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Politics and the Amazon An editorial by Christa Maas January 14, 2008
No doubt, the Brazilian government has taken positive steps, and as Brazil's president Lula states "the Brazilian government, its society and institutions will save the Amazon," but the sheer size of the Amazon tells us that only well- structured international cooperation under leadership of the Brazilian government would make this possible in the long run. The Brazilian Armed Forces have created a "strategic plan for national defense" which will increase the Army's presence in the region and make it easier to exert control over non governmental agencies. The army controls the Sivam, a $ 1.4 billion dollar program created in 1985 by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, to patrol the borders of the Amazon via satellite, radar, sensors, weather stations and telecommunications, employing about 190 000 soldiers. They are the only ones actually located and working inside the rain forest, while other non-military government organs like the Ibama, Incra, Funai and Funasa are located in Belém and Manaus.
One of the major problems for foreign efforts and cooperation is the language barrier. Under president Lula, the Brazilian government passed a law whereas Brazilian diplomats need not be able to speak English and many of the NGOs working in the Amazon have employees who speak only English and have not learned Portuguese. In some of their projects, it has become apparent how important it is to understand language, culture and logistics of the Amazon in order to have a meaningful impact and management of programs there. One international group has been mentioned because they were catacising Brazilian Indians in the English language, which obviously does not make sense. Projects that have been successful are more often than not partnerships between international and local funding and management (government, private and institutional) and employ the local community in the effort of protection while furnishing alternatives for their subsistence. Let's hope Brazil finds a viable way to continue asserting sovereignty over the largest part of the Amazon without letting too many political issues cloud the path to the continued conservation of the world's largest remaining rain forest! Related Biologist's incarceration is an attack on science, say scientists A prominent group of scientists have issued a petition to free world-renowned primatologist Marc van Roosmalen from Brazilian prison after he was charged with illegally keeping monkeys without a permit and other crimes. The scientists have called his imprisonment an "attack on the practice and profession of biological science in Brazil." Scientists demand Brazil suspend Amazon colonization project A group of prominent scientists has called upon Brazil to declare an immediate moratorium on a proposed forest colonization project that threatens one of the world's largest and long-running ecological experiments. Longest-running Amazon rainforest experiment imperiled by colonization One of the world's most important and longest-running scientific experiments is under threat by new colonization proposed by the Brazilian government, warn researchers writing in the journal Nature. The Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, an experiment launched outside the Brazilian city of Manaus more than 25 years, has helped researchers understand the impacts of deforestation and fragmentation on the complex ecology of the world's largest and most biodiverse rainforest: the Amazon. But now a colonization scheme sanctioned by the Brazilian federal agency SUFRAMA threatens to undermine the basis for decades of critical research.
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