Gordon Brown’s Friend Puts Tag Price on Brazilian Amazon: US$ 50 Billion

Igarapé in the Brazilian Amazon Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, reacted against international criticism of his administration's environment policies saying that the world needs to understand that the Amazon belongs to Brazilians.

The Brazilian leader told a forum in Rio de Janeiro, in the southeast of Brazil that it was "amusing" that countries who were among the world's worst polluters wanted to talk about preserving the rain forest.

"The world needs to understand that the Amazon has an owner, and that is the Brazilian people" Lula said. "They are rubber tappers, fishermen and we who are Brazilian."

Foreign environmental groups expressed concern this month when president Lula's environment minister, Marina Silva, who was seen as a guardian of the Amazon, stepped down citing inability to carry out her agenda.

The minister had been increasingly isolated in her opposition to big infrastructure projects such as planned hydroelectric plants in the Amazon and had repeatedly clashed with big agricultural interests.

The Amazon has become an international issue because its destruction, much of it by farmers as Brazil's agriculture exports boom, is a major contributor to global warming.

Earlier in the month Swedish businessman Johan Eliasch, a close friend of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said that the Amazon could be purchased in 50 billion US dollars. Eliasch belongs to the NGO Cool Earth.

Cool Earth, apparently, purchased 160.000 square kilometers of land in the Amazon, which was later transferred to the US Brazil Fund Investment.

According to the Brazilian media, between 2006 and 2007, Eliasch held talks with business circles and proposed them to buy land in the Amazon arguing that "50 billion US dollars would be enough to buy the rain forest."

Media reports also indicate that Brazil's Federal Police and the Brazilian Justice Department are looking into the issue since they believe there's a link between the activities of Cool Earth and statements from British politicians who have criticized Brazil for not looking after the globe's "main lung."

"Very often British parliamentarians have put preservation of the environment above national sovereignty issues, based on allegations that Brazil can't look after its own rain forests," revealed the media.

President Lula da Silva has repeatedly stated that Brazil was doing its part to reduce global warming as the world's largest exporter of the renewable fuel ethanol.

"We are offering the world non-polluting fuel… Let's convince the world that ethanol can help reduce pollution, ease the energy crisis and reduce inflation."

However critics have questioned the environmental credentials of ethanol, saying its production is pushing cattle ranchers and farmers deeper into the Amazon.

Mercopress

Tags:

You May Also Like

Modernity in Brazil: a Privilege of Few

In Brazil, processes of development and modernization were almost entirely implemented within the nation’s ...

Brazil Wants New Rules for Intellectual Property

Today Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia will present a proposal for an amendment to the ...

Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes

Brazilian Astronaut Has Already Ticket for Space Trip: March 23

The journey of the first Brazilian astronaut to space already has a set date. ...

Abbott Blinks First and Brazil Gets Its AIDS-Drug Discount

Some 23,000 people in Brazil use the AIDS drug, Kaletra, made by the Abbott ...

Brazil Police Raid the Amazon Forest in Search of Invaders of Public Land

Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) agents went on a raid last week exercising 22 search ...

But We Survived

By late evening firecrackers were popping continuously and the smoke in the street was ...

Brazil’s Embraer Flying in 58 Countries

Air Canada has signed a US$ 1.35 billion contract for the purchase of 45 ...

Many Brazilian Youngsters Refuse the Label of Politically Inactive

In Brazil, the younger generations are often criticized for keeping a distance from politics. ...

UN Urges Brazil and Neighbors to Join Efforts to Save the Amazon

The just-released United Nations Environment program (UNEP) shows two sides of the human effect ...

It’s Time Brazil Adopts a More Flexible Monetary Policy, says BNDES Chief

“Now that inflation is under control in Brazil, we can adopt a more flexible ...