Brazil is preparing to release its latest Amazon-deforestation report this month, and the news will not be good, according to a top official with Ibama, the country’s environmental-enforcement agency. “Ibama has received unofficial estimates from the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) that indicate the 2003 deforestation rate is exorbitantly and alarmingly high and runs the risk of surpassing the rate in 2001-2002,” says Flávio Montiel, head of environmental protection at Ibama. Inpe, which uses satellite images to monitor Amazon deforestation, reported last July that from Aug. 1, 2001 to July 31, 2002, 9,836 square miles (25,476 sq kms)—or 1.3%—of the forested Brazilian Amazon was cleared, legally and illegally. That compares to 7,014 square miles (18,166 sq kms) cleared in the...
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The Japan Patent Office (JPO) in Tokyo this month rescinded trademark registration of the name cupuaçu, a cocoa-like Amazonian fruit. The move drew applause from the Amazon Working Group (GTA), a network of Brazilian environmental and community organizations that has mounted a global campaign against the issuance abroad of trademarks and patents for traditional Amazonian products and processes. But the campaign to repatriate the name cupuaçu is not over. The Japan-based, family-owned conglomerate that registered the term with the JPO also did so in the European Union and the United States. Brazil’s Foreign Ministry filed a request in December seeking cancellation of the EU registration, and the GTA is conferring with U.S. counterparts on how to go about doing the same thing...
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Amid criticism from green groups, Ríos Minerales, a subsidiary of Canada’s Glencairn Gold, last month broke ground on its Bellavista open-pit gold mine in an area peppered with mines some 42 miles (70 kms) west of San José. The company will mine 60,000 ounces of gold annually over eight years starting next January, says Ríos Minerales President Franz Ulloa. Opponents have begun a last-ditch effort to halt the operation, which uses a process of cyanide lixiviation to extract gold and other minerals from mined material. They point to the environmental and public-health risks posed by transport and use of cyanide, and warn mining might cause soil erosion and air and water pollution. But the Bellavista mine is exempt from an open-pit...
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Brazil’s Congress is moving to protect what’s left of the country’s once-vast Atlantic Rainforest—mostly tropical woodlands that run through 17 Brazilian states. A bill awaiting action in Brazil’s Senate seeks to conserve the remaining 37,000 square miles (95,000 sq. kms) of primary Atlantic rainforest and a larger amount of secondary and climax woodlands. The measure won unanimous approval in December from the lower house of Congress. It was expected to come up for Senate consideration that month, but the vote was put off due to objections to a provision added in the lower house at the insistence of the farm lobby. The provision would allow farmers to seek indemnity in court if the Atlantic Rainforest-conservation measures cause them economic losses. Many officials...
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