Greenpeace Activist Paulo Adario to Receive UN Award Today
B. McPherson
The following video shows a soybean harvest in progress. The farm is said to be eight years old and encompasses 8 000 ha of soybean plantings.
The following video shows a soybean harvest in progress. The farm is said to be eight years old and encompasses 8 000 ha of soybean plantings.
The United Nations in New York will honour Greenpeace
activist Paulo Adario for his work in defending the Amazon Rain Forest. Adario
has worked with Greenpeace since the 1990s in the Amazonas area uncovering
illegal logging of the rain forest. Working with local tribespeople and the
government he has helped protect about 1.6 million hectares from logging.
Among his innovations was his original concept of
maintaining buffer zones between industrial development and the forest. His
work also resulted in the banning of trade in mahogany in 2003.
"Following a campaign on
illegal logging, which led to a moratorium in 2003 on the international trade
in Mahogany, the impacts of Paulo’s work attracted death threats from forest
criminals across the Amazon." Greenpeace
The gains in protection to the Brazilian rain forest are
never permanent. The conservation group is speaking out about the proposed new
Forest Code that is before the Brazilian government for consideration. The new
code would replace an outdated and unworkable code formulated in the 1960s.
Opinions are sharply divided as to whether this new code
will protect the rain forest or lead to further degradation and expansion of
agribusinesses. Those that stand to gain from the booming soybean industry
maintain that the new forest guidelines are very restrictive. Conservationists
on the other hand point to the sections in the revised legislation that allow
for amnesties for illegal deforestation and cheating that is currently going on
in order to expand agribusiness operations.
"According to Mato Grosso-based NGO Instituto Centro de Vida
(ICV), the perspective
for approval of new environmental legislation has triggered
a deforestation spree in the
state. In April, when the Chamber of Deputies still debated
the project, Imazon’s SAD
already showed an upward trend of 22% in deforestation and
225% in forest
degradation between August 2010 and March 2011" ReporterBrasil
The areas illegally cleared are huge, amounting to over 50
000 hectares(123 553+ acres). Law enforcement in these areas is often spotty
and ineffectual.
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