Explanation about the report of the Department of the Environment from Brazil

Explanation about the report of the Department of the Environment from Brazil about de devastation in Amazon disclosed this Monday, September 29th.

1- No of the eight settlements on the list of the bigger devastating of the Amazon`s Forest, divulged by the Department of the Environment, located in the State of Mato Grosso, is coordinated by the MST. The presence of supposed settlements in the list of the bigger devastating of the Amazon´s Forest is consequence of the federal government’s Agrarian Reform political in the management of the president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and also, the president Lula, to regulate the possession of areas without appropriate criteria for inflate the numbers of the agrarian reform.

2- The booty of wood was in drag of settlement, as we denounce beside the Greenpeace, in 2007. They created illegal settlements in aid of lumber merchants in the Project Amazônia Legal. Inquiries of the MPF (Federal Public Department) and of the Greenpeace identified the absence of
decisions and x environmental license, beyond registers adulterated, for formal creation of the called “settlements ghosts”, destined to the deforestation or devastate wood.

3- The agrarian reform is stopped in all the country. The settlements carried out did not attack the latifundium and the concentration of lands increased in the country during the last governments. Around 70% of the settlements of the governments FHC and Lula were created in public lands, by means of the agrarian regularization in the region of the Project Amazônia Legal

4- MST participate of the campaign “Deforestation Zero”, in defense of the Amazon Forest, beside diverse entities of the civil society. We require the rejection of the Project of Law 6.424/05, of the senator Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB – Brazilian Social Democracy Party), that diminished the legal
reserve area from Amazon´s Forest, and the MP 422/08 (provisional measure signed by the republic president), known how “PAG” (Plan of Acceleration of the Falsification of deeds), that enables the legalization of the falsification of deeds in the Amazonia.

5- The Department of the Environment should reject those devastating projects and take strict measures for stop the expansion of the agribusiness in the Amazonia, that is the main responsible one by the devastation. In the last five months of 2007, the booty of the wood, the expansion of the livestock farming and of the soy for exportation caused the devastation of 7,000 km2, how report the Department of the Environment.

National Coordination of the MST