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Brazil
Launches Amazon Forest Protection
Program
Brasilia - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched a program on
Friday to regulate land ownership and protect
rainforest in the Amazon area.
The so-called "Legal Land and Green Arch" program
combined giving land titles to Amazon residents with
paying the habitants to prevent deforestation, Lula
said at the launching ceremony in a Amazon frontier
town in Mato Grosso state.
The program will regulate the ownerships of 296,000
buildings occupied by settlers in nine states of the
area.
The program will begin in 43 municipalities most
affected by deforestation, and the goal for this
year is to issue 90,000 titles of land in 93
municipalities.
Government agencies will coordinate under the plan
to prevent illegal logging and train some 300
officials to prevent land-grabbing in some
municipalities.
At the launching ceremony, Lula said the new plan
will help environment conservation, and promised
that Amazon inhabitants will not be treated as
criminals for their past deforestation actions.
"If there was a moment when we could fall trees, now
that actions work against us," Lula said.
Some western countries and environmentalists accused
Brazil's neglect on dwellers and speculators'
occupying, stealing and selling state land for
decades, which accelerated the destruction of the
world's largest rainforest in Amanzon.
"We want to be reasonable so that no one can accuse
Brazil of anything. That is why we are going to
regulate," Lula said at the ceremony.
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