The Amazon rainforest is not just an icon for the environmental movement, it is the largest and most biodiverse forest left on Earth. More, too, than a future world breadbasket, the Amazon is home to almost a million indigenous Indians. The two issues that predominate in the environmental debate, the destruction of the rainforest and the plight of the indigenous Indian population, are in many cases inextricably linked. Brazilians tend to react with outrage at being lectured on the preservation of their environment and the protection of native peoples by North Americans and Europeans, who less than twenty years ago were still accusing Brazil of failing to exploit the very resources they now seek to save. Justifiable as Brazilian accusations of hypocrisy may be, however, they cannot hide the fact that there is a real environmental crisis in Brazil, a reality that is finally gaining lip service at least among domestic politicians
Amazon ecology
The Amazon is larger than life. It contains one fifth of the world's fresh water, sustaining the world's largest rainforest - over six million square kilometres - which in turn supports thousands upon thousands of animal and plant species, many of them...
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Indian rights
Today, there are around 330,000 Indians in Brazil, spread between more than 200 tribes speaking 180 languages or dialects. When the Portuguese first arrived in the sixteenth century, there were over five million indigenous inhabitants. The ...
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Contact info
For action on the side of the forest contact: WWF Rain Forest Appeal Panda House Weyside Park Godalming Surrey GU7 1BP tel 01483/426444 Fax...
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