Amazon Disgrace
Peruvian Amazon under threat from oil exploration, illegal logging
Posted at 10:11 AM on 17 Mar 2008
There's no better way to start off a Monday than with depressing news from the Peruvian Amazon, which is under threat from both fossil-fuel development and illegal logging. Despite protests from environmental and human rights groups, Peru's government plans to auction off dozens of parcels of remote rainforest for oil and gas companies to explore. And in even more somber news, Peruvian community leader Julio García Agapito was recently shot to death after trying to report illegal logging in the Amazon, a murder sadly reminiscent of the past deaths of anti-logging activists Chico Mendes and Dorothy Stang.sources: Reuters, Mongabay, The New York Times
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