Brazil’s Experts Discuss Eco Preservation

The “cerrado,” the savannah that is considered the world’s richest in
biodiversity, is the main topic of the 7th International Congress and Exposition
on Forests (Forest 2004), which took place earlier this week in BrasÀ­lia.

Various segments of the environment/forest community have met during the three-day encounter (September 27-29) to debate environmental issues and offer information that will be useful to governmental and private agents in their future efforts to promote the sustainable development of Brazilian forests.


At the opening ceremony, Dorival Correia Bruni, President of the Biosphere Environmental Institute and General Coordinator of the Forest 2004 encounter, stressed the importance of preserving Brazil’s ecosystems.


He recalled that a large portion of Brazil’s biomes has already been destroyed or gravely damaged by human activities which are conducted in a predatory manner without proper control.


“We need to find a fair model of sustainable development for the region,” Bruni emphasized.


Thanks to the discovery of new technologies, which enabled it to be incorporated into the productive process, the “cerrado,” which covers 24% of Brazil’s territory, has come to play an important role in agricultural development and currently accounts for 58% of Brazil’s soybean crop and 41% of the country’s cattle herd. But this prosperity must be combined with environmental protection and forest conservation.


According to Bruni, the country already has forest policies predicated on sustainable development, but the process of environmental consciousness-raising has still not reached a significant part of Brazilian society. In his view, the task of arousing this kind of awareness in Brazil will still take one or two generations.


In its seven years of activity, the “Forest” encounter has already published over 1,600 articles, exploratory analyses, and research notes on Brazilian environmental and forest development.


This year, with its theme “Rediscovering the ‘cerrado,’ ” the Congress has scheduled roundtables, conferences, and panels to discuss water, climate change, carbon gas sequestration, legislation, industrialization and commercialization of forest products, restoration of degraded areas, ecosystem management, and biomass energy conversion, among other topics.


According to Bruni, by stimulating the exchange of information and knowledge among professionals from different fields, the Forest 2004 encounter intends to elucidate the progress and technological advances that have been made, from technical, political, scientific, economic, and social vantage points.


The main theme is the “cerrado,” but the debates will involve all the major Brazilian forest ecosistemas, such as the Atlantic Rain Forest, the Amazon Forest, the Pantanal Flood Plains, the Semi-Arid Scrub Forest, the Coastal Mangrove Swamps, and the Araucaria Conifer Forests.


“Without a doubt, this is the largest and most important Brazilian forest forum,” Bruni affirmed.


Agência Brasil
Translator: David Silberstein

Tags:

You May Also Like

Arlindo Chinaglia, the new Speaker of the House in Brazil

Brazil’s Lula Faces Arm-Wrestling Contest with New Congress

The bewildering way in which Brazilian politics work was evident during the election for ...

Brazil Plays Its China Card

Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, in China with President Lula, said that ...

Gay Brazil

Bars, movie theaters, hotels and other commerce catering exclusively to gays are doing brisk ...

US$ 13 Billion Will Give Brazil a Total of 9 Nuclear Plants

Brazil’s production of nuclear energy is still small in comparison to the leading countries ...

Brazil Vows Better Pay for Teachers

The Brazilian government will invest more resources on education. According to the Minister of ...

5% More Jobless in Brazil

Brazil’s unemployment rate went up from 10.2% in January to 10.6% in February, the ...

Brazil’s Port of Santos Adopts Verint’s Security

US-based Verint Systems Inc. a leading provider of analytic software-based solutions for communications interception, ...

Brazil Invests US$ 8.5 Billion to Improve and Export Fuel to US and EU

Brazil's government-controlled oil multinational Petrobras plans to increase gasoline exports to compensate the lower ...

Brazil Getting Less Kick out of Soccer

While soccer in North America can boast of some successful signs of positive growth, ...

International AIDS Center Opens with US$ 1 Million Grant from Brazil

The world’s first International HIV/AIDS Technical Cooperation Center (Centro Internacional de Cooperação Técnica em ...

WordPress database error: [Table './brazzil3_live/wp_wfHits' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed]
SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM `wp_wfHits`