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18 November, 2008
The expansion of the reedbeds in Brazil to satisfy the growing demand of ethanol in the world won’t damage the Amazonas rainforest, said on Monday a high employee of the government.  In declarations at the beginning of a five days international conference on biofuels, the government’s general secretary, Dilma Rousseff, said that the country will announce a plan of agricultural areas very soon to specify where the cane can be cultivated, both for sugar or energy generating.  The Amazonia and other well-known regions for their wide range of animal species and of plants would be excluded. But Brazil will encourage the expansion of the ethanol production to other parts and in poor countries of the world in wich the climate is favorable for the cultivation. “It is a socioeconomic reality”, Rousseff said. “It generates works and revenues, mostly in tropical countries.” Rousseff also said that the expansion of the ethanol won’t compete with the production of foods in Brazil, and that space exists for other crops, including soya and corn. Rousseff said that Brazil should “put an end to the myth that the cane fields are invading the Amazonia”, but the critics say that there are already cane plantations in the region and that some plan to expand. They also denounce that the conversion of grass lands and soya fields to reedbeds are displacing soya farmers and cattlemen that in turn settle down in deforested areas of the forest. Rousseff said that the government of Brazil is prepared to help to the big ethanol producers that suffer because of the global credit crisis. The ethanol producers were among those that could receive help when the government announced thousands of millions of dollars recently in lines of emergency credit for the companies affected by the crisis. Source: La Voz Deje un comentario |
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