Alternative energy powerhouse Brazil finds big oil

Brazil, long proud of its push to develop renewable energy and wean itself off oil, has a bad case of fossil-fuel fever.

An enormous offshore field in territorial waters — the biggest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in 30 years — has Brazilians saying, "Drill, baby, drill," while environmentalists fear the nation will take a big leap backward in its hunt for crude.

There has been virtually no public debate on the potential environmental costs of retrieving the billions of barrels of oil, a project one expert said will be as difficult as landing a man on the moon.

"The government is whipping Brazil into a euphoria that this is going to be a solution for all our societal problems," said Sergio Leitao, director of public policies for Greenpeace Brasil. "Brazil is no longer seriously looking at alternatives."

Home to the bulk of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil for decades has developed alternative energy as an issue of national security following severe energy shortages in the 1970s. It uses hydroelectric power for more than 80 percent of its energy needs, is the world's largest exporter of ethanol, and nine out of every 10 cars sold in the nation can run on ethanol or a combination of ethanol and gasoline.

A U.N. study found that in 2008, Brazil accounted for almost all of Latin America's renewable energy investment, to the tune of $10.8 billion.

But since the national oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, discovered the massive Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro two years ago — estimated to hold 5 to 8 billion barrels — it is the development of oil fields that has gone into overdrive.

Thirty years ago, more than 85 percent of Brazil's oil came from foreign sources. Today, it is a net exporter.

There have been a series of other discoveries since Tupi — each lying at least 115 miles (185 kilometers) offshore, more than a mile below the ocean's surface and under another 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of earth and salt. Estimates of the entire area's recoverable oil range between 50 billion and 100 billion barrels.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hailed the finds as the nation's future, a second declaration of independence and an economic savior for 57 million Brazilians living in poverty — 30 percent of the population. The military wants new submarines and jets to protect the crude. Leftist groups want it all nationalized.

The enthusiasm is also fanned by Brazil's devotion to Petrobras, routinely listed as one of the most-admired companies in national polls.

Founded in 1953 to fend off an economic crisis and dependency on foreign oil, Petrobras has long embodied Brazilian nationalism and the notion of shielding domestic wealth from foreigners — particularly the United States and Europe.

In 2008, Brazil's total oil and natural gas production was nearly 2.3 million barrels per day. Petrobras was responsible for more than 96 percent of it.

"Most Brazilians think of Petrobras like they think of their soccer stars," said Eric Smith, an offshore oil expert at Tulane University in New Orleans who likened efforts to get at Brazil's oil to a trip to the moon. "Try to find Americans who support Exxon like that."

Petrobras fattens government coffers with more than $30 billion a year in taxes and royalties.

The company is led by Sergio Gabrielli, a bearded economics professor-on-leave, who was jailed under the nation's military regime for his political activities. He defends the company's environmental record emphatically.

"Our ethanol program, our biodiesel program is still there. Petrobras is allocating $2.8 billion dollars to develop our infrastructure and production capacity for producing ethanol and biodiesel," Gabrielli told The Associated Press at an economic forum in Rio this spring.

The company's record is not untarnished, however.

In January 2000, a pipeline spilled about 350,000 gallons of crude into Rio's Guanabara Bay. Six months later, there was a spill at a refinery near Curitiba in Brazil's south — 1 million gallons of oil flooded two rivers. In March 2001, explosions on what was then the company's biggest offshore platform killed 11 workers. The rig sank, releasing more than 300,000 gallons of oil.

Petrobras quickly initiated a $4 billion investment program to prevent future disasters and Gabrielli says Petrobras can safely develop the difficult offshore fields.

Judy Dugan, a founder of OilWatchdog.org, cautions Brazilians against embracing an oil company as a national benefactor.

She said the track record of global oil companies shows none "truly have the good of the citizenry first in mind. The oil business creates corruption in many governments and large sources of political influence for an oil company's benefit, not for the benefit of citizens."

Brazil's Senate recently opened an inquiry into corruption at Petrobras. Opposition lawmakers say the company failed to pay more than $2 billion in taxes and that it overpays firms with ties to the Silva administration.

Silva swears Brazil will not go the way of a Venezuela or Nigeria, where petro dollars routinely mix with politics.

Instead, he is pushing a version of the Norwegian model, working to set up a government-controlled oil fund for social projects that he argues would operate with transparency. The opposition, however, fears giving the central government control of such a fund would give it massive new political influence.

Leitao, of Greenpeace, wonders if the billions of dollars needed to develop the offshore finds will be worth it should the price of oil fall.

"At the beginning of the 20th century, we were the largest producers of rubber in the world. People were lighting cigars with money," he said. "But the hangover came quickly because the English started producing rubber in Asia. The prices fell and our fortunes ended.

"We're not looking at the lessons our own history has given us."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hxQdx6DomM1By5mqzTtFFibxZ2eAD9A8O5L02

Brazil's former environment minister leaves ruling party over 'destruction of natural resources'

Marina Silva is expected to make a 2010 presidential bid and put the environment back on the agenda

Brazil's former environment minister, the rainforest defender Marina Silva, has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, paving the way for a 2010 presidential bid, which supporters hope will put the environment back on the political agenda of South America's largest country.

For weeks speculation has been growing that Silva, who resigned from government last May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to dispute the presidential elections next October.

Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia earlier today, Silva, who has been a Workers' party member for over 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environmental cause.

In her resignation letter to the president of the Workers' party, Silva said her decision was an attempt to break with the idea of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority" including "the destruction of natural resources".

She added that "political conditions" had meant that "environmental concerns had not been able to take route at the heart of the government."

Silva, 51, stopped short of formally announcing a presidential bid but few doubt that she will now front the Green Party's 2010 election campaign.

The Brazilian media has been overtaken with Marina mania since earlier this month when rumours about a possible bid for the presidency began spreading. This week one major news magazine stamped Silva's photograph onto its front-page alongside the headline: "President Marina?"

Writing in the O Globo newspaper yesterday, the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura said Silva could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections.

"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama," he wrote.

Born in an impoverished community of rubber tappers in the remote Amazon state of Acre, Silva was orphaned at 16 and was illiterate until her early teens.

In 1994, aged 35, she was elected as Brazil's youngest ever female senator and subsequently became renowned for her staunch defence of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants, winning a succession of international awards for her work. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has not so far commented on her resignation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/19/marina-silva-resigns

Brazil's former minister resigns in environmental protest

Speculation mounts that Marina Silva is preparing a presidential bid that will drive rainforest protection back up political agenda

The protection of the Amazon rainforest could take centre stage in next year's Brazilian presidential election, after the country's former environment minister announced yesterday that she has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, raising speculation that she is preparing a presidential bid.

Speaking at a press conference, Marina Silva said she was leaving the party in protest at the "political conditions" that had meant "environmental concerns had not been able to take root at the heart of the government".

She added in her resignation letter that she was leaving in an attempt to challenge ideas of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority", including "the destruction of natural resources".

Silva, who resigned last May following a row over plans to develop parts of the Amazon, has been subject to speculation that she is to defect to the Green Party and launch a presidential bid next year. While she yesterday stopped short of joining the Greens, media commentators remain convinced that a presidential bid is on the cards.

Any presidential race involving Silva would likely drive the issue of the environment and rainforest protection back to the top of the political agenda, following several years during which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been accused of letting the issue slip down his list of priorities.

Commentators are also convinced that Silva, 51, could pose a considerable challenge to Lula.

The Guardian cited the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura, who this week drew parallels between Silva and US President Barack Obama.

"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party… in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society," he wrote, "as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama."

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2248165/brazil-former-minister-resigns

World’s dust bowl

Changing ecosystems: Recent studies highlight the potential for changes in the quantities of desert dust, and the consequent alterations in ecosystems functioning in places far flung from the sources of desert dust. So, half of all the Amazonian dust supply is from the Sahara desert, writes Meera Iyer

DUST STORM... A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year. Getty Images
We already know that climate change might drastically alter landscapes around the world. Interestingly, one of the prime agents of changing ecology might be dust from deserts, and often where you least expect it.

Several studies have shown that the Sahara desert is the world’s largest source of desert dust. A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year.

Dustiest place in the world

Within the Sahara, the Bodélé Depression, on the northeastern end of Lake Chad, is notable as the single largest source of dust, responsible for about half of all the dust in the Sahara! This seems extraordinary, considering that the Bodélé Depression is only 150 km2, or about 0.2 per cent of the area of the Sahara desert.

The Bodélé owes its status as the world’s premier dust source to its past history, its unique topography and the resultant weather patterns.

Today’s Lake Chad is but a poor shadow of the vast lake that existed here about 7,000 years ago, at which point Mega-Chad was the world’s biggest lake. Diatoms – a type of algae found in water bodies – thrived here.
The remains of their silicaceous shells were deposited in thick layers on the lakebed, forming a soft rock called diatomite, which was exposed once the lake began drying. This very fine-grained mineral is easily dislodged and transported by the strong near-surface winds here (called the low-level jet) which are accelerated and funnelled by mountains on the north and southeast of the Bodélé.

About 50 million tons of all the dust transported out of Africa reached the Amazon rainforest every year. And about half of all the Amazonian dust supply is from the Bodélé, making it the largest supplier of dust to the Amazon.

For most of us, dust is merely something to be periodically cleared off surfaces, an irritant that we would gladly be rid of. But Saharan dust is in fact a lifeline for the rainforest. The soils of the Amazon basin are typically nutrient-poor, so that the rainforest trees are able to maintain their nutrient balance only through the inputs of nutrient-rich desert dust from the across the Atlantic Ocean.

Impacts of climate change

Two recent studies highlight the potential for changes in the quantities of desert dust, and the consequent alterations in ecosystem functioning in places far flung from the sources of desert dust.

In a paper published in late July in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Richard Washington from the University of Oxford, along with colleagues from Universite Blaise Pascal in France and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Germany, outline how the Bodélé Depression could be considered a tipping element for climate. Taking off from Malcolm Gladwell’s enormously popular book on tipping points – about how “little things can make a big difference”, a tipping element in the earth’s climate describes components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point.

To determine how climate change may impact the production of dust from the Bodélé, Washington et al.’s paper focused on the controls on the amounts of dust produced, viz., controls on the strong near-surface winds, and on the amounts of diatomite available for erosion.

The authors used leading models of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to estimate the effects of climate change on the Bodélé.

Based on these climate models, and with the caveat that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the models, the authors expect an increase in rainfall over the region. Lake Chad has in fact emptied and refilled more than three times in the last 3-4000 years, with dust output dropping to zero during wetter periods and increasing once again during dry periods.

However, the authors aver that the rainfall increases predicted by the climate change models would be insufficient to cause a drop in dust production.
Instead, the researchers believe that climate change could in fact increase the amounts of Bodélé dust produced over the coming century.

This is based on climate models that also predict an increase in near surface wind speeds in this region in the later decades of the coming century.

Impact on alpine ecosystem

A second paper, also in PNAS, examines the impacts of increasing desert dust on the alpine ecosystem of the San Juan mountains, Colorado, USA. Dust here comes largely from the southwestern United States, with minor inputs from Asia. In the last two hundred years, the introduction and expansion of livestock rearing and railways in the southwest has led to an astonishing 500% increase in dust deposition in the San Juan.

To understand the possible implications of such an increase, Heidi Steltzer from Colorado State University and colleagues, set up experimental plots in the mountains, adding desert dust to some plots, removing naturally arrived dust from a second set and leaving a third set of test plots unchanged.

They found that increased dust deposition caused snows to melt 7 to 13 days earlier. Interestingly, climate warming in the region also advances snowmelt, but because early snowmelt caused by dust is not accompanied with higher temperatures, it has different biological consequences. The researches found that it led to synchronised growth and flowering across species, a result which could impact ecosystem functioning, including nutrient cycling, and inter-species interactions and hence species compositions.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/18880/worlds-dust-bowl.html

Brazilians Take On Global Warming and Steal the Show

Brazilians take global warming seriously, much more than the rest of the world. The recently published 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey of twenty five prominent nation-states, including the United States, China, India, France, Kenya, and Poland among many others, now confirms that Brazil is now the world leader in concern over global warming.

The Pew survey reveals Brazil's highest affirmative response rate to the question: Is global warming a serious problem? 90 percent of Brazilians think so, by far the highest proportion of any country in the study. Argentina ranks second with 69 percent, the U.S. response is well behind at 44%, and China is last in this survey with only 30 percent of the respondents troubled by greenhouse gas emissions.

Since the election of President Lula in 2002, Brazilians have become increasingly aware of national and global environmental problems, from the impact of land use practices in the Cerrado to deforestation in the Amazon.

President Lula told Reuters that Brazil was open to adopting targets for greenhouse gas reductions, "the issue is not a taboo for us.", thus reflecting the national preoccupation with global warming and all but reversing the country's adamant opposition to adopting emission reduction targets.

Brazilians did not always share such a unique perspective on the global warming challenge. Before Lula's election, only 20 percent of the population expressed concern for the environment according to the Pew Center. By 2007 this number had jumped to 49%, the largest increase of the survey. According to Larry Rohter of the New York Times,

"The factors behind the re-evaluation range from a drought here in the Amazon rain forest, the world's largest, and the impact that it could have on agriculture if it recurs, to new phenomena like a hurricane in the south of Brazil. As a result, environmental advocates, scientists and some politicians say, Brazilian policy makers and the public they serve are increasingly seeing climate change not as a distant problem, but as one that could affect them too."

Climate change is now front and center in Brazil. Members of Congress from all political parties race to affiliate with the environmental caucus and co-sponsor "green" legislation. The former Minister of the Environment under Lula, Workers Party Senator and former Amazon rubber tapper, Marina Silva, is now considering an invitation from the Green Party to run as their presidential nominee in 2010.

Even S.O.S. Mata Atlântica, a prominent environmental advocacy organization, is running humorous television ads asking Brazilians to "piss in the shower" to save millions of liters of fresh water in a campaign to preserve the Atlantic coast's dwindling rainforest.

Dare to compare Brazil with the U.S.?

During the same period from 2002 to 2007, the U.S. level of environmental concern rose from 23 to 37 percent, but alarm over global warming decreased from 47 percent in 2007 to 44 in 2009 as the economy crumbled. Although President Obama and the Democratic Party passed the controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (known as Waxman-Markey) in the House of Representatives by a very close vote; efforts to pass a climate change bill in the Senate face stiff opposition.

In fact, the ranking Republican member of the key Environment and Public Works committee responsible for developing climate change legislation, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, doubts the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore in 2007. In 2003 Sen. Inhofe remarked that global warming was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Of course, there are other countries in the Pew Center survey that also play down the threat of global warming, including the very large greenhouse gas emitters China and Canada, yes Canada! However, the public opinion gap between Brazil and the U.S. may prove to be a major obstacle in galvanizing international cooperation to reduce emissions.

48 percent of Brazilians are willing to pay higher prices (for energy, food, etc.) to address global warming, compared to only 41 percent for the U.S. Even more interesting, 79 percent of Brazilians are willing to tolerate slower economic growth and job creation to protect the environment compared to 64 percent for the U.S.

With respect to who is most trusted to deal with global warming, 57 percent of U.S. citizens believe the U.S. is the most trustworthy while only 17 percent of Brazilians place their faith in U.S. leadership. Of the countries studied, only Israel, Kenya, and Nigeria place more than 40 percent confidence in the U.S. on climate matters.

Even more telling, Brazil ranks high in the list of countries who blame the U.S. for global warming. 49 percent of the Brazilians single out the U.S. Only Turkey and Bangladesh (61%), Spain (56%), Venezuela and Slovakia (55%), France (53%), and Indonesia (52%) surpass Brazil suspicions. Evidently, these numbers partially reflect the animosity unleashed by President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

Brazil's recent and very rapid increase in public awareness stands in sharp contrast with the partisan rancor and controversy surrounding U.S. efforts to confront global warming. Moreover, Brazilians about-face is now bearing down on domestic policy making. The government's Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAM) got off to a slow start, but is now showing measurable results.

No doubt this effort has its critics, but Brazil's National Institute for Space Research confirms that the rate of Amazon deforestation is slowing. Also, the current Minister of the Environment, Carlos Minc, announced in June that President Lula himself would directly participate in efforts to stop deforestation by visiting Amazon communities involved in sustainable production. Even Brazil's Army is joining the campaign to stop deforestation!

These efforts highlight Brazil's broader commitment to protect the Amazon and play a leading role in climate change negotiations at Copenhagen. They are now coupled with international campaigns to diminish the external threats to the rainforest. Greenpeace's recent campaign, "Slaughtering the Amazon," has already pressured such companies as Nike to "certify" that leather used in the company's products does not come from cattle herding in the Amazon.

Taken together, Brazilians' concern with global warming, the Lula administration's increasing commitment to stop deforestation, international efforts, such as the Amazon Fund, to assist the country with sustainable development in the Amazon, and Brazil's historic leadership of the G-77 nations in climate change talks add up to a prominent position at this year's Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen or COP15. Indeed, the U.S. Climate Change envoy, Todd Stern, recently visited Brasilia for talks with the government and remarked,

"And I think that an issue like this, which is of enormous importance to the world ... is an ideal opportunity for Brazil to demonstrate leadership on the global stage. And if you want to be a global player, that's what you have to do."

According to the Pew Center, over 180 million Brazilians have weighed in are now ready to take the stage and steal the show.

http://www.brazzil.com/component/content/article/207-august-2009/10231-brazilians-take-on-global-warming-and-steal-the-show.html

Brazil's environment minister Minc to step down

Brazil's environment minister Carlos Minc will step down in March to run for deputy in the Rio de Janeiro state legislature in general elections next October, reports Reuters.

Brazilian law requires a public official seeking office to step down six months before an election.

Minc has publicly clashed with development interests over environmental laws in the Amazon rainforest. Since taking over the position vacated by former rubber tapper Marina Silva in May 2008, Minc has pushed for stricter environmental rules, called in federal troops and police to crack down on illegal forest clearing, and fought infrastructure projects that would promote deforestation in the region. Minc's efforts have made him powerful enemies who have worked to undermine his policies.

Reuters reports that ministers who leave their posts toward the end of the government's four-year term "are typically replaced by career civil servants." President Lula leaves office next year.

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0810-minc.html

Amazon rainforest devastation continues

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest was four times higher in June than the previous month, according to official data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

The figures, taken from satellite images, come in the same week UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband is visiting the country to discuss global warming.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed 578 square kilometres (223 square miles) of Amazon woodland was burned or cut down. The area is roughly the size of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva.

The forest is under threat from the logging and cattle ranch industries. The Amazon holds up to 86 billion tonnes of carbon and if destroyed, would vastly speed up the effect of global warming.

According to the Space Agency, nearly 4,700 square kilometres of rainforest has been felled in the past year despite promises from the Brazilian Government to slow deforestation by 70 percent over the next 10 years.

Earlier this week Ed Miliband urged world leaders ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December to protect the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous tribes whose livelihood are at risk from deforestation.

http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/national-news/12489-amazon-rainforest-devestation-continues.html

Sangre De Drago is a Medicinal Power House

(NaturalNews) Sangre de drago (grado) or "blood of the dragon" is the latex-like sap that comes from the Croton species of tree that grows throughout the Amazon rainforests of Peru and Ecuador. This medicinal sap used for centuries by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon for the treatment of various ailments that include diarrhea, ulcers in the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines, upper respiratory viruses, cancer, as well as topically to heal wounds has slowly been getting more attention from mainstream medicine. Over the last ten years several studies conducted by the University of Calgary, the Albany Medical Center and several others have pointed to concrete documented evidence that sangre de drago is a medicinal power house of phytochemicals.

Dr. Mark Miller of the Albany Medical Center conducted a study on treating stomach ulcers in rats with sangre de drago. The conclusions that he and his colleagues found are incredible. Out of three groups induced with ulcers, two groups of rats, through their drinking water, ingested the sangre de drago in different concentrations (1:1,000 and 1:10,000 dilutions) and one group was used as a control. Both the bacterial content and size of the ulcers in the two groups of rats treated with sangre de drago was greatly reduced at both concentrations. It was also found that sangre de drago greatly inhibits the inflammation of nerve endings and the creation of Myeloperoxidase, an enzyme in white blood cells that is linked to inflammation and cardiovascular disease.

Though this wonderful sap from the rainforest contains a number of beneficial phytochemicals, the healing and anti-inflammatory properties of sangre de drago can be attributed to two main chemicals. These two chemical compounds are Taspine, an alkaloid that has been documented as anti-inflammatory, antitumorous, and antiviral, and Dimethylcedrusine, a lignan that plays a central role in sangre de drago's wound-healing capabilities. In a study done in Belgium, it was found that the healing properties of the raw sangre de drago resin were four times more effective at forming collagen and healing wounds than the administration of the isolated chemicals. When sangre de drago resin was smeared onto a sterile plate, allowed to dry and then doused with E. Coli bacteria the bacteria promptly died versus a similar plate treated with the antibiotic ampicillin.

Sangre de drago has so many benefits that it is hard to cover all of it within the scope of just one article. Between its internal and external uses it has been used for over thirty-one different ailments, and its uses keep growing in popularity. This sap from the Amazon rainforest is truly a miracle of nature and the more it becomes known to the masses, the better.

http://www.naturalnews.com/026764_Sangre_de_Drago_ulcers_medicine.html

Miliband delivers message to forest tribes deep in the Amazon

Energy minister to meet Brazil's environmentalists, policy makers and people on the frontline of deforestation.

Halting deforestation is essential to preventing dangerous global warming, the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, has told indigenous tribesmen and women on a visit to the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Cutting down trees causes 17% of global carbon emissions — more than global transport — and much of it happens in the Amazon. But mechanisms by which rich nations can persuade forested nations that the trees are worth more standing than felled have been problematic, with issues of land ownership, the role of indigenous people and corruption hindering progress.

"We can only get an agreement on climate change if it involves Brazil and it involves forestry," Miliband said during a boat trip on the Xingu river near the remote indigenous community of Pavuru.

The world's governments will gather in Copenhagen in December to agree a global treaty on fighting global warming, with deforestation very high on the agenda. "There is no solution to the question of climate change without forestry," he added.

During the five-day diplomatic offensive Miliband will meet environmentalists, policy makers and scientists as well as the people on the frontline of Brazil's battle against climate change – Brazil's indigenous communities, cattle ranchers and soy farmers.

Yesterday afternoon he touched down in the Xingu National Park — a sprawling indigenous reserve home to 5,000 Indians from 14 different ethnic groups — to discuss the perils of climate change and deforestation with those who inhabit the world's greatest tropical rainforest .

Addressing the Indians in a straw-roofed auditorium in Pavuru, Miliband said:

"We recognise the very important steps that you are taking to protect the environment against illegal activities and other threats against the forest and we are very grateful to you. But we know there is more that we can do to help you manage the forest in a sustainable way."

Tribesmen and women had travelled from across the 2.8m hectare Xingu National Park to reach this tiny village at the heart of the reserve. "They told us the minister wanted to talk to us about deforestation, about water," said Tom Aweti, 48, the leader of the Aweti people who had travelled several hours by boat to reach the meeting. "We will listen."

But the Indians also came to be heard; from the early hours of Sunday dozens of boats carrying tribal leaders and their families began mooring on Pavuru's small beach. Others came onboard a single motor aeroplane.

"The white man is invading our land," Chief Tinini, from the Xingu's Juruna village, told Miliband, holding a tribal spear in his right hand. "Many fish are dying," he added, blaming the construction of hydroelectric plants in the Xingu region. "Our children will starve."

Napiku Ikpeng, 33, from Pavuru's indigenous association, said he was concerned government infrastructure plans, involving roads and hydroelectric plants, would harm his peoples' way of life. "We aren't against economic growth… but this growth has to respect the Indians who live in this place," he said.

Speaking to the Guardian after the meeting Miliband said he had been shocked "seeing the actual logs piled up and the illegal roads that have been built" during a flight over the Amazon rainforest.

"The Amazon forest is such a beautiful place when it is untouched and then you see these scars on the landscape of the deforestation, bigger and bigger scars," he said.

"Brazil is up for a deal we just need proper ambition from developed countries, the right financial architecture in place," he added.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/03/ed-miliband-amazon-deforestation

Alcoa mine to clear 25,000 acres of rainforest, suck 133,407 gallons of water per hour from the Amazon

A bauxite mine under development by Alcoa, the world’s second-largest primary aluminum producer, will consume 10,500 hectares (25,900 acres) of primary Amazon rainforest and suck 133,407 gallons of water per hour from the Amazon, reports Bloomberg News in an extensive write-up.

Located in the Juruti region of the Amazonian state of Para, the project will produce millions of tons of bauxite ore — used in the production of aluminum — per year, but more than half the mine will lie within a sustainable use forest reserve set aside for locals, according to Bloomberg. Further, state and federal officials are questioning the legality of the mine. Alcoa maintains the mine has the proper permits.

Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro write:

Bauxite mining road in Suriname.
A growing array of evidence in court documents puts Alcoa among the multinational corporations that prosecutors accuse of destroying or causing destruction of the world’s largest rain forest.

Brazilian federal and Para state prosecutors sued Alcoa’s Brazilian mining subsidiary in 2005 in an effort to block the Juruti mine, saying the company had circumvented the law by not applying for a federal permit and instead seeking a license from the state of Para.

After four years of legal haggling, the suit is still pending. Alcoa, which denies any wrongdoing, has already completed construction of the railway, port and processing plants. It’s now ready to start mining.

“The state agency has no power to give anyone full rights to exploit land, especially in the case of a reserve,” state prosecutor Raimundo Moraes says. “Alcoa invaded the area, undeterred. Alcoa has no shame.” For the full story: Alcoa Razes Rain Forest in Court Case Led by Brazil Prosecutors

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170