Brazil: Amazon Rain
Forest Defender Shot to
Death
An Amazon farmer who
often received death
threats because he
reported illegal logging
to authorities was shot
to death as he left his
house, Brazilian media
reported Saturday.
Emival Barbosa Machado,
50, was shot three times
Friday in the eastern
city of Tucurui, the
Globo TV network said.
No arrests have been
made. Machado routinely
reported illegal logging
and shipments of lumber
in Para, a largely
lawless state where
American nun and rain
forest defender Dorothy
Stang was killed in
2005.
Machado told the
environmental protection
agency Ibama that locals
were forced to deliver
wood to loggers and were
killed if they refused.
"He made various
complaints to us, and we
seized lumber and boats
thanks to his reports,"
Anibal Picanco, Ibama's
superintendent in Para,
said in a televised
interview.
Para has been targeted
in a government
crackdown after
satellite photos showed
illegal logging in the
Amazon was on the
upswing.
In February, officials
seized more than 10,000
cubic feet of wood and
shut down three saw
mills in the town of
Tailandia. Some 2,000
enraged residents burned
tires, blocked roads and
forced Ibama workers to
flee. The government
sent in federal police
and troops to restore
order.
Brazil has strict
environmental laws that
require landowners in
the Amazon basin to keep
80 percent of their
forested areas standing
and file detailed forest
management plans before
they can harvest wood.
But the laws are
routinely flouted, and
there aren't enough
federal agents in the
region to enforce them.
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