Let's save the Amazon Rainforest, and the people of the Amazon

  • by: Simon Wood
  • recipient: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President, Government of Brasil
Petition to support the people of the Amazon in creating an extractive reserve which protects the Amazon Rainforest, while allowing sustainable human ways of living there.
In the last year there has been a 40 percent increase in deforestation in Brazil. (Para state is responsible for one third of the total Amazon deforestation.)

Around 80 percent of Amazon deforestation areas currently in use are occupied by the cattle-ranching industry, much of it in the hands of large landowners. On average, ranching in the Amazon requires clearing 1.4 hectares of forest to support one cow, but generates very limited revenue and employment.

Today there is a new cycle of deforestation emerging in the Amazon with the expansion of Brazil's soya market. Soya farmers are increasing their foothold on more valuable areas of land in the Amazon, within reach of export facilities in Pára. Over three-quarters of a million soya hectares of soya was planted within the Amazon deforestation belt by the end of 2001.


The communities near Porto de Moz just south of the Amazon river are fighting to hold on to their forest homes and the simple living they make from fishing, small scale hunting, subsistence agriculture and from the few forest products they can sell or extract.

Logging and cattle ranching are advancing on this remote forest region bringing with it destruction, illegal logging, violence, slavery, even murder threats. The development of these industries is surging ahead, leaving the law behind. The local communities however are taking a stand against these powerful industries and want to put a permanent end to illegal and predatory logging in the area. They are requesting the creation of two extractive reserves that will legally protect the forest for the sustainable use of the communities.

At this time, the extractive reserves remain only an area defined on a government map, whatÂ’s missing is the political will of the federal and state governments to resolve their differences. The communities of Porto de Moz and Prainha are asking for your help to actively support their struggle for peace in the forest, for social justice, and in defense of their environmental heritage. Please sign this petition to the Brazilian federal and state governments asking them to take immediate action to create the extractive reserves that will guarantee the people a safe, peaceful and harmonious future in the Amazon rainforest.
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