Destroy the Amazon: Cashing in on Impunity..

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from August 2009-May 2011.The analysis by Imazon suggests that the Forest Code debate may be a factor in rising deforestation. It found a 363 percent increase in forest degradation — logging and burning of forest that typically precedes deforestation — over the past 10 months, reaching 6,081 sq km. Most of the degradation occurred in major agricultural states: Mato Grosso (42 percent of degradation in May), Para (27 percent), and Rondônia (22 percent). The majority of deforestation also took place in these states: 39 percent in Pará, 25 percent in Mato Grosso, and 21 percent in Rondônia.

More tellingly, two-thirds of clearing occurred on private lands, which are most likely to benefit from changes in the Forest Code. Private landowners — particularly agroindustrial interests — have been pushing Forest Code reform, while small landowners and indigenous groups have generally opposed changes. Accordingly, deforestation over the past 10 months in indigenous territories and areas of agrarian reform (usually small-holder zones) amounted to only 12 percent and 1 percent, respectively. 22 percent of deforestation in May 20111 occurred in conservation areas.

Deforestation in May was highest in the municipality of Altamira, Para, where the controversial Belo Monte dam is to be constructed. Critics say the project will drive deforestation in surrounding areas as well as inundating large areas of forest and displacing thousands of indigenous people. Altamira accounted for 13 percent of total deforestation. It was followed by Porto Velho, Rondonia (8 percent), which serves as a key hub for the newly paved Trans-Oceanic Highway that links the heart of the Amazon to Peruvian ports. The highway will facilitate shipping of agricultural and timber products from the Amazon to China

Revised Forest Code may cost Brazil climate commitments
(06/14/2011) The proposed revision of Brazil’s Forest Code could prevent the country from meeting its lower emissions target and is unlikely to ease rural poverty, concludes a new study by the Brazil-based Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA).

read lots more here

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0617-imazon_2011.html

 

 

 

 

Atentado contra defensora de la Amazonía

Atentado contra defensora de la Amazonía

En Ucayali, el día jueves 9 de junio a las 11 de la noche, manos extrañas arrojaron desde una mototaxi un artefacto que causó el incendio total de la vivienda de la arquitecta Mariska Van Dalfsen, de nacionalidad holandesa, quien trabaja como docente de la Universidad Intercultural de la Amazonía, formando a jóvenes líderes amazónicos en temas de Buen Vivir,  interculturalidad y derechos de pueblos indígenas.

Su labor en Pucallpa comenzó el año 2006 y es reconocida por la afirmación de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en su lucha  por la defensa de sus derechos vulnerados por las empresas petroleras.

La vivienda fabricada en madera fue destruida por el fuego en su totalidad. Extrañamente, después del incendio no se han encontrado dos equipos informáticos pertenecientes a la ONG Warmayllu dirigida por la  ciudadana holandesa, complementariamente a su labor universitaria.

http://www.foroeducativo.org/index.php/welcome/noticia/506

Belo Monte : death threats for Indigenous resistance

Indigenous leaders threatened with death

Indigenous leaders, community members, rural workers and members of social

movements are receiving death threats because of their opposition to the Belo

Monte Dam Complex on the Xingu River in Pará, Brazil.

The threats, which have been going on for some time now, are adding to an

extremely tense situation which has only worsened [...]

Continue Reading:

http://intercontinentalcry.org/indigenous-leaders-suffer-death-threats-because-they-resist-the-belo-monte-dam/

Brasília, Brazil – The Brazilian government has issued the full installation license allowing the Belo Monte Dam Complex to break ground on the Amazon’s Xingu River despite egregious disregard for human rights and environmental legislation, the unwavering protests of civil society,..Continue Reading..http://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/final-go-ahead-for-belo-monte-amazon-tragedy/

Brazil: LAST STAND FOR THE XINGU

Filed under: climate change, ecology, save the planet, solidarity, Stop State and Capitalist criminals by thefreeorg —

June 5, 2011

Amazon Watch has organized a “Cause” at Facebook:

“This has been a time of tragedy in the Amazon. This week the Brazilian government green-lighted construction on the monstrous Belo Monte Dam despite searing local, national and international opposition.

Yet despite the initiation of this criminal operation, I can assure you that the battle to defend the Xingu River and its people is far from over. “I have just returned from the Brazilian Amazon, where Chief Raoni gathered with hundreds of Kayapo warriors, indigenous leaders from 18 ethnicities, and leaders from the Xingu Alive Forever Movement (MXVPS).

“This is the last chance we have to paralyze Belo Monte’s construction,” Renata Pinheiro told the indigenous assembly. “The future of the Xingu is in your hands, indigenous peoples and social movements. You succeeded in stopping Belo Monte for 30 years – now more than ever we need to strengthen our resolve, joining forces to stop the beginning of construction.”

Amazonia: Dinho, Claudio and Maria murdered!.Forest criminals to be amnestied!

Filed under: climate change, crooks and liars, permaculture, save the planet, Stop State and Capitalist criminals by thefreeorg — 1 Comment

May 29, 2011

SLAUGHTERING THE AMAZON.. With the new Forest Law and amnesty for Forest crimes the ranchers and loggers are taking their opportunity by terrorist murders. Their business is the destruction of the Amazon, now with more impunity, to satisfy the demands of criminal capitalist transnationals like Burger King and MacDonalds.

Adelino  Ramos was killed for openly confronting the beef and timber mafia. Shot to death by cowardly bastards at his street stall while selling his forest produce. He was a famous ex leader of the  Movimiento Campesino Corumbiara and had survived a fascist massacre a decade ago. Un motociclista lo mató a tiros en Rondonia, norte del país.

Just 3 days before they got José Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, shooting her first and cutting off her ears. Claudio and Maria were outspoken forest defenders and cultivated Amazon produce.

At the time of murder Adelino, or ‘Dinho’,  was busy setting up a camp for people displaced by the wholesale massacre of the forest. He had been repeatedly threatened and recently denounced the escalating forest destruction in Acre, Amazonas y Rondonia states.

El debate sobre la explotación del Amazonas ha tomado gran vuelo en Brasil después de que en una semana se siguieran dos noticias contradictorias: la publicación de un alarmante aumento de los niveles de deforestación, y la aprobación en la noche del martes, por aplastante mayoría en el parlamento, de una reforma del Código Forestal brasileño que establece una amnistía general para todos aquellos que incurrieron en delitos contra la vegetación hasta 2008.

In just a few days we have the news of a seven fold increase in deforestation, the disgraceful passing of the new Forest Law (see other posts) by fascist landlords allied with greedy corrupt politicians, companies, and media, the go ahead and 1st contracts for the Belo Monte dam, and the signing of deals to let BP, of all companies, exploit the ultra deep oil bonanza near Rio.

International resistance has failed miserably despite the best efforts of Avaaz and Greenpeace. Resistance needs to be informed and intelligent, or it plays into the hands of nationalists who argue that ‘rich parasitic 1st Worlders have no right to lecture us after decimating their own forests, etc’.

June 12th ,,Majority against Forest Sellout.  see post here

http://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/most-brazilians-reject-forest-destruction-law-2/

Most Brazilians reject Forest Destruction Law

”The surprise passing of the new Forest Law in the lower house of the Brazilian congress is due to a campaign by multinational  agribusiness and the big landlords who still own most of the country. The proposed amnesty for forest crimes has caused a 6 fold increase in deforestation already. The huge majority in favour can be traced to generalized corruption of politicians, this week Lula’s right hand man, Antonio Palocci  was politely pushed aside after blatantly stealing $12.5 million. The landowners and agribusiness BOUGHT THE PARLIAMENT to cash in on ripping out the rainforest! This scandal is linked to the murders of pro Amazon activists, the going ahead contracts for Belo Monte, and the signing to BP rights to extract deep sea oil in Rio.” The Free

Majority of Brazilians reject changes in Amazon Forest Code Rhett Butler, mongabay.comJune 11, 2011

Poll takes temperature on Brazilian’s support for a bill that environmentalists say would weaken the Forest Code, which stipulates protection for forest areas on private lands in the ThAmazon. It finds 79% of Brazilian support presidential veto of Amazon Forest Code revision and raises questions on public support for politicians who support the proposed revision,

The vast majority of Brazilians reject a bill that would weaken Brazil’s Forest Code, according to a new poll commissioned by green groups.

The national poll asked 1286 Brazilians across a wide range of socioeconomic classes about their opinions on a Forest Code reform bill that passed Brazil’s lower house month. Environmentalists say the bill—in its present form—would grant amnesty to those who illegally cleared rainforest and would absolve them from taking reforesting lands as required under current Brazilian law. It would also reduce requirements for protecting forest on hillsides, along waterways, and on hilltops. The bill next heads to the Senate. If it passes, it would then most on to President Dilma Rousseff for final approval.

The survey found 79 percent in favor an eventual veto from Rousseff should the current bill pass the Senate. 84 percent agreed they would not vote for representatives or senators who had voted in favor of “pardoning illegal deforestation”.

The telephone survey was conducted by Datafolha at the request of Brazilian environmental groups Amigos da Terra – Amazônia Brasileira (Friends of the Earth – Brazilian Amazon), IMAFLORA, IMAZON, Instituto Socioambiental (the Socio-environmental Institute), SOS Atlantic Forest and WWF-Brazil. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percent.

Surprisingly most Brazilians indicated a preference for forest conservation over commodity production. Given a choice between giving priority to forest protection that may eventually limit agricultural and livestock production or giving priority to production at the expense of some forest protection, 85 percent of respondents chose protection.

The findings are in sharp contrast to the broad support for the bill in Brazil’s lower house of Congress, where it passed easily. The bill has been championed by Aldo Rebelo, the head of Brazil’s Communist Party, with support from industrial agribusiness interests, including the National Agriculture Confederation and companies like Bunge, a U.S.-based commodities giant. But the bill has generally been opposed by small farmer groups and the rural poor.

Speculation over passage of the bill — and potential amnesty for deforestation beyond what is allowed under the current Forest Code — is thought to be a contributing factor to the surge in deforestation this year. Data release last month by Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) revealed that 593 square kilometers of forest was cleared between March and April 2011, an area of rainforest 10 times the size of Manhattan and a 473 percent increase over the 103.5 square kilometers chopped down from March-April 2010. The increase reversed the downward trend in deforestation since 2004

   READ FULL STORY HERE:::http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0611-amazon_code_poll.html

Rash of murders threatens to silence environmental and social activism in Brazil

(06/10/2011) Authorities in Brazil have sent an elite police force consisting of 60 officers to offer protection to environmental activists in the Amazon after a series of killings, reports the Associated Press. The move comes 10 days after Brazil’s Vice President Michel Temer announced the creation of a working group on Amazon violence following the assassinations of three activists in the region in late May. The Brazilian Amazon is no stranger to systemic violence against environmental activists, yet the response from the federal government in the past two weeks is the most significant to date.

Assassinations of environmentalists continue in Brazil’s Amazon, deforestation rises

(05/28/2011) A community leader in the Brazilian Amazon was slain Friday just three days after two environmentalists were killed in a neighboring state, reports Reuters. Adelino “Dinho” Ramos, the president of the Movimento Camponeses Corumbiara e da Associação dos Camponeses do Amazonas, a small farmers association, was gunned down front of his family Friday morning in Rondônia. Brazil’s Special Secretariat for Human Rights, an office of the president, said it was unclear who killed Ramos, who had received death threats from loggers.

Amnesty for illegal rainforest loggers moves forward in Brazil

(05/25/2011) A controversial bill environmentalists say could increase deforestation in the Amazon rainforest moved a step forward to becoming law in Brazil after winning approval in Brazil’s lower house of Congress. The measure, which has been hotly debated for months, next goes to the Senate where it is expected to pass, before heading to President Dilma Rousseff, who has vowed to veto any bill that grants amnesty for illegal deforestation. The bill includes such a measure, although it could be subject to change before a final decision by the president. The bill aims to reform Brazil’s Forest Code, which requires landowners in the Amazon rainforest to maintain 80 percent of their holdings as forest.

Brazil confirms big jump in Amazon deforestation

(05/18/2011) New data from the Brazilian government seems to confirm environmentalists’ fears that farmers and ranchers are clearing rainforest in anticipation of a weakening of the country’s rules governing forest protection. Wednesday, Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) announced a sharp rise in deforestation in March and April relative to the same period last year. INPE’s rapid deforestation detection system (DETER) recorded 593 square kilometers of forest clearing during the past two months, a 473 percent increase over the 103.5 sq km chopped down from March-April 2010

Millions will be Fleeing Floodwaters

(  ”Governments worldwide are laying plans for millions of deaths as Capitalism goes for broke, wilfully ignoring the Science that points to runaway climate change and a finally a planet only inhabited by rich dictators in bunkers. The war against the people and all the species of the world has already begun. It would only be logical self defense to start shooting extreme Climate Criminals tomorrow.” The Free   )

UN peacekeepers rescue Haitian children from an orphanage destroyed by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Credit:UN Photo/Marco Do

OSLO, Jun 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mass migration will inevitably be part of human adaptation to climate change, experts agree, since parts of the world will become uninhabitable in the coming decades.

Last year, 38 million people were displaced by climate-related disasters such as the flooding in Pakistan and China.

“Human displacement due to climate change is happening now. There is no need to debate it,” Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, told over 200 delegates attending the Nansen Conference on Climate Change and Displacement in the 21st Century in Oslo Jun. 6-7.

Governments and the humanitarian community need to understand this fact – and that it will get much worse in the coming decades, Støre said.

Without major emissions reductions, climate change could get far worse than anyone is prepared to think about.

“It may be more realistic to consider four degrees C of warming rather than two degrees C,” suggested Harald Dovland, former head of the Norwegian Delegation to the United Nations climate change negotiations.

The world has already warmed 0.8C and will rise to least 1.6 C even if all emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases ended today, James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the conference.

A four-degree C warmer world is a very different planet and risks runaway climate change. Even two degrees C is not safe, Hansen said.

“The last time the planet was two degrees C warmer was during the Pliocene (five to 2.4 million years ago) and sea levels were 25 metres higher,” he said. “If we burn all the fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) we’re creating conditions that future generations will be unable to cope with.”

Even though a four-degree C warmer world “is choosing the suicidal path”, experts must avoid fuelling xenophobia with predictions of mass migrations and conflicts, says Francois Gemenne, research fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris.

“This also feeds into a security agenda of panic and paranoia,” Gemenne said.

continued..http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56007

Change the rules. Subvert the System. Save the Planet.

The recent figures on CO2 emissions are sobering. Despite the fact that the world has suffered a terrible recession, emissions are still rising.

In essence all the efforts to tackle climate change have simply slowed the rise a little rather than reversing it.
The problem is that the solutions to climate change put forward at international conferences like Copenhagen and Cancun dare not deal with the real root cause of climate change – our current economic system.
Simply put, our economic system is based on the accumulation of money. There is a constant race to throw money into the system and to get more money out at the other end.
That’s what modern life is about.
From Fifa to the current conflict in Libya, the desire to accumulate cash sets the objectives for society. If something makes cash it is holy in the eyes of the economists, the media and virtually all political parties.
So climate change is tackled internationally by “market-based” methods. These fail time and time again, but more effective action would require a change in our priorities.
Our economic system is based on resource extraction. Minerals, metals and fossil fuels are taken out of the ground, made into goods and then thrown away.The faster the cycle the more profit is made.
If you think about it for more than a minute or two, there is something rather mad about this methodology. The cost to the natural environment is immense. Right across the planet fragile ecosystems are under enormous threat.

The human cost is also huge. The value of good is….

CONTINUE HERE              another-green-world.

Help us protect the Arctic | Greenpeace International

Help us protect the Arctic | Greenpeace International.

Help us protect the Arctic

Drilling in the Arctic is reckless, dangerous – and unnecessary at a time when an energy revolution has been proved possible. The British foreign office believes any oil spill in Arctic waters would be impossible to deal with.

Yet Cairn Energy is going to drill off the coast of Greenland – without making its oil spill response plan public. Experience has shown that we cannot trust oil companies on their word when they say they have it all covered. Cairn is saying that they managed to create a plan that most experts in the world say is impossible to pull off.

Cairn is gambling with the pristine wilderness of the Arctic. We demand that they show their hand.

Write to Cairn Energy’s CEO today to demand to see their Greenland oil spill response plan.

continue here

Help Us ..Press HERE

Peru: Gold rush destroys 6 times more forest.

The greedy capitalists who caused the last economic crash then put their cash in gold. Causing the price to soar to crazy levels and triggering new gold rushes, with tragic consequences for the miners and the environment.

The rising price of gold has multiplied by six the pace of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios in recent years. Swenson said. “Given the rate of recent increases, we project mercury imports will more than double by the end of 2011, to about 500 tons a year,” she said.

The highly poisonous metal is used by poor gold-diggers to wash gold off rock and sand. It is not only harmful to the health of those who handle it, but it also pollutes the region’s rivers and air. Mercury also gets into the food chain and harms local indigenous communities and even those that live further away.

Once the gold searchers are done, they leave behind a desert landscape that is poisoned by mercury. Peruvian Environment Minister Antonio Brack said gold-diggers have already destroyed 32,000 hectares of rainforest in Madre de Dios. In March, a large joint operation by police and the military targeted tens of thousands of gold searchers, and 32 floating dredges were seized, Brack said. The minister said he was sorry about the death of two prospectors during the raid, although he stressed that the use of force had been justified in the face of an “environmental tragedy.” However, the problem is far from solved. Police assume that at least 250 floating dredges are in use in the region. According to Brack, it will take at least five years to get those searching for gold to leave. And yet poverty in Peru continues to push more and more people into searching for gold, as well as into other equally illegal activities like logging or settling in the rainforest.

There are other factors at work. Climate change in the Andes is already affecting small farming communities, forcing them to adapt or move elsewhere.

The near completion of the Inter-Oceanic Highway, which cuts a swathe straight through this once inaccessible part of the Peruvian Amazon, will lead to migration on an unprecedented scale.

The road, which will link Pacific ports in southern Peru to the Atlantic coast in Brazil, could well become the greatest factor in the environmental degradation of this once pristine pocket of biodiversity.

Final go ahead for Belo Monte. Amazon Tragedy.

Brazil Green Lights Controversial Amazon Dam

June 1, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IBAMA authorizes installation of Belo Monte Dam Complex despite escalating local, national and international opposition

Brasília, Brazil – The Brazilian government has issued the full installation license allowing the Belo Monte Dam Complex to break ground on the Amazon’s Xingu River despite egregious disregard for human rights and environmental legislation, the unwavering protests of civil society, condemnations by its Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) and the request for precautionary measures by the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The license was granted by Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA despite overwhelming evidence that the dam-building consortium Norte Energia (NESA) has failed to comply with dozens of social and environmental conditions required for an installation license.

The risky $17 billion Belo Monte Dam Complex will divert nearly the entire flow of the Xingu River along a 62-mile stretch. Its reservoirs will flood more than 120,000 acres of rainforest and local settlements, displace more than 40,000 people and generate vast quantities of methane – a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The installation license will allow for NESA to open access roads, initiate forest clearing at dam construction sites encompassing some 2,118 acres, and begin construction on the complex immediately. It also instigates publically subsidized funding from Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES) to finance 80 percent of the project’s spiraling costs. The bank has come under increasing scrutiny from the Public Prosecutor’s office and civil society due to alarming evidence that approval is based on political grounds, often downplaying problems of economic viability and compliance with social and environmental safeguards.

“This is a tragic day for the Amazon,” said Atossa Soltani, Executive Director at Amazon Watch. “By turning a blind eye toward the tragic consequences of this dam, President Dilma Rouseff is undermining the positive environmental and social advances Brazil has made in recent years and miring its image on the global stage just as it prepares to host the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit next year.”

Africa: GMO seeds introduced despite public rejection

By David Njagi

NAIROBI, May 16, 2011 (IPS) – Farming with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is becoming more widespread in Kenya due the promotion of biotechnology through clever schemes,  and the lack of a legal framework for these controversial products.

”Because Africans are strongly against GM foods the companies are using their economic muscle and criminal disregard for local opinion to gain  a foothold and get the farmers ‘hooked’.‘

Click here, or on the graphic, for full resolution.

Africa: policy on genetically modified organisms (GMO) and genetically engineered (GE) foods. The Cartagena protocol on biosafety, a supplement to the convention on biological diversity, has strong support in Africa, with a majority of the countries as signatories. In addition, several countries have, in the past, rejected aid (especially unmilled grains) in food imports with concerns for national biosafety. South Africa is so far the only country that is seeing wide-spread use of genetically modified crops.

In Kenya The Sygenta Foundation has triumphed with a novel scheme to insure farmers crops. The Syngenta Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation attached to the Syngenta Company that researches and produces GM seeds. The foundation is involved in the “Safe Biotechnology Management” (SABIMA) project aimed at promoting GM technology among small-scale farmers in Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi.

The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC) regards the scheme as part of seed-manufacturing multinational companies’ renewed appetite to use Kenya as a testing ground for GMOs by offering seeds to farmers.
“We suspected that a lot of GM seed, particularly for maize, was being imported from South Africa either as contaminated maize or plain GMOs,” recalls Kamau of KBioC. “We went to the key maize-growing regions and did random sampling. We bought the seed and found it was laced with GM strains.”Controls on seed imports are often slack or lacking.”So even if Kenya has not commercialised GMOs, it is likely that farmers are planting GM seed without their knowledge,” says Kamau.

Despite rejection everywhere but South Africa, Dr. Margaret Karembu, of a pro GMO company, predicts that 10 African countries will have adopted the technology before 2015

read more…http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55648

Peru: Indigenous anti mine protestors hold Puno city

20,000 Aymaras occupy Puno

Thousands of angry indigenous protesters have taken over the city centre of Puno in south-eastern Peru.

Looters have taken advantage of the unrest and ransacked offices and shops as the police retreated.

Cars and buildings were torched on Thursday night when protesters went on the rampage, demanding an end to a Canadian silver mining project.

The indigenous Aymara activists say the mining company will pollute their ancestral lands.

The protesters have blocked the main roads into the city.

 

Border crossing still closed

A customs office was set ablaze on Friday and several other buildings are still smouldering after being torched in the night.

The demonstrators have threatened to continue the disruption until the government revokes the mining concessions for the Canadian Bear Creek mining company.

The activists say the mining corporation will contaminate nearby Lake Titicaca, decimating the fish stocks.

However, the firm denies it will harm the environment and wants to begin production next year.

The unrest in Puno comes two weeks before the 5 June presidential run-off election.

The indigenous activists say they will try to stop the polls from going ahead in Puno if their demands have not been met.

A Dark Day for Brazil’s Amazon Jungle

Dark Day for Brazil’s Amazon Jungle
By Fabiana Frayssinet

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, murdered Tuesday May 24 in Pará. Credit:CNS Bélem

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 25, 2011 (IPS) – The same day that the lower house of the Brazilian Congress approved a reform of the forestry code that would make it easier to clear land in the Amazon jungle for agriculture, a husband and wife team of activists who spent years fighting illegal deforestation in the rainforest were murdered.

After several delays, the revised forest code was approved by the Chamber of Deputies late Tuesday, by a vote of 410 to 63, with one abstention.

Introduced by Communist Party lawmaker Aldo Rebelo, the reform of the 1965 forestry code is, in the view of environmentalists, the first major defeat for President Dilma Rousseff, as the parties allied with her left-wing Workers’ Party did not vote in a bloc with it on this question.

“This vote represents the biggest setback to Brazil’s environmental legislation in decades,” Raul Silva Telles do Valle, assistant coordinator of the Socioenvironmental Institute, told IPS.

“It’s a law that looks to the past, not the future,” WWF-Brazil’s conservation director Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza told IPS.

conrtinued

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55788

Brazil: Forest Law passed by fascist landlords..Amazon defenders killed.

Câmara aprova Código Florestal

The Folha de Sao Paolo reports the passing of the forest law, pushed through today by powerful extreme right landlords, headed oddly by  populist communist Aldo.-

No details of final version given .

No mention of the amnesty for previous forest crimes which, imposed by the fascist landlords, now make ALL LAWS in the Amazon a laughing stock, and have caused a 6 fold increase already in the criminal destruction of our world heritage.

The influential Folha da Sao Paolo also fails to mention the murder of  the pro Amazon activist José Claudio Ribeira da Silva and his wife Maria, at least on their front pages of the digital edition , even though the police have attributed it to the loggers mafia, especially as their ears were cut off. Another terrorist murder, but one which will be celebrated by mining, logging and ranching companies.

This goes together with the signing of contracts for BP to extract deep sea oil, and the go ahead for the Belo Monte dam.

aybe the terrorists were celebrating the coming Forest Law.

MÁRCIO FALCÃO
LARISSA GUIMARÃES
DE BRASÍLIA

Após semanas de embate, negociações e troca de acusações, a Câmara dos Deputados aprovou ontem o texto da reforma do Código Florestal com alterações que significaram uma derrota para o governo.

Uma emenda aprovada por 273 votos a 182 rachou a base do governo levando os principais partidos governistas, PT e PMDB, para lados opostos. O texto da emenda consolida a manutenção de atividades agrícolas nas APPs (áreas de preservação permanente), autoriza os Estados a participarem da regularização ambiental e deixa claro a anistia para os desmates ocorridos até junho de 2008.

O líder do governo, Cândido Vaccarezza (PT-SP), chegou a falar, em nome da presidente Dilma Rousseff, que a aprovação da emenda seria “uma vergonha”.

Dilma recebe ex-ministros que são contra texto de lei florestal
Relator do Código Florestal critica ex-ministros de Meio Ambiente
Impasse regimental impede votação do Código Florestal, diz Rebelo
Governo cede para votar nova lei florestal

read more here

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ambiente/920514-camara-aprova-texto-do-novo-codigo-florestal.shtml

FOREST DEFENDER’S WIFE ALSO MARTYRED

UPDATE: FOREST DEFENDER’S WIFE ALSO MARTYRED IN BRUTAL ASSASSINATION

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva speaking at TEDx Amazon in 2010

[URGENT: Please join the new avaaz sign-on letter. It is in Portuguese for Brazilian officials but you can easily enter your name, email and country. Please help the Brazilian forest defenders NOW.]

More from Mongabay

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, were gunned down last night in an ambush in the city of Nova Ipixuna in the Brazilian state of Pará. Da Silva was known as a community leader and an outspoken critic of deforestation in the region.

Police believe the da Silvas were killed by hired assassins because both victims had an ear cut off, which is a common token for hired gunmen to prove their victims had been slain, according to local police investigator, Marcos Augusto Cruz, who spoke to Al Jazeera. Suspicion immediately fell on illegal loggers linked to the charcoal trade that supplies pig iron smelters in the region.

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, who also went by the nickname ‘Ze Claudio’, was a vocal critic of illegal logging in Pará, a state in Brazil that is rife with deforestation. He also worked as a community leader of an Amazon reserve that sold sustainably harvested forest products.

Da Silva had received countless death threats and had frequently warned that he could be killed at any time, however he was refused protection by officials.

“I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment … because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers, and that is why they think I cannot exist,” da Silva said in a TED Talks last November, adding “but my fear does not silence me. As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest.”

Clara Santos, the niece of the da Silvas, told BBC that the couple had suffered death threats for 14 years. A report compiled by Brazil’s Catholic Land Commission, a human rights group, in 2008 listed Da Silva as one of the environmental activists most likely to be assassinated.

The double assassination comes at a fateful time for the Amazon rainforest. Politicians in Brazil are considering changing to its Forest Law, which would allow ranchers and farmers to cut down a higher percentage of forest on their land. A vote may occur today.

Brazilian environmental journalist, Felipe Milanez, has said the assassination of da Silva has created ‘another Chico Mendes’. Mendes was a rubber trapper turned Amazon activist whose 1988 assassination catalyzed efforts to save the Amazon.

Da Silva’s killing comes six years after Dorothy Stang, an American nun who fought against deforestation, was slain by gunmen hired by a cattle rancher, also in the state of Pará. Her death was met by a sharp crack-down by the Brazilian against illegal fore

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BRAZIL’S NEW OIL PARTNER IS…GUESS WHO?

BRAZIL’S NEW OIL PARTNER IS.

GUESS WHO?

BP recently announced that the Brazilian National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP) has approved its bid to purchase 10 exploration and production blocks in Brazil from Devon Energy. BP had declared its decision to buy the assets from Devon in March 2010, and had been waiting for the regulatory approvals from ANP since then.

However, the ANP put the deal in Brazil on hold — admittedly to see how BP contains the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — and finally cleared it now seeing BP’s response to the world’s largest accidental oil spill.

With the Brazilian deepwaters showing a lot of promise in terms of oil and gas reserves, BP’s exploration in the area is expected to primarily add to the company’s oil production capacity in the years to come.

More from Forbes

Beef industry destroying Amazon

Brazilian beef industry blamed for Amazon deforestation

McDonalds top list of world criminals

Boots and training shoes are not the first things that spring to mind when you think about the causes of rainforest destruction and climate change, but just because the connection isn’t obvious doesn’t mean it isn’t realm, says Greenpeace in a new report, “Slaughtering the Amazon”

SLAUGHTERING THE AMAZON

Greenpeace fingers out Lula da Silva’s complacency with the industry and ranchers Greenpeace fingers out Lula da Silva’s complacency with the industry and ranchers illegal deforestation and in some cases slavery, via giant processing facilities to the supply chains of some of the best known global brands. Shoe companies like Adidas, Reebok, Nike, Timberland and even Clarks are sourcing a significant proportion of their leather from the Amazon – and its big business.

via Brazilian beef industry blamed for Amazon deforestation — MercoPress.