The New York Times
February 18, 2005

Brazil Carves Out 2 Vast Preserves in the Amazon Rain Forest

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
ANAPU, Brazil, Feb. 17 (AP) - Brazil's president signed decrees on Thursday creating two vast new forest reserves, succumbing to intense pressure to protect a lawless Amazon region from violent loggers and ranchers after the killing last weekend of an American nun who fought to protect the jungle.

The measures signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will form a reserve of 8.15 million acres and a national park spanning 1.1 million acres in the state of Pará, where Sister Dorothy Stang, who was in her 70's, was attacked by gunmen and shot repeatedly in the head and chest on Saturday. An environmental activist traveling with her was also killed.

Sister Dorothy had long fought for the poor and landless and worked to preserve the rain forest, activities that pitted her against loggers and land speculators in the area. "We can't give in to people committing acts of violence," said the environment minister, Marina Silva, who announced the decrees. "The government is putting the brakes on in front of the predators." The decrees were announced after more than 60 groups signed a letter to the president demanding strong moves to curb "violence and impunity associated with the illegal occupation of lands and deforestation" in the Amazon - and especially in Pará, which is nearly twice the size of Texas.

So far, there have been no arrests in the two deaths on Saturday, and at least three other people have been killed in the region since. The police were searching for the two gunmen and for a rancher, Vitamiro Goncalves Moura, known as Bida, who the authorities say ordered the killings.

Walame Fiado Machado, who is heading the federal police investigation, said he believed that the two gunmen were probably hiding in a hard-to-reach stretch of forest near Mr. Moura's ranch, and that he and an associate might have fled the region in a small plane soon after the attack.

Lawlessness has long been common in huge Pará State, where ranchers, backed by hired gunmen, ensnare poor workers in an endless cycle of debt akin to slavery. Tensions rose further when the government recently ordered ranchers to surrender land they occupied but could not prove they owned.

Unless the killing stops, Mr. da Silva "will risk making history as the champion of rural violence, illegal occupation of public lands and illegal logging," said the letter, signed by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other groups.

Logging companies and wealthy landowners have steadily pushed deeper into the world's largest rain forest, which sprawls over 1.6 million square miles and covers more than half the country, vying for its abundant natural resources. Development, logging and farming have destroyed as much as 20 percent of the rain forest. In this eastern Amazon town, helicopters flew in 110 soldiers from the 51st Jungle Infantry Division to join a police manhunt for four men accused of killing Sister Dorothy.