Chavez Defends Gas Pipeline That Cuts Across Amazonia After Signing Manifesto For Biodiversity

Chavez defends gas pipeline that cuts across Amazonia after signing manifesto for biodiversity in the region

26th April 2006

Source: Amazonia.org.br
Link: http://www.amazonia.org.br/

São Paulo - Only five days after having promoted and signed the "Manifesto of the Americas" in Curitiba, a document that puts into practice a so-called universal responsibility to the biodiversity and social diversity of the Amazon region, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to Brazil to present, in São Paulo, the roadmap of what may be the largest infrastructure project ever conducted in the region.

This morning, Chavez was meeting with presidents Lula and Kirchner, discussing the technical feasibility of deploying the gas pipeline. According to the statement of Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, to the Estado de S. Paulo, the three presidents are enthused with the technical explanations that "demonstrate that the pipeline is feasible", contrary to statements made by several specialists.

For the first time the map of the pipeline's projected trajectory which, by crossing several areas of Amazon forest, will cause a series of impacts on biodiversity, in addition to worsening social problems of municipalities in the region, with the dissemination of diseases and prostitution and stimulation to disorderly land occupation. This is the situation that evolved in areas surrounding other gas pipelines in Amazonia.

The manifesto signed by Chavez

Read a passage from the manifesto, which the Venezuelan president was the first to sign: "As inhabitants of the American continent, we are conscious of our universal responsibility. The future of the Earth also depends on us. The Amazonian and Andean countries, for example, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil are hugely diverse lands. Not only due to the presence of the extremely rich ecosystems, but also due to the presence of many indigenous, peasant, maroon and other local communities, which for centuries and even thousands of years have known how to live in co-habitation with biodiversity and social diversity.

The Amazon Forest present in our countries represents one third of all tropical forests in the world and holds over 50% of the planet's biodiversity. There are at least 45,000 species of plants, 1,800 species of butterflies, 150 species of bats, 1,300 species of freshwater fish, 163 species of amphibians, 305 species of snakes, 311 species of mammals and 1,000 bird species in the forest."