Word: collor
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Even the slowdown in Amazon destruction, critics say, owes less to Collor's policies than to a sagging economy. Says Willem Groenefeld, who runs an environmental institute in the Amazonian state of Rondonia: "Nobody has any money to cut the forest down...
Activists put much of the blame for Brazil's lack of progress on Lutzenberger, the brilliant but eccentric and irascible Environment Secretary. Branded a disaster for his lack of administrative and political skills, he was abruptly fired by Collor in March. The dismissal came a week after Lutzenberger urged World Bank officials in New York City not to lend Brazil money to clean up its environment because the main government agency that would handle the funds was a "nest of corruption." Collor sacked the head of that agency at the same time he fired Lutzenberger...
...gist of Collor's disagreement with his former Environment Secretary goes right to the core of the Rio summit agenda. Lutzenberger refused to endorse Collor's version of "sustainable development" -- the notion that preservation of Brazil's rain forests and other natural resources is compatible with economic growth. The interim Secretary, a nuclear physicist named Jose Goldemberg, is a strong advocate of this vision of controlled development...
...Collor argues that "we cannot discuss the environment issue without taking into account the situation of poverty and misery in which three-quarters of humanity lives" -- including the 70% of Brazil's 146 million people who < barely earn enough to feed themselves. Even fervent environmentalists concede the point. "Brazil is very important to the international community because of its biological diversity," says Feldmann, "but within the country, other issues are much more important. It's hard to relate to sustainable development when you also have problems of equity and social justice...
...join what it describes as "schemes to transform forests in developing countries into preserved areas in return for compensation from the industrialized world." This is an apparent reference to suggestions that Brazil should receive relief from its huge foreign debt in return for protecting the Amazon Basin. While Collor in principle has endorsed debt-for-nature swaps for small projects, only one deal has been negotiated...