Comments View as Flat

1. 

   GreyFlcn Posted 3:31 pm
   31 Jul 2007

   So how do we support this?

   Especially when you consider that the completion of the Brazil transcontinental roadway is nearing completion, which will further spur the export of it's natural resources to Pacific markets.

   Besides which, this comment coming from Silva, how can we be certain that this is any different than his previous political theatre?

   For instance Silva's failed policy of rotting the Amazon from inside it's core. While leaving enforcement of "proper" logging practices to apathetic locals.

   We're gonna need a lot more than mere political posturing and hollow gestures.

   Permalink

2. 

   GreyFlcn Posted 3:43 pm
   31 Jul 2007

   I trust Silva just about as much as I trust Bush

   The article mentions how Silva basically planned to parcel out the heart of the Amazon to logging intrests.  Set up logging roads.  And then let them run free with virtually no oversight, and hope for the best.

   One couldn't even call this Good Intentions.
   This is an issue of duplicity.

   "They told us that we had to be the monitors ourselves, but we don't have the ability to do that," said Antonio Marfoni, a settler. "There's no working phone here, and we don't have the money or the time to be able to take the bus into town to denounce violations."

   Last October, during the final debate of the presidential campaign, the opposition candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, called the plan "irresponsible," accused Mr. da Silva of wanting to "privatize the Amazon" and added, "If today there is no supervision, imagine what will happen if you hand it over to the private sector."

   Along the highway itself, there is now a clearing in which logs are piled haphazardly, like giant sticks.

   "No one has the authorization to cut so much wood, even with a forest management plan," said Leila Mattos, the director of Pacto Amazônico, an environmental group based in Humaitá, the closest town of any size. "I came by here at the beginning of November, and none of this was here. This is more than a year's worth of timber."

   Permalink