ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

WTO and the Destruction of the Brazilian Amazon
By Beto Borges and Victor Menotti

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is the most biodiverse region in the world,
home to countless species of flora and fauna, as well as the habitat of
many indigenous peoples. It covers 6 million square kilometers (2,300,000
square miles), equivalent to more that half of the European continent.

In spite of the fact that the Amazon rainforest is the world's largest
environmental reservoir, its destruction continuous on an alarming scale.
According to Brazilian scientists and the Woods Hole Research Center in
Massachusetts, an estimated 17,000 square miles were deforested during
1998. That is more than double what government officials have reported.

Most of this catastrophic destruction was caused by the same familiar
forces: large cattle ranchers and logging companies. One cattle rancher
alone burned close to 7,000 acres of rainforest to make pasture for his
4,000 white zebu cattle. To date, approximately 16 percent of the Brazilian
Amazon has been destroyed for short term profits which benefit only 1
percent of the Brazilians (and their corporate supporters) who control 50
percent of the land.

Amidst this chaos, the Brazilian government continues to pave the way for
more destruction, submitting to powerful industry lobbying and
disenfranchised by its own lack of political will and the bankruptcy of its
environmental agencies. Pressure from the International Monetary Fund has
forced Brazil to pay the interest on its $270 billion foreign debt,
originally contracted during the 1964-1985 military regimes.

An environmental crime law, imposing a fine up to $30 million, was passed
by the government last year, but corporate lobbying has convinced the
government not to enact it for another six years. This year's ban on new
Amazon clearing was revoked in April, just when the burning season started.
Clearly, the Brazilian government has shown its unwillingness to resolve a
catastrophic problem. Indeed, the government's shortsighted drive for
"modernization" has resulted so far in the destruction of 16 percent of the
Brazilian Amazon (an area the size of Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin
combined), significantly diminishing the world's cultural and biodiversity
wealth.

The depletion of the Amazon rainforest will likely increase when new trade
guidelines are set by the World Trade Organization (WTO), during its third
ministerial meeting in Seattle from November 30 through December 3. The WTO
was established in 1995 by GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) to
ensure that global free trade is carried out without legislative barriers,
such as compliance with strict environmental laws.

When trade ministers meet in Seattle at the WTO's meeting, they plan to
introduce a sweeping new agenda to increase worldwide consumption of wood
products, open up native forests to logging and weaken environmental
protections. One of the most urgent initiatives is a new forest products
agreement that U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told Congress
is a top negotiating priority. A number of other agenda items could have
even greater impact on forests. Advising her are executives from
Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascade, International Paper, and Georgia-Pacific. No
one representing protections for forests or workers is at the table.

Logging corporations are increasingly going abroad in search of larger
forest reserves and less costly labor and environmental regulations. The
WTO is preparing to introduce a broad agenda to protect such foreign
investments. Among the ideas being advanced is that of "National
Treatment," which would require nations to treat foreign investors on the
same terms as domestic ones. Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and other countries
with significant tracts of native forests have traditionally limited
foreign access to natural resources to prevent their exploitation from
being determined by absentee owners. WTO investment rules would
institutionalize "cut-and-run" logging around the world and prevent
governments from favoring local entities which may be more accountable to
the land and its inhabitants.

(Beto Borges is a Brazilian environmental policy and management analyst
residing in San Francisco. Currently, he is the Manager of Sustainable
Harvesting in the Ethnobotany and Conservation Department at
ShamanBotanicals.com. He can be reached at bborges@shaman.com. Victor
Menotti is Program Director for the International Forum on Globalization
and can be reached at vmenotti@ifg.org. Mr. Menotti was one of the hundreds
of peaceful protesters arrested during the Seattle WTO meeting late
November 1999.)

Source: ISLA - Information Services Latin America
Web Site: http://www.igc.org/isla/feature.html
Winter 1999/2000

 

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Distribuido por: Distributed by:
'AMAZON ALLIANCE' FOR INDIGENOUS AND
TRADITIONAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON BASIN
1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036-1860
tel (202)785-3334
fax (202)785-3335
amazoncoal@igc.org
http://www.amazoncoalition.org

Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to original publisher.
The Amazon Alliance has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded message.
Forwarding this message does not necessarily connote agreement with the
positions stated there-in.

Todos los derechos de autor pertenecen al autor originario.
La Alianza Amazonica no ha verificado la veracidad de este
mensaje. Enviar este mensaje no necesariamente significa que
la Alianza Amazonica este de acuerdo con el contenido.

La Alianza Amazónica para los Pueblos Indígenas y Tradicionales de la
Cuenca Amazónica es una iniciativa nacida de la alianza entre los pueblos
indígenas y tradicionales de la Amazonía y grupos e individuos que
comparten sus preocupaciones por el futuro de la Amazonía y sus pueblos.
Las ochenta organizaciones del norte y del sur activas en la Alianza
Amazónica creen que el futuro de la Amazonía depende de sus pueblos y el
estado de su medio ambiente.

The Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon
Basin is an initiative born out of the partnership between indigenous and
traditional peoples of the Amazon and groups and individuals who share
their concerns for the future of the Amazon and its peoples. The eighty
non-governmental organizations from the North and South active in the
Alliance believe that the future of the Amazon depends on its peoples and
the state of their environment.

 

 

 

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