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'We are taking care of the Amazon': Brazilian ministers
AFP
LONDON
Petroleumworld.com 10 31 06
Residents in developed countries should concentrate on influencing their own governments on the issue of climate change and not buy land in the Amazon for conservation purposes, three Brazilian ministers have written in a British daily.
"In the developed world, well-meaning individuals who are concerned about climate change, with good reason, should dedicate themselves to influencing their own governments," wrote Celso Amorim, Marina Silva and Sergio Rezende, Brazil's foreign, environment, and science and technology ministers respectively.
Writing in The Independent daily, the three note that climate change "is a genuine problem, and one to which Brazil attaches great importance."
But "the main cause of climate change is well known: at least 80 percent of the problem is a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels ... It is due only in small part to changes in land use, including deforestation."
The country in February designated an area twice the size of Belgium as an environmentally-protected zone in the Amazon region, and last year, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a decree provisionally protecting an area of 82,000 square kilometers (32,800 square miles).
Imploring foreign individuals, institutions and governments not to buy land in the Amazon, the three write: "We are taking care of the Amazon in accordance with development models based on principles of sustainability defined by Brazilian society."
"The Amazon is part of the heritage of the Brazilian people, and it is not for sale."
psr/gk
AFP 31 03 01 GMT 10 06
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