Brazil Carves Out 2 Vast Preserves in the Amazon Rain Forest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 18, 2005
 NAPU,
Brazil, Feb. 17 (AP) - Brazil's president signed decrees on Thursday
creating two vast new forest reserves, succumbing to intense pressure
to protect a lawless Amazon region from violent loggers and ranchers
after the killing last weekend of an American nun who fought to protect
the jungle.
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The
measures signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will form a
reserve of 8.15 million acres and a national park spanning 1.1 million
acres in the state of Pará, where Sister Dorothy Stang, who was in her
70's, was attacked by gunmen and shot repeatedly in the head and chest
on Saturday. An environmental activist traveling with her was also
killed. Sister Dorothy had long fought for the poor and landless
and worked to preserve the rain forest, activities that pitted her
against loggers and land speculators in the area. "We can't give in to
people committing acts of violence," said the environment minister,
Marina Silva, who announced the decrees. "The government is putting the
brakes on in front of the predators." The decrees were announced after
more than 60 groups signed a letter to the president demanding strong
moves to curb "violence and impunity associated with the illegal
occupation of lands and deforestation" in the Amazon - and especially
in Pará, which is nearly twice the size of Texas. So far, there
have been no arrests in the two deaths on Saturday, and at least three
other people have been killed in the region since. The police were
searching for the two gunmen and for a rancher, Vitamiro Goncalves
Moura, known as Bida, who the authorities say ordered the killings.
Walame Fiado Machado, who is heading the federal police investigation,
said he believed that the two gunmen were probably hiding in a
hard-to-reach stretch of forest near Mr. Moura's ranch, and that he and
an associate might have fled the region in a small plane soon after the
attack. Lawlessness has long been common in huge Pará State,
where ranchers, backed by hired gunmen, ensnare poor workers in an
endless cycle of debt akin to slavery. Tensions rose further when the
government recently ordered ranchers to surrender land they occupied
but could not prove they owned. Unless the killing stops, Mr.
da Silva "will risk making history as the champion of rural violence,
illegal occupation of public lands and illegal logging," said the
letter, signed by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, Friends
of the Earth and other groups. Logging companies and wealthy
landowners have steadily pushed deeper into the world's largest rain
forest, which sprawls over 1.6 million square miles and covers more
than half the country, vying for its abundant natural resources.
Development, logging and farming have destroyed as much as 20 percent
of the rain forest. In this eastern Amazon town, helicopters flew in
110 soldiers from the 51st Jungle Infantry Division to join a police
manhunt for four men accused of killing Sister Dorothy.
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