greenopolis.com/myopolis/blogs/mightyducks/deforestation-continues-around-world

Brazil:

18) In just a month, an area nearly the size of New York City was cleared in the Amazon rain forest—an “alarming” and “worse-than-imagined” development, the Brazilian government said in a statement. At least 433 square miles (1,123 square kilometers) were deforested in Brazil in April 2008. That’s eight times more than the 55 square miles (145 square kilometers) destroyed the month before, according to data released last week by the Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE), which monitors the Amazon. The results suggest that the deforestation rate has accelerated, INPE said. Between August 2006 and August 2007, 1,920 square miles (4,974 square kilometers) were destroyed. From August 2007 to April 2008, this rate climbed to 2,250 square miles (5,850 square kilometers). “The situation is very alarming. With the data we have, we can be sure that there is a clear increase in deforestation in the Amazon,” said INPE’s director, Gilberto Camara. “The process of deforestation is more intense than we imagined.” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080610-amazon-clearing.html

19) We all know it takes a long time for cleared rainforests to regenerate, but how long exactly? According to a study focusing on the Brazilian Atlantic forest, certain aspects can return surprisingly quickly – within 65 years. But for the landscape to truly regain its native identity takes a lot longer – up to 4000 years. The Atlantic forest originally stretched along the southern half of Brazil’s Atlantic coast, covering some 1.2 million square kilometres. Once lush, the forest has been continually exploited for food, wood and space. Today, land it used to occupy is home to most of the country’s population, including Brazil’s two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and only 100,000 square kilometres of forest remain. In 1993, however, the government created several protected areas to conserve the forest’s remnants. To determine how long it would take for the forest to regenerate, Marcia Marques and colleagues at the Federal University of Paraná collected data on different parcels of forest that had been virtually cleared and left to recover for varying amounts of time. They then plugged the data into a computer model to calculate how long it would take for the forest to recover entirely. The researchers looked at four different measures of forest regrowth: the proportion of tree species whose seeds are dispersed by animals, the proportion of species that can grow in shade, tree height, and the number of native species. “Animal-dispersed trees sustain a large number of fruit-eating animals, that sustain other animals including large carnivores,” says Marques. “Thus, from the proportion of animal-dispersed trees we can estimate how complex the forest’s ecological web has become.” Animals are key to the successful regeneration of cleared areas and, typically, 80% of the tree species in a mature tropical rainforest are animal-dispersed. The researchers found that it took just 65 years for a forest to recover to this level. http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14112-how-long-does-it-take-a-rainforest-to-regen
erate.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news1_head_dn14112

20) Cattle raised illegally in the region will be confiscated, and all illegal lumber and timber that have been c ut down will be confiscated and auctioned off to finance the social program “No Hunger,” Minc said. The grains and foods grown in these areas will also be cut down and auctioned off to aid the program, he said. The measure demonstrates a “message that we want to send out to all those who are deforesting the area,” the minister said. The operations against illegal cattle will have a “minimal” effect on Brazil’s economy, he said. “The rounding-up of some 1,000 heads of cattle will not affect Brazil’s meat exports,” he said.Minc said the soaring prices of soybean and meat have given additional incentive to the illegal farming invasion and deforestation of the Amazon. “Time is running out and the situation is worrisome,” he said. Defending the government’s measures as “the right thing to do,” Minc said its aim “is to substitute a model of sustainable development for a predatory model of production.” In April alone, a region the size of the city of Rio de Janeiro was deforested, and according to Minc, “the worst is yet to come.” A study by the National Institute of Spatial Research showed that every 10 seconds an area equivalent to the size of a soccer field is cut down. “With the data that we have obtained, we have affirmed with certainty that there has been an increase in the deforestation of the Amazon. The process of devastation of the forestland is much more intense than we had imagined,” Gilberto Camara, director of the institute, was quoted as saying by local media. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/05/content_8315825.htm

21) Selective logging – the practice of removing one or two trees and leaving the rest intact – is often considered a sustainable alternative to clear-cutting, in which a large swath of forest is cut down, leaving little behind except wood debris and a denuded landscape. But a new satellite survey of the Amazon Basin in Brazil reveals that every year unregulated selective logging of mahogany and other hardwoods destroys an area of pristine rainforest big enough to cover the state of Connecticut. The survey, published in the Oct. 21 issue of the journal Science, was made possible because of a new, ultra-high-resolution satellite- imaging technique developed by scientists affiliated with the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. “With this new technology, we are able to detect openings in the forest canopy down to just one or two individual trees,” says Carnegie scientist Gregory Asner, lead author of the Science study and assistant professor, by courtesy, in the Stanford University Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. “People have been monitoring large-scale deforestation in the Amazon with satellites for more than two decades, but selective logging has been mostly invisible until now.” Conventional satellite surveys reveal that, in an average year, an estimated 5,800 square miles of Amazon forest (roughly the size of Connecticut) are burned or clear-cut to make way for cattle ranching, farming and other development. But when selective logging is factored in, that figure increases two-fold, Asner and his co-workers found. “This was totally surprising to us and alarming to our colleagues, especially those interested in conservation, climate change and the ability of governments like Brazil to enforce environmental laws,” he notes. A large mahogany tree can fetch hundreds of dollars at the sawmill, making it a tempting target in a country where one in five lives in poverty. “People go in and remove just the merchantable species from the forest,” Asner says. “Mahogany is the one everybody knows about, but in the Amazon, there are at least 35 marketable hardwood species, and the damage that occurs from taking out just a few trees at a time is enormous. On average, for every tree removed, up to 30 more can be severely damaged by the timber harvesting operation itself. That’s because when trees are cut down, the vines that connect them pull down the neighboring trees.” http://www.physorg.com/news7448.html

22) Destruction of the Amazon rain forest appears to be on the upswing, and Brazil’s new environment minister has wasted no time in aiming at a villain: cattle. The minister, Carlos Minc, says Brazil’s government will impound cattle caught grazing on illegally cleared pastures with an operation, dubbed “Rogue Bull,” to attack deforestation in the rain forest. “The price of meat and soy has skyrocketed and there is a historic relationship between prices and deforestation,” Minc said as he announced the new measures late Monday. Officials are going after livestock because ranchers routinely find ways to avoid fines for illegal logging by felling public forests for grazing land. After three years of decline, Amazon deforestation appears to be accelerating again as international demand for agricultural products skyrocket. Minc’s announcement marked his first step to prevent deforestation since being named environment minister last month. He replaced Marina Silva, a renowned Amazon defender who resigned May 13, citing stagnation in promoting the federal environmental agenda. Government researchers said Monday that preliminary data indicate the Amazon lost at least 2,258 square miles (5,850 square kilometers) of forest cover from August to April 2008. That was up from 1,920 square miles (4,974 square kilometers) over the same period a year before. The Amazon’s 73 million cows outnumber the human population about three to one and feeding them is the biggest driver of deforestation. Cattle pasture already covers 7.8 percent of Brazil’s 1.6-million-square-mile (4.1-million-square-kilometer) Amazon region, according to the National Statistics Institute. Burning to clear new or overgrown pasture in the Amazon region accounts for about 75 percent of Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions. On top of that, cows themselves are living greenhouse-gas machines, emitting methane, one of the gases blamed for global warming. Rogue Bull is only the latest operation to crack down on profits from illegally cutting the rain forest. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hy0m8YXoXuf1aiPOEa8zFBOuxH8QD912VJHO0

23) The new Brazilian environment minister Carlos Minc expects more of the Amazon tropical rain forest will be cut down next year. Mr Minc is one of the founders of the Green Party in Brazil. He entered office last month after his predecessor Marina Silva resigned. The authorities were accused of doing too little to combat deforestation in the Amazon area. Recent information has revealed that in the past nine months the rain forest has shrunk by almost 6,000 square kilometres. Brazilian researchers say the forest is being destroyed to make way for farmland. The Amazon area lies mainly in Brazil, but parts of it are also in another eight countries. A fifth of the Amazon rain forest has already disappeared. http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/5813382/More-Amazon-forest-could-disappear-ne
xt-year

24) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, under pressure over his stewardship of the Amazon rainforest, unveiled plans on Thursday to create three protected reserves covering an area the size of the U.S. state of Vermont. In a speech marking World Environment Day, Lula said the steps aimed at combating a spike in deforestation would take time to work, and foreigners did not have the moral authority to tell Brazil how to manage the world’s largest forest. “It’s not easy to discuss the environment, thinking that the mere creation of a law or a decree will solve the problem,” he said. “Sometimes a thing that seems so consensual can take two or three years to materialize because we have to respect institutions.” At least 23 million hectares (89,000 sq miles) of the rainforest are already protected. The new reserves in Para and Amazonas state would expand the area by 2.6 million hectares (10,000 sq miles). Lula’s proposal has to be approved by Congress and could face challenges in the Supreme Court. The resignation last month of renowned Amazon defender Marina Silva as environment minister raised worries among environmentalists that Lula is siding with farming and industrial interests that want to develop the forest. The measures were welcomed by Denise Hamu, the head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, who said it was a positive step. Others were more skeptical. “Is it important? Yes. Is it sufficient? No,” said Mario Menezes of Friends of the Earth, adding that the government lacked a systematic approach to protecting the forest. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN05303874

25) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came out angrily Thursday against foreign “meddlers” questioning his government’s environmental protection policies for the Amazon rainforest. “There are meddlers who have no political authority, who emit carbon dioxide like nobody else, who destroy everything they have, and who put forth opinions about what we should do,” Lula said in a speech marking International Environment Day. “We can’t allow people to dictate rules to us about what we should do in the Amazon,” he said. Brazil’s government has been embarrassed by official statistics suggesting deforestation of the vast Amazon jungle has picked up since mid-2007, despite many efforts to slow it. An internal struggle within the government between those wanting to develop the Amazon and those wanting to protect it has already resulted in the resignation of environment minister Marina Silva, who was replaced this month. Lula, who has pushed back against critics by insisting that the future of the Brazilian Amazon was only for the Brazilian people to decide, unveiled a number of new measures Thursday meant to reinforce forest conservation. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gLXUKiceRr_xpW-U1GHN7LdpIteQ

26) They have promised to stop loggers encroaching on their land near the Brazilian border. The announcement comes after photographs of an isolated tribe taken near the border with Peru were circulated around the world. The unknown group of native Amazonians were armed with bows and arrows. The images were taken by the Brazilian government from the air, and showed some members of the tribe – their bodies painted red and black – firing arrows at a photographer in an aeroplane. The Brazilian government say they took the photos to prove that dozens of isolated tribes live in the region, on both sides of the border. Although anthropologists were not able to name the tribe it is believed that they had travelled a short distance from neighbouring Peru. Authorities in Peru’s Amazon state of Madre de Dios now say they will stop illegal loggers who travel deep into the forest in search of tropical hardwoods. They are often the first people to encounter the tribes. Marco Tulio Valverde, an adviser to the regional government, said: “We haven’t determined if there are three different groups or only one, nomadic, which has been displaced. “They only hunt, gather and fish, they don’t farm, but they know fire.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7435272.stm

27) The funds raised in the sale of cattle, grains and timber seized from illegal areas will help finance the government’s anti-hunger program, Minc said. Minc, who took office last week, said the Amazon forest is his priority. He faces the challenge to fight quickening deforestation without becoming an impediment for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s plans to spur economic growth, which include building two hydroelectric plants on the Madeira River in the Amazon to meet rising demand for energy. “It will be very difficult for deforestation this year to stay below last year’s,” Minc said. “The worst months are still to come.” Deforestation is usually higher in the dry season which lasts from June to September, Minc said. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aHBQ40U4DpSY&refer=latin_america

28) Destruction of Brazil’s huge swath of Amazon rain forest rose sharply in April, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite photos released by government researchers. About 1,140 square kilometres of deforestation took place in April, nearly eight times more than the 145 square kilometres that were razed in March, the Brazilian Space Research Institute reported. The figures can be misleading: Scientists can only measure what they see by satellite photo, and clouds obscured 78 per cent of the rain forest in March and 53 per cent in April, leaving more of the forest visible, the institute warned. More deforestation could be taking place under cloud cover, or the bulk could be in plain sight. The government did not provide comparable figures from April 2007. The data suggests that Brazil will end 2008 with more deforestation than last year, when 11,000 square kilometres were razed – reversing three years of declines, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said. “There’s no way it will be less than that,” Minc said. “But we can’t cry over tumbled forest.” To fight the upswing, the government will begin impounding cattle from ranches where illegal deforestation has been detected, Minc said. Cattle ranching, logging and soybean farming are among the main forces driving Amazon deforestation. Brazilian environmental laws require Amazon landowners to leave 80 per cent of forested property as a reserve – although the rule is hard to enforce in a jungle region larger than Western Europe. Most of April’s destruction was detected in Brazil’s central Mato Grosso state, where Governor Blairo Maggi, a prominent soybean grower, frequently criticises federal efforts to preserve the forest. The Brazilian Amazon covers about 4.1 million square kilometres, nearly 60 per cent of the country. About 20 per cent of that forest has already been razed. http://news.smh.com.au/world/destruction-of-brazilian-amazon-rising-20080603-2l25.html

29) A company belonging to a Swedish businessman with close links to Gordon Brown has been fined £137 million for illegally cutting down Amazon rainforest, Brazilian officials said yesterday. Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, said it would levy a 450 million reals fine on Gethal, a company owned by Johan Eliasch. It was accused of cutting down 230,000 trees and lacking certification for Amazon land it allegedly owned. Mr Eliasch, 46, who is based in London, has an estimated net worth of £395 million. He is a former deputy treasurer of the Conservative Party and now an environmental consultant to the prime minister. But it is his role as the co-chairman of Cool Earth, the British-based organisation with the aim of finding sponsors to buy tracts of Amazon rainforest to protect it, that has angered some Brazilians. The fine followed reports in Brazil’s O Globo newspaper last month that police were investigating Mr Eliasch’s interests in the country. The paper reported that Mr Eliasch was being investigated for allegedly claiming that foreigners could buy the entire rainforest for “$50 billion”. In fact, Mr Eliasch said, in a speech in 2006, that hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico had cost insurance companies “$75 billion” and it might be cheaper to save the rainforest for “$25 billion”, thereby preventing deforestation and making hurricanes less frequent. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2087169/Johan-Eliasch,-Gordon-Brown-consultant,-fined-for
-illegal-Amazon-logging.html

30) Accusations that the firm Gethal had been illegally logging in the Brazilian rainforest are false and politically motivated, a source close to owner Johan Eliasch told AFP on Saturday. The company has “no intention” of accepting a fine announced by the Brazilian government Friday, and is prepared to take the matter to court, the source said. The Brazilian government’s environmental agency Ibama fined Gethal 450 million reals (275 million dollars, 175 million euros) for illegally cutting down 230,000 trees and lacking certification for Amazon land it owns. “Those allegations are false, fabricated and unsubstantiated,” said a source close to the Swedish tycoon, saying the logging stopped once Eliasch bought the firm in order “to protect the rainforest.” “Gethal has been fined because the company didn’t comply with its management plan, which had been decided by the previous owners, which planned for the logging in the rainforest,” the source said. The Brazilian authorities did not notify Gethal of the fine and the company will fight its punishment “vigorously”, said the source. “The company will fight in the courts. “Ibama’s decision is absurd. Gethal has not violated any law, no harm has been caused; on the contrary. The real issue is politically motivated: it’s about the foreign ownership of the rainforest.” Eliasch, a 46-year-old London-based businessman with an estimated net worth of 790 million dollars, is the boss of the Head sports equipment company and an environmental consultant to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He is also the founder of a British-based organisation called Cool Earth whose aim is to find sponsors to buy up Amazon rainforest in order to protect it. http://www.france24.com/en/20080607-firm-rejects-amazon-logging-fine-source http://www.france24.com/en/20080607-firm-rejects-amazon-logging-fine-source

31) Three hundred families associated with the Brazilian Cooperative of Ecological Farmers of the Amazon Portal (Cooperagrepa) is re-establishing ecological balance in the forest by means of organic farming and sales of non-wood forestry products. The group has even established its own brand, BioAgrepa, to promote sales. Brown sugar, sugarcane molasses, powdered guarana, powdered coffee and Brazil nut are the products that have been attracting importers attention the most. “We have been exporting sugarcane molasses to Austria since 2006, and brown sugar since last year. This year, we should start selling brown sugar to Italy,” says Gelsí Rosa Siviero, marketing coordinator at the cooperative. According to her, the first international contacts were made when the cooperative participated in the trade fair BioFach Latin America, held in 2004 in Rio de Janeiro (Southeast Brazil). Counting on support from the Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development, Cooperagrepa showcased its products, which had been certified by Ecocert two months before the fair was held. In 2005, the cooperative participated in BioFach Germany. “The fair gave us a notion of the size of the global organic market, and provided a basis for comparing packing and product quality. We were also able to take part in several business roundtables. It was during an action to promote the participation of Cooperagrepa in BioFach that we first made contact with Multikraft Austria, which led to the first export by Cooperagrepa,” claims Siviero. According to her, the cooperative is doing business with international companies by means of trade representatives only. A deal should be closed in 2008 with a United States-based supermarket chain of organic products, totaling 300 points of sale. “The product will be packed under the brand BioAgrepa,” asserts the coordinator. http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/9407/1/