Number 293, November 20, 1997.

LAND ISSUES

- Government pays over 24000% more for land than it received for it.

The government has been buying back land to settle landless families for as much as 24801% more than it received for it in the 1970s and 80s according to a report in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' of November 16 last. The land is found on the so-called agricultural frontiers in remote regions of the North and Center-West.

A typical case is the Promasa ranch in the municipality of Santa Lucia do Tide, State of Maranhao. In September of 1979 the state government sold the 4498 hectare ranch for just under US $7 thousand. In 1995, INCRA (the federal government land agency) made an offer of just over US $1.6 million for the same area. Also in the State of Maranhao the Cacique Group bought the Tucuma ranch (20481 hectares) and the Cacique ranch (21822 hectares) during 1978 and 1979. The first ranch was bought for approximately US $61 thousand and the second for just under US $47 thousand. In 1995 INCRA decided to purchase back the Tucuma ranch for just over US $4.2 million (a difference of 6925%) and the Cacique ranch for US $6.1 million ( a difference of 12742%). While both properties were in the hands of the Cacique company the forest coverage on the Tucuma ranch had been reduced to 35% of the total area and to 30% on the Cacique ranch. The ranches were purchased back in order to settle landless families.

In the 1970s many such ranches were sold for low values in order to bring economic development to remote areas. This fact is recalled by the Cacique lawyers in a document in which they negotiate the price of the Tucuma and Cacique ranches with the government - ''Around 1979 attending insistent and urgent appeals from the government of Maranhao to collaborate with the agricultural development of the state and believing in a very clear promise of support, large fiscal incentives and other advantages, the owners (of the ranches) bought these properties''.

In the State of Mato Grosso even though the federal government had a stock of 2.13 million hectares (just over 22 thousand square kms) which could be used for projects of agrarian reform it bought a further 2.07 million hectares between December 1996 and October 1997. State prosecutor in Mato Grosso, Jose Pedro Taques has demanded that the state superintendent of INCRA explain where exactly the land exappropriasted in the 1970s and 1980s is located. The prosecutor is also investigating the purchase of 41 thousand hectares by INCRA during 1995 and 1996 at a cost of approximately US $31 million. Figures show that up to US $1400 were paid per hectare in the latter cases when land in the region is worth at most US $630 per hectare.

- Land value has decreased 50% since 1994.

The value of farm land continues to decrease in practically all of Brazil according to the most recent survey carried out by the Center of Agricultural Studies of the Getulio Vargas Foundation. For example between mid 1996 and mid 1997, the value of land used for pasture had an average decrease in value of 11.65% and land used for tillage had a similar decrease of 14.1%. Since the introduction of the Real Economic Plan in mid 1994 the decrease in the value of land has been approximately 50%.

Maria Jose Cyhlar Monteiro who was involved in the Getulio Vargas Foundation study pointed to a number of reasons to explain the sharp drop in rural land values. One reason is the economic stability and the high interest rates since the introduction of the Real Plan ''Because of this the use of land as an investment dropped enormously and it (land) is now seen as of use for production. The interests of speculators have moved from land to financial investments which are more liquid and profitable'' commented Ms. Monteiro.

Economist Fernando Homen de Melo of the State University of Sao Paulo (USP) points to two other factors which have contributed to the fall in land values - the fear that many ranchers have that their lands will be occupied by the landless and the debts of large land owners.

- Death of rural leader provokes suspicions.

The Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) of the Catholic Church in Amazonia called for an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of the death of 28 year old Elizeu Oliveira da Silva on November 12. Silva was a local leader of the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST) in the municipality of Apui. He was found dead on November 12 in the local police station.

A document signed by the local chief of police, Laercio de Souza Rodrigues, by two doctors - Sidronio Timoteo e Silva and Carlos Alancar and by the local public prosecutor, Marcelo Pinto Ribeiro, claims that Silva committed suicide by hanging himself. This version of his death is suspected and contested not only by the CPT but by members of his family, by the local rural trade union and by the MST who claim that there were signs of torture on his body. Locally it was not possible to carry out a post-mortem examination on the body of Silva and the CPT had offered to hire a plane to take the body to Manaus where this examination could be carried out. The CPT claims that the body was buried quickly so that the transferral to Manaus could not take place. ''We took this decision (not to let the body be taken to Manaus) because we feared that somebody could cause injuries to the corpse and later say that torture had taken place'' commented Dr. Timoteo e Silva.

The president of the Lawyers' Association (OAB) in the State of Amazonas, Alberto Simonetti, demanded that the circumstances of the death of Silva be investigated by the federal police and that the body be exhumed to determine if he had been subjected to torture. The Commission of Human Rights of the National Congress in Brasilia also demanded that the body be exhumed and examinations be carried out. On November 18 the federal police decided to investigate the case. Human rights organizations suspect that Silva was assassinated because he was the only witness of an attempt on the life of an INCRA technician, Ivanir Queiroz on October 09 last. A court hearing to investigate this assassination attempt was due to take place on November 19. Queiroz accuses Dr. Timoteo e Silva of having ordered the assassination attempt on his life. The latter denies the accusation.

- Trial set for police involved in Eldorado do Carajas massacre.

153 police, including two high ranking police officers will be tried for the massacre of 19 landless in Eldorado do Carajas, State of Para, on April 17, 1996, according to a decision of judge Otavio Marcelino Maciel on November 12. 155 police were involved in the incident - one has fled and another has alleged insanity. The judgment is expected to take place next year.

A difficulty is foreseen at the trial however because since the judge did not accuse any individual policeman and since the police removed their identity tags during the operation it is expected that it will be difficult to accuse any individual member of the group for the firing of the 37 bullets found in the bodies of the dead or for the deaths of four landless who were killed by blows of an ax or large knife.

- Rio Maria Bulletin

R I O M A R I A B U L L E T I N

Volume VII, Number 2 November, 1997

MESSAGE FROM CARLOS CABRAL

In May Madeleine Cousineau of the Rio Maria Committee of the United States visited Rio Maria. In addition to meeting with the committee there, she talked with Carlos Cabral, president of the Union of Rural Workers. Madeleine asked Carlos if he wanted to send a message to supporters in the United States, and he responded enthusiastically. The following is a translation of his message.

We are very grateful for the work that has been

developed by the Rio Maria Committee at the

international level. If it were not for the work

of this committee, there would not be a single

gunman or rancher in prison. Thanks to the denun-

ciations that have been done up until now, we are

managing to live in peace. But what rural workers

need, not only in Rio Maria but also on the

national level, is that the committee continue its

work. The things that happened here continue to

happen in other places. The only way to achieve

justice and peace in the countryside is through

organizations like this committee pressuring the

Brazilian authorities. That is the only way that

they will stop neglecting their responsibilities

and do something.

For everything that you have done, we send thanks.

GOOD NEWS

There has been some movement in cases that have been stalled for years. Adilson Laranjeira, the former mayor of Rio Maria, has been charged with ordering the murder of Joao Canuto, and will face trial. Joao Canuto was the first president of the Union of Rural Workers of Rio Maria and one of its founders.

The case of the murder of Bras Antonio de Oliveira and Ronan Ventura has advanced one step further. It has been determined that the rancher accused of ordering their assassination, Geraldo de Oliveira Braga, will be tried by jury.

Another rancher, Gerdice Marques, has been charged with ordering the assassinations of three of the sons of Joao Canuto--Jose, Paulo, and Orlando (Orlando survived the attempt on his life). That case has been stalled in the court of Xinguara since 1995. The Rio Maria Committee in Rio Maria has been putting pressure on the judge to get the trial started.

The gunman who was convicted for the murder of the Canuto brothers, Jose Ubiratan Matos Ubirajara, had escaped from prison last year, but he has been re-captured.

There is more good news from a neighboring region. In June a jury in the state of Maranhao found guilty three of the ranchers who ordered the murder of Father Josimo Morais Tavares in 1985. The gunman was convicted several years ago. The conviction of the ranchers, which is a major victory, was the result of an organized effort on the part of the Father Josimo Human Rights Committee and the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission to pressure the government to bring these men to trial.

Unfortunately, we still have work to do with regard to the case of Expedito Ribeiro de Souza. In May Madeleine Cousineau went to the Department of Justice in Brasilia to deliver eighty letters from people in the United States to Dr. Jose Gregori, the National Secretary for Human Rights. (This was coordinated with a letter-writing campaign in Brazil which involved dozens of high school students, as well as adults.) The letters demanded the capture of Jeronimo Alves de Amorim, charged with ordering Expedito's murder. Dr. Gregori told Madeleine that, if she could tell him where to find Amorim, he would send the Federal Police to arrest him. Three days later Madeleine sent Dr. Gregori a fax from Rio Maria, giving Amorim's full home address in Goiania. As of this time, Amorim has not been arrested. This may seem quite discouraging, since Expedito was killed nearly seven years ago. However, consistent efforts do eventually bring results, as we have seen in the good news described above. It took twelve years to get a conviction against the ranchers who planned the death of Father Josimo.

LUZIA CANUTO TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES

Luzia Canuto is the president of the Rio Maria Committee. She is also a school teacher, a mother, the daughter of Joao Canuto, and the wife of Carlos Cabral. A few months ago, when the Rio Maria Committee of the United States was discussing the question of how to keep our movement growing in the absence of Father Ricardo Rezende's charismatic leadership (since he is presently spending two years studying at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro), we decided to sponsor a speaking tour for Luzia. In the past, Father Ricardo's speaking tours have been an important means of increasing the membership of the Rio Maria Committee. Since Luzia is an articulate young woman who has suffered very much from the violence in the South of Para, with the murders of her father and two brothers, attempts on the life of another brother and her husband, and threats against her own life, it seemed most appropriate to bring her here as a representative of Rio Maria. Luzia has accepted our invitation. Now we need to find sources of funding to pay her air fare. If anyone has information about grants, please send it to:

riomariausa@igc.apc.org

PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW ADDRESS!

The Rio Maria Committee has a new mailing address and fax number, as shown in the box to the right. Please make note of this address, since the post office will forward mail only for a limited time.

All mail should now be sent to the post office box, except where otherwise indicated. For example, copies of letters in response to urgent action appeals should be sent directly to the secretary of the committee at the following address:

Britta Fischer

19 Pleasant View Avenue

Lynn, MA 01902

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* The Rio Maria Bulletin disseminates information received *

* directly by fax from the town of Rio Maria in the Southeast*

* Amazon region of Brazil. Comments and inquiries may be *

* sent to: *

* Rio Maria Committee *

* P.O. Box 380312 *

* Cambridge, MA 02238-0312 *

* *

* Phone: 617-282-0908 *

* Fax: 617-282-2069 *

* E-mail: riomariausa@igc.apc.org *

* *

* Steering Committee: Madeleine Cousineau, Ana Maria da Hora,*

* Mtnica Pinhanez, Britta Fischer, Ben Penglase, Joscelito *

* da Silva *

CHILDREN'S ISSUES

- 40% of Brazilian children are poor.

According to a study published by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and UNICEF in recent days, at least 19.8 million Brazilian children under 14 years of age are poor since they live in families whose monthly income is less than US $54 (half the Brazilian minimum salary) per person. In other words 40.4% of all children in this age group in the country find themselves in this situation. The study refers to the 1991 to 1996 period and is based on figures compiled in IBGE surveys and from government statistics.

In some states such as Maranhao, 70% of the children live in such economic conditions. The State of Sao Paulo shows the most favorable statistics - only 15.8% of under 14 year old children live in such conditions. The study also documents the situation of children who work and study. 4.6 million children and adolescents in the 14 to 17 age group work and study whilst 2.7 million in this same age group only work. 3.5 million in both these groups work more than 40 hours per week. In the same age group 1 million are seeking employment. The study reveals that in the 5 to 9 age group there are 522 thousand children working. Over 80% of this total is involved in agricultural activities. The greatest concentration of children working is found in the States of Maranhao, Ceara, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Norte. The lowest concentration of children working is found in the States of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and in the Federal District of Brasilia.

At least 658 thousand children and adolescents between 10 and 17 years do not work or study or are they occupied at home. The greatest concentrations of children in this category is found in the States of Alagoas, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Norte. ''Child labor is very serious but this group as well preoccupies us. If they do not study, work or help at home it is necessary to know where they are'' commented Ana Lucia Saboia of the Department of Population and Social Indicators of IBGE. Illiteracy figures amongst adolescents in the 15 to 17 age group also vary significantly. In the State of Alagoas it is 23.1%; in Piaui it is 20.1% whilst in Sao Paulo it is 1.1% and in Rio Grande do Sul it is 1.4%.

Even though children and adolescents make up 38.2% of the Brazilian population they only receive 12.4% of the social spending of the federal government. Adults who make up 61.8% receive 87.6% of the spending in the social area. UNICEF translates this figure in another way. In 1995, the spending of the government in the social area per person amounted to US $450 while US $165 was spent per child or adolescent. One of the reasons for this imbalance was the large amount spent on public welfare and health - this amounted to 51.1% of the total government spending in the social area during 1995. Another area to be considered here is education. Expenses with primary and high school education is the responsibility of the municipalities and the states.

(Source: 'Folha de Sao Paulo', November 18)

HEALTH ISSUES

- AIDS spending takes funds from other health programs.

The Ministry for Health has canceled programs to make money available to purchase anti AIDS medications according to the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' of November 12. One such cancellation was a program of mouth health. A spokesperson for the ministry announced that if money was not available from government funds it would be necessary to spend less on out-patients programs and on hospitals. Just under US $140 million had been budgeted for the AIDS program commented the spokesperson.

However, so far this year US $265 million was spent on the program. ''It is an anguish for us to have to spend all the money on one disease and nothing on others'' observed the spokesperson. Certain critical decisions need to be taken immediately. The AIDS medications are sufficient to last until mid December so the extra purchases of drugs necessary to complete the year will need to be made immediately - this amounts to a spending of US $80 million. A federal law obliges the government to make such drugs available to all who have AIDS. If this amount of money is to be spent expenditure will need to be reduced in other programs or funds will need to come from municipalities and states. So far this year US $35 million was spent by states and municipalities in the purchase of drugs for the treatment of AIDS. Calculations for 1998 are that US$760 million will be needed to purchase such medications. Only a total of US $200 has been reserved in the government budget for this expenditure however.

- AIDS increases amongst babies.

The 'Folha de Sao Paulo' reported on November 19 that the group which registered the largest increase in AIDS between March 1994 and March 1997 was that of babies and young children under one year. The increase was 205%. The next group which showed the largest increase during the same period was children between 1 and 4 years - an increase of 150%. The data comes from a survey carried out by the Promundo Institute.

Data from the survey also shows that the increase of AIDS amongst women in the 15 to 49 year old group rose by 202% during the same period. The increase in men in the same age group and during the same period was 111%. In the State of Sao Paulo the number of deaths of women in the 30 to 34 age group with AIDS increased by 26% in 1996 as compared to 1995. Of a total of 1898 deaths of women with AIDS in the State of Sao Paulo last year, 458 were from this age group. In other years the greatest concentration of deaths were in the 25 to 29 age group. 27% of all deaths of women in the 25 to 34 age group last year was due to AIDS in the city of Sao Paulo. In the interior of the state the figure was 20%. According to the Seade Foundation heterosexual relations is the chief cause of contamination of women and tends to increase. In 1996 this was responsible for 54.26% of cases of AIDS in women notified in the state. 18.36% of women with AIDS last year in Sao Paulo was due to contamination with infected syringes.

- Brazilian methodology of AIDS monitoring criticized.

Brazil was criticized for its' methodology in calculating the number with AIDS at an international meeting in Rio de Janeiro on November 06. ''If Brazil does not begin to carry out surveys in groups to analyze the number of people infected and not the number with the disease, plans to impede the advance of the disease may not function'' alerted Daniel Tarantola of MAP at the Rio meeting.

In Brazil cases of AIDS are registered only when the person with the disease comes for treatment in the health system. Thus statistics of those who have been infected could delay upwards on 10 years to be known. Apart from this the fact that there is a social stigma attached to AIDS in Brazil means there is a high rate of non-notification. The government coordinator of the National AIDS Program commented however that the official manner of calculating the number of people with AIDS in Brazil would be the notification of the number of people with the disease.

(Source: 'Folha de Sao Paulo'. November 07)

- 14.8% abandon tuberculosis treatment.

The number of people who abandoned the treatment of tuberculosis has begun to increase again after a period of three years when this trend had begun to decrease according to a report in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' on November 18. A survey carried out by the Ministry of Health showed that 14.8% (13.3 thousand) of the approximately 90 thousand treated for the disease last year gave up the treatment before it was complete.

A six months treatment period is essential to recover from the disease. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health commented that drug addicts, alcoholics and the homeless were the categories which most frequently abandoned the treatment. The abandonment of the use of medication frequently leads to the appearance of treatment resistant bacteria. This kind of bacteria is now found 1.3% of all cases (3422). In Brazil approximately 120 thousand new cases of tuberculosis are diagnosed each year and approximately 6 thousand die annually from the disease.

SOCIAL ISSUES

- Alcohol in blood samples of 61% of accident victims.

A survey carried out in four large Brazilian cities - Salvador, Recife, Brasilia and Curitiba, on the blood samples of those in accidents showed that 61% had used alcohol shortly before the accident - 27% had over 0.6 grams of alcohol per litre of blood. 55.7% of the accident victims were driving the vehicle at the time of the accident. 22% of the drivers involved in the accidents did not have a driver's license. 47.5% of motor bicycle victims had not been using a helmet at the time of the accident. The survey was carried out between August 26 and September 03 of this year amongst 1114 accident victims, all over 13 years of age.

Blood and urine tests also showed that 7.3% had used marijuana; 3.4% had used tranquilizers and 2.3% had used cocaine shortly before the accident. In Brasilia for example, 77.4% of accident victims had used alcohol before the accident. 71.1% of those who hit a stationary object had used alcohol as well as 63.6% of those driving vehicles which overturned during the accident. In all four cities the consumption of alcohol was greatest in the 20 to 39 year old group of victims - 65% had used alcohol before the accident. 52.8% of accident victims under 20 had been under the influence of alcohol. In the 13 to 17 year old group 47.7% of the victims had used alcohol shortly before the accident. Brazilian law forbids the sale of alcohol to under 18 year olds. 71.5% of the victims were men. 82.6% of accident victims were under 40 years of age and 43.3% took place at the week-end during the period surveyed.

During 1996 a total of 750 thousand road accidents were registered in Brazil. These claimed the lives of 27 thousand people. Little priority is given to punishing those who drive under the influence of alcohol. For example, during last year 400 thousand parking fines were issued in the city of Sao Paulo. During the same period 25 drivers were fined for driving after having used alcohol in excess.

(Source: 'Folha de Sao Paulo'. November 19 and 20)

- Unrest continues in young offenders prisons.

A 15 year old youth was killed during a rebellion in the Joao Luiz Alves young offenders' prison in the northern region of the city of Rio de Janeiro on November 13. Of the 314 youth held in the prison, 247 escaped. The prison has space for 128 prisoners. The director of the prison, military policeman Kleber dos Santos Martins, was arrested shortly after the rebellion accused of having opened the prison gates and facilitated the escape. 33 of the fugitives were captured shortly after escaping and they claimed that the rebellion started after functionaries had beaten some of them for protesting the lack of water in the prison. The youth also accuse the military police of having opened fired on them; the police claim that they fired into the air. The official version is that the rebellion took place after a fight broke out amongst prisoners.

On November 07, 132 military police invaded the prison in Piracicaba, State of Sao Paulo and suppressed a prison riot which had started three days earlier. 13 prisoners were injured. 576 prisoners rioted for 42 hours in the Fernando Guilhon prison in Para when they released four hostages - two prison functionaries and two journalists on November 13. One of the journalists received bullet wounds on the stomach and leg.

ECOLOGY

- Lumber merchants need to be controlled alerts ecologist.

On November 09, the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' published an interview with the director general of the WWF, Claude Martin. In the interview Dr. Martin called special attention to the activity of Asian lumber companies in the Amazonian region. Referring to well-known tactics of such companies in other parts of the world, Dr. Martin said that they ''buy a Brazilian lumber company and put it in somebody else's name - at times in the name of another foreigner or even of a Brazilian. It is what we have witnessed in Africa .... Some of these companies work very quickly. They clear the forest and disappear''.

A recent study of the WWF showed that Brazil is the country where the largest areas of forest clearance take place. This amounts to approximately 30 thousand square kms each year. Half of this takes place in the Amazon and the other half in the savannah areas (cerrado) and in the Atlantic Rainforest. "Taking into account all the tropical forests in the world, the annual rate of deforestation is 170 thousand square kms. Brazil is responsible for between a fifth and a sixth of this deforestation'' commented Dr. Martin.

The head of IBAMA (the Brazilian federal environmental agency), Eduardo Martins, commented in the same edition of the 'Folha' that he knew eight Brazilian companies with foreign capital involved in deforestation in the Amazonian region. He admitted that the reputation of these companies ''is not good'' and that '' everything is being done to control them, including fines''. However Mr. Martins criticized the WWF report saying that it is not correct to use the total area deforested to measure forest devastation instead of using the relative area of destruction of the forests, that is the percentage of the area cleared in relation to the area of forest still intact. According to IBAMA's calculations approximately 600 thousand cubic meters of timber which was illegally cut will have been confiscated by the end of 1997 - 5 times more than the amount confiscated during 1996. The head of IBAMA estimates that 80% of the timber cut in the Amazonian region is taken out illegally.

- Amazon burning

We share two newspaper articles with you which we received from the Environmental Defense Fund in recent days.

New York Times, International

November 2, 1997

More Fires by Farmers Raise Threat to Amazon

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- In Porto Velho in western Brazil, thick clouds of black smoke have forced airports and schools to shut down. In southern Para state near the Amazon frontier, people gasping for air have collapsed and ended up in hospitals. In the city of Manaus, the sun has disappeared for days at a time.

Twenty years after the goal of rescuing the Amazon rain forest first captured world attention, becoming the pet cause of celebrities and a regular topic in children's schoolbooks, deforestation and the burning of vast territories are again climbing.

Data in recent weeks suggest that the burning going on in Brazil this year is greater than what has occurred in Indonesia, where major cities have been smothered under blankets of smoke that spread to other countries.

Despite the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to save the rain forest, burnings in the Amazon region are up 28 percent over last year, according to satellite data, and 1994 deforestation figures, the most recent available, show a 34 percent increase since 1991.

"Deforestation has done nothing but go up," said Stephen Schwartzman of the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group based in Washington. "Where the most money has gone is where the fires have increased the most." The group noted that half the fires recorded this year were in Mato Grosso, where the World Bank lent $205 million to save the rain forest in a natural resource management program.

Roughly a fifth of the fires that rage annually between June and October cause new deforestation, and another tenth is burning of ground cover in virgin forests. Scientists say that the Amazon rain forest may be reaching a critical level of dryness, in which standing forest could catch fire and burn out of control.

A report by the Environmental Defense Fund warned the Amazon "may be edging closer to catastrophic fire events," and predicted "potentially enormous global consequences."

The World Wildlife Fund found that 93 percent of the original Atlantic rain forest in the northeast had disappeared over the centuries, and some 12 to 15 percent of the Amazon rain forest. The report said that Brazil was losing more rain forest each year than any other country on the planet. In addition to the 5,800 square miles a year that satellite images show are deforested each year, the Woods Hole Research Institute estimates that another 4,200 are thinned through logging beneath the forest canopy.

Eduardo Martins, the president of the Brazilian federal environmental agency, said in an interview that the increase in fires, while worrisome, did not result in an increase in deforestation, although the two problems have risen in tandem. He contended that most fires were set by small farmers who would starve if they could not clear land for planting, and that the environmental damage paled next to fossil fuel emissions in the United States.

Beneath the noxious haze covering much of Brazil every burning season is an opaque, often contradictory, government policy toward the environment. "Properly speaking, we still don't have a policy, but we have a start," Martins told a Brazilian news magazine earlier this year.

Lacking enforcement muscle, the government environmental agency ultimately collects only 6.5 percent of the fines it imposes. The rest are thrown out in court.

In a recent interview, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso acknowledged that the agency needed more money and muscle. A bill to strengthen it, stalled in Congress since 1991, passed the Senate this year. It is now idling in the House, where the Federation of Industries is lobbying against it on the ground that threats of cash fines and prison will open the way for corruption.

For now, not surprisingly, the agency is usually ignored by the people it is supposed to monitor. While permits are required for burning, the agency has reportedly issued licenses to clear a total of only about 24,700 acres this year -- an area seemingly far smaller than what would produce the dense clouds of smoke that have appeared over several states. Martins disputed that permits were issued for only such an area, but his office declined to provide another figure, or the number of permits issued last year.

While even poorly enforced measures and licensing procedures are intended to deter deforestation, until recently other government statutes deemed cleared forest to be "an improvement on the land," which meant it was less likely to be considered unproductive and seized for agrarian reform. If the owner sold it for government redistribution to peasants, burning and planting paid off in higher compensation. Martins said that is changing now.

But the pace of destruction appears to be dictated more by the marketplace than by any government measure. The demand in Europe and the United States for hardwoods like mahogany, used for furniture, has ushered in large illegal logging operations throughout the Amazon. And a report by the federal secretary of strategic affairs, recently disclosed in the Brazilian press, said that 80 percent of all logging in the Amazon is illegal.

The government appears caught between largely international pressure to reduce the amount of burning and deforestation, and powerful domestic lobbies from the logging industry, farmers and large landholders. It is building several major roads that will cut into the Amazon, and a $1.2 billion state-of-the-art surveillance project will soon locate minerals, ores, and other natural resources hidden beneath the forest canopy.

The Amazon surveillance project could also provide current information on deforestation, but ecologists are wary, for the Brazilian government has been in no hurry to analyze the data it has already. After years of saying that deforestation was on the decline, last year the government released deforestation figures for the first time in four years -- showing the 34 percent increase.

The government tried to diminish criticism by announcing measures to reverse the trend. It increased the share that each landowner in the rain forest was barred from burning from 50 to 80 percent, and announced a moratorium on new licenses for logging mahogany and another hardwood, virola.

But field reviews by the environmental monitoring agency show that the conditions of its permits are routinely ignored. And once again, the figures of deforestation since 1994 are late.

"The scene in general is one of rampant illegal logging," said Robert J. Buschbacher, conservation director of the World Wildlife Fund- Brazil.

The government has also fought successfully to keep mahogany off a list that would have subjected the licenses for logging it to outside monitoring and established targets to reduce exports. It argued that globally mahogany is not an endangered species, even though domestically it is considered one.

Martins said his government opposed the move because it was sponsored by the United States, which he considered "hypocritical," since America provides much of the market for hardwood furniture. He said that Brazil had seized hundreds of thousands of illegally cut logs, which he said the government plans to use for low-income housing and public buildings.

A recent study by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute estimated that for every acre that shows up as cleared and burned in satellite images, another partly burned or logged acre goes undetected beneath the forest canopy.

Daniel C. Nepstad, president of the Amazon institute and a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Institute, said such burning and logging make the forest more vulnerable to fire and means a 50 percent greater likelihood of deforestation.

For the first time in 14 years, as part of his research, he was able to set fire to virgin rain forest, he said. Though he quickly extinguished it, the lesson was important: Until now, a moist root system and dense vegetation had made it virtually impossible to set fire to a standing primary forest.

"With logging it becomes more flammable," said Philip M. Fearnside, an ecology professor at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon. "So the fires can escape and go into the forest."

Miami Herald

Published: Saturday, October 25, 1997 Section: Living Page: 1G

GREEN DREAMS: WHAT'S GONE WRONG? POLITICS SLOW EFFORTS TO PRESERVE BRAZIL'S AMAZON RAIN FOREST

By KATHERINE ELLISON And GEORGIA TASKER , Herald Staff Writers

Back when President Clinton was planning his South America trip, his aides thought of including a ``green'' moment in Brazil. There was talk of a stop in the Amazon, the world's largest remaining rain forest. There was a short-lived plan to visit Foz do Iguacu, the site of South America's most magnificent waterfalls.

Instead, Clinton opted for private time in Argentina's lake district last weekend, and though he told reporters the United States ``shares Brazil's determination to preserve the Amazon,'' environmentalists were disappointed.

They had dreamed of Clinton flying over the rain forest, bearing witness to fires that are destroying more trees this season than ever before. They had pictured him standing at the site of a proposed international waterway that could flood the world's most important remaining wetlands.

They had hoped, in short, that Clinton would have put some high- profile pressure on President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who they say is yielding to loggers and developers and slashing government funds for the environment at a time of unprecedented burnings in Brazil's forests.

The pressure would have been timely: The United States and other industrialized nations that give money to protect the Amazon forest are meeting in the port city of Manaus on Monday to evaluate the impact of their contributions. But ``green'' themes slipped down the priority list on Clinton's trip, as they have in Brazil during Cardoso's term.

``Brazil's `determination to preserve the Amazon' is a dubious proposition at best,'' said Stephan Schwartzman, an Amazon expert with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington.

New, urgent reasons

Activists say there are new and urgent reasons to lean on Brazil to work harder to preserve resources whose destruction has a global impact:

Amazon burnings are on the upswing. A Brazilian government analysis released last year showed forest clearing increased about 34 percent between 1991 and 1994, reaching nearly 10,000 square miles a year. But an estimate, released late last month and based on satellite data by the Environmental Defense Fund, indicates burning increased some 28 percent more just in the past two years -- the only evaluation to date of deforestation during Cardoso's presidency.

Even that pace is likely to pick up, environmentalists fear, with the accelerated growth expected as Brazil's 3-year-old economic stabilization plan takes hold, and, more immediately, due to exceptionally dry weather brought on by El Nino.

In the face of these growing threats, Brazil's government has been lethargic at best, critics charge. It has not updated its 1994 data, despite a public promise that it would do so by the end of last year. In the late 1980s and early 1990s such data was released annually.

Asked about the burnings, at an interview with U.S. reporters earlier this month, Cardoso said, ``I don't know yet what happens in the Amazon. I have asked a committee to inform me.'' He added that his ``initial information'' was that the burning was near but not actually in the rain forest, a theory environmentalists reject.

Increasing development

Complicating the Amazon scenario of fires set by settlers and ranchers clearing land is an increased rate of industrial development in the area. Half a dozen big Asian logging firms, some of which have bad environmental track records in Borneo, Thailand and Malaysia, have been buying up land at prices as low as $3 an acre, while government infrastructure projects, including highways and dams, are proceeding apace, easing access to the forest.

``In the next two years, we think we'll have all the [timber- producing] companies coming for exploration, which will change the whole scenario in Brazil,'' said Carlos Castro, an aide to Brazilian congressman Gilney Viana. ``The strategy [of Malaysian companies] is to buy up Brazilian companies, remodel the factories and do logging on a much larger scale.''

Legal loopholes

Brazilian officials have said they are monitoring the situation, but their capacity is limited. Ibama, an environmental watchdog group, has only a few hundred poorly paid inspectors policing an area larger than Western Europe -- a situation even Cardoso called ``ridiculous.'' And when Ibama does manage to catch illegal loggers or miners and levies fines, most are thrown out of court due to a legal loophole that Cardoso's government has tried, so far in vain, to close. One recent Brazilian government report estimated that 80 percent of timber produced in the Amazon is extracted illegally.

``We still don't really have an environmental policy,'' the head of Ibama, Eduardo Martins, told Veja magazine last July. ``There are good intentions and little effective action.''

Cardoso's harshest critics doubt even his intentions, charging that he's forsaking the environment in favor of fiscal reforms and political alliances he needs to be reelected next year. The clearest sign of this, they say, is the resignation earlier this month of environmental firebrand Aspasia Camargo as executive secretary of the Ministry of the Environment.

Budgets slashed

Camargo had fought a losing battle against the siphoning off of funds for environmental protection to irrigation projects in drought- plagued northern Brazil. To her distress, Cardoso had placed the heavily politicized irrigation issues under the environmental ministry at the start of his term, naming as minister a politician from a right-wing party with a strong base in the north. The president, whose own centrist party has a minority in Brazil's chamber of deputies, has made a tactical alliance with conservatives, on whom he depends for passage of his economic reforms.

Subsequently, Camargo watched all of her programs' budgets get slashed, leaving them, as she said, ``paralyzed.'' The budget for environmental protection is scheduled to fall even more -- from $492 million to $367 million -- in next year's budget.

At the same time, Camargo said her pleadings with Cardoso to pay for a SWAT team to attend to illegal fires were ignored.

``All we need are four or five planes in a critical area,'' she said. ``It wouldn't be that expensive. But without it, we're simply incompetent.''

In an interview with The Herald, Camargo, who has taken a post in the Foreign Ministry, said she understood Cardoso's dilemma -- namely, a tougher reelection battle than most imagine -- but added, ``I'm very much afraid'' for the future of her former ministry.

Brazil's civil activists, she said, are ``fragile babies,'' lacking such simple organizational skills as keeping track of government budgets, and overwhelmed and out-organized by pro-development lobbies.

``Brazil has the greatest stock of biodiversity on the planet,'' Camargo said. ``It would be the height of irresponsibility if we didn't make preservation an absolute priority.''

Beyond Brazil

Cardoso contends the responsibility is not exclusively Brazil's. After the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, he said, industrialized nations promised to contribute $1.5 billion for forest conservation over five years, money that hasn't been forthcoming.

According to Schwartzman, at the Environmental Defense Fund, however, the G7 nations have in fact committed only $250 million, only 30 percent of which Brazil has used. At the same time, the rate of deforestation has increased.

``This risks becoming a situation in which Brazil's government makes believe it's protecting the Amazon, and the rich countries pretend they're supporting it,'' he said.

Schwartzman and other environmentalists agree with Cardoso that industrialized nations should take more responsibility for guarding a resource of vital global importance.

But that shouldn't keep the United States silent, they add, in the face of a critically deteriorating situation. ``Brazil is aspiring to superpower status,'' said Barbara Bramble of the National Wildlife Federation. ``It should be held to a standard of laws.''

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