8 From Greenpeace Surrounded in Amazon

[RiverStone]

Source: abc News

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil Oct 17, 2007 (AP)

Hundreds of loggers and angry residents have surrounded eight Greenpeace members who tried to leave an Amazon town with a scorched tree trunk for an exhibit on global warming, the environmental group said Wednesday.

The activists are holed up in the makeshift headquarters of the federal environmental agency in the town of Castelo dos Sonhos, Greenpeace campaigner Andre Muggiati said. "They are still surrounded and the situation is tense," he said by telephone.

The region in the Amazon state of Para is part of the so-called "arc of destruction," the southern edge of the rain forest that has been devastated by loggers. In 2005, American missionary Dorothy Stang was shot dead in the region during a land dispute.

On Tuesday, the Greenpeace activists tried to haul away a badly burned fallen tree trunk for an exhibit on global warming in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Muggiati said.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3741296

---

Heres hoping the eight folks from Greenpeace get out this safely! And continue to spread the word on the destruction of our beautiful and unique rain forests.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
:applause:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. The loggers wouldn't bother with the activists...

if they didn't KNOW what they're doing is wrong. What will they do when the forest is gone? Chop down people?

[Judi Lynn]

4. They already killed someone: Sister Dorothy Stang, a woman working in Brazil to prevent destruction

of the Amazon forest.





Last Updated: Wednesday, 16 February, 2005, 12:04 GMT
Brazil farmers bury activist nun

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4266959.stm

images:
http://images.google.com/images?q=%22Sister+Dorothy+Stang%22&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en&start=20&sa=N

They eventually tried the two gunmen, the intermediary, and the rancher who hired them.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. I remember that...

Thugs... :grr:

[Eugene]

2. Siege of Amazon Greenpeace activists ends

Source: Reuters

Siege of Amazon Greenpeace activists ends
17 Oct 2007 21:26:24 GMT
Source: Reuters

(Recasts, adds more comments from Ibama, Greenpeace)

By Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Police escorted a group
of Greenpeace activists from a remote town in the
Brazilian Amazon on Wednesday after hundreds of loggers
and townspeople besieged them overnight in protest
against an anti-global warming campaign, the
environmental organization said.

The incident, the second time in two months that
Greenpeace activists have been harassed in the Amazon
jungle, underscores the conflicts over natural resources
between farmers and loggers on one side and peasants
and Indians on the other.

-snip-

They forced the activists to abandon a 13-metre (43-foot)
tree trunk they were transporting to an exhibit on global
warming in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

-snip-

Ibama said on Wednesday it withdrew its authorization for
Greenpeace to transport the tree trunk, saying that the
group had created conflicts with the local population.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17216632.htm

[xchrom]

3. i'm sure $$$ will get them a log.

sorry they didn't get the one they wanted.

maybe protestors isn't exactly the right word for these farmers and loggers.

the loggers know what they are doing is wrong and i strongly suspect the same of the farmers.

[AlecBGreen]

7. xchrom

"the loggers know what they are doing is wrong"

when it comes down to two choices, cut trees or starve, you cut trees. If that is the only viable way to earn a living to support yourself, who are we to judge? And dont say "well, they could do such and such instead." maybe so, but who are we to judge, sitting behind computer monitors 1000's of miles away? Yes, they're doing great harm to the amazon rainforest, but worse still is the greed and "see-no-evil" attitude of the worlds consumer society. Cut off demand and the trees will stop falling.

[EvilAL]

12. It's like

trying to cut off people's money. It's not like they all live in town and these evil bastards cut all the trees down. If they had oil would they be any better off?

[AlecBGreen]

18. im not sure I follow you

but in most places where the locals are employed in extracting natural resources...

1) they do all the work
2) they give very little $$$ for their efforts
3) the owners and corporations get fat paychecks
4) the locals suffer the effects of environmental degredation.

Bulk tomato farmers get about $0.05 per pound for their crop, work long days, perform back-breaking labor, and end up with poisoned water, dead soil, and higher rates of cancer. Who profits? Conagra, Monsanto, and ADM. Who loses? The workers. What a racket. The worst part is, if you talk about restoring the environment and/or improving job safety, all the neocons and economists moan and wail and wring their hands, shouting "are you trying to put these people out of business!?" What a crock of ****.

[joshcryer]

19. The locals extract their own resources, the corporations buy from them.

As a local in Brazil you have two options, burn down rainforest, or starve to death. So they cut down trees, and burn them (not "sell them to loggers"), so that they can plant food which they can grow. This accounts for about 30% of rainforest destruction.

Then corporations come in and say "we'd like beef" (these corporations being mainly tied to European meat markets). The locals then cut down trees and again burn them, to make pasture so that these big corporations can have beef to sell. This accounts for about 70% of rainforest destruction.

In both scenarios *of course* the locals are being screwed.

But without alternative options what else do you expect them to do? Please tell them how they can get along without doing this sort of thing and maybe something can happen.

But instead what people like Greanpeace do is go down, take a log that is quite clearly being burned (and not turned into building material), and "show it off" in Sao Paulo (one of the most corrupt cities on the planet, where rich white people live in splendor while magnificantly poor people live in favelas of epic proportions). All the while *doing absolutely nothing* to *help the people find a different way to live*.

They're stuck!

So please consider the situation before making the statements you're making, because they don't reflect the reality. Do you think they really *want* to destroy their rainforest and local environment?

[AlecBGreen]

21. i agree

whats the problem? :shrug: Of course people dont WANT to destroy their homes or their environment. They do it when they get backed into a corner and have no other viable alternatives. Thats what I said then and thats what Im saying now.

[joshcryer]

22. So what's your solution?

Do you think showing off a fucking log is a solution?

[AlecBGreen]

24. no

Greenpeace, in an effort to draw attention to an important issue, has instead made itself look like fools and alienated the very people they are purporting to help. Similar to the Moveon ad, IMO. While Greenpeace (and Moveon) may be factually correct, they show little understanding of their audience and instead embarass themselves and minimize their credibility with these tactics.

As for a solution, I dont think there is any quick fix. If I was "The Decider" I would place a moratorium on logging in the Amazonian basin, create jobs in rural areas via FDR-style improvements to infrastructure, prosecute illegal loggers and gold miners to the fullest extent possible, invest in ecotourism, curtail intensive grazing and soybean production and start a sustainible forestry initiative ... for starters ... ;) Im no fool, this would be next to impossible for the leader of Brazil to do, but hey, if youre asking, thats what Id suggest.

[joshcryer]

29. If Greenpeace wanted to really do something, why don't they...

...go to the big European meat industries and protest *them* rather than go to Sao Paulo to exploit the natives and raise funds?

Probably because Europeans love their fucking grass fed "not factory farmed" beef, and it would be terrible to attack those sensibilities.

[AlecBGreen]

31. There is nothing wrong with grass fed beef

except when it is done on this scale. We have enough farmland in America to raise all the meat we need w/o this feedlot nonsense, much of it in 20-100 acres blocks.

A lot of that Brazilian beef is coming here too I reckon. I've been eating a lot of corned beef and hash lately (am I pregnant!?) and I noticed its coming from Brazil so I stopped. Also just ate some canned roast beef and it is also a "producto de Brasilo" or something like that. I guess its just cheaper to grow all those beeves down south and ship the final product a few thousand miles.

[joshcryer]

32. Most Brazilian beef doesn't meet US sanitary requirements, and then then there are quota limits...

...so while you can get it, it's no where near as readily available as it is in the EU. In fact, just last month the EU was talking about placing a ban on EU beef for sanitary concerns.

Not to bash those beef farmers, but the conditions and slaughterhouses down there are not exactly clean.

[bonito]

6. K&R!

[Quantess]

8. Thanks for posting.

Recommended!

[shenmue]

9. Just awful

Very sad. :cry:

[SpiralHawk]

10. Ta kesh na kay - Rainbow Warriors

Greenpeace was inspired by the all-American
Legend of the Rainbow Warriors -- a story everyone should know

http://chiron-communications.com/communique%207-9.html


" In brief, the legend of the rainbow warriors says that when the Earth becomes desperately sick some of the people will recognize that they are destroying themselves and their Earth Mother. With spiritual insight and support, the rainbow warriors — people of all colors and faiths — will come to the rescue using only peaceful means, eventually establishing a long and joyous reign of peace."

[joshcryer]

11. This warms my heart.

To see local people protesting forigners who are coming in and trying to use them for their own agendas (without doing one freaking thing to actual mitigate the *reasons* for rainforest destruction). Hilarious.

[Nihil]

14. Try petrol & a match and warm it a bit more then!

G*d forbid that anyone try to stop humanity's mad rush towards suicide ...

:grr:

[joshcryer]

17. Yeah, because poor people really shouldn't do anything to survive.

They should just suffer and waste away.

[Nihil]

26. No, they should go balls to the wall to kill off everyone and everything instead.

:eyes:

Perhaps you think it will be the rich who die in the floods?
The agribusiness owners who starve in the droughts?
The CEOs who suffocate in the heat-wave?
The politicians who are preyed upon by roaming gangs?

You appear to be claiming that their "right to survive" is greater than
everyone else's and that the cost of their continual slash & burn into
the lungs of the world is just fine & dandy.

I suggest you need to learn a bit more about the environmental impact
and the state of the planet at the moment before suggesting that those
"rights" are quite so important.

[joshcryer]

27. Their right to survive is greater, absolutely.

You act as if cutting down a few acres (per person there) is contributing greatly to the destruction of the world. It's the combined effect that is the problem, but to stop the combined effect would be to essentially file a death sentence to each individual. Which is why it doesn't happen. Brazil could, overnight, ban it. Start arresting locals enmasse who participate this way. Execute locals who fight back. So on and so forth. That's what you're advocating here.

Look at the bigger picture.

[The Stranger]

15. Holy mindfuck. You see the locals being used by GREENPEACE?

The locals are being used by the logging corporations to facilitate the continued the destruction of the locals' environment.

[joshcryer]

16. Logging is incredibly incredibly irrelevant to rainforest destruction.

They burn the rainforest, to do agriculture and feed Europe "grass fed beef" (god forbid Europe eat factory farmed beef). It's a *local* thing, not some big bad logging corporations thing.

Look at the facts. The logging crap is just propaganda. Seriously!

If you want to stop rainforest destruction you show those people there how they can get along without burning down the rainforest. Not blame it on those who are less than 1% responsible.

[The Stranger]

20. That doesn't make any sense.

I mean, help me out here.

Logging a rainforest is "incredibly irrelevant" to its destruction?

On its face, to chop down the trees is relevant to the trees. The trees make up the forest. Ergo, chopping down the trees is relevant to the forest.

Even if there were some difference between chopping down the trees and burning down the trees, it would appear that both were done here.

The locals are the ones being used to continue the logging. To claim otherwise is a complete mindfuck.

[joshcryer]

23. "Logging" generally means cutting trees down for lumber.

Not cutting trees down and burning them to get at the soil. The soil of the rainforests is what is sought in these scenarios, not the logs. Less than 1% of rainforest destruction is due to logging *for lumber*.

So while you could slander these people for cutting down their own trees because they're being "used" by the big mega corporations you're achieving absolutely nothing by slandering them.

Oh, except one thing. The people whose trees do go toward a greenpeace campaign lose their business with the big European meat buyers, and go on their business elsewhere because finding poor folk who are willing to cut down trees and build a farm is damn easy there.

In the end they're being used by both sides. Corporations knowing that they're in dire straits and want to improve their existance, and NGOs, running around saying that the big mega corporations are exploiting them and forcing them to do things the way that they are, and that the "indigenous people" would prefer to live in straw huts.

Both sides are wrong. So solutions aren't going to start by parading around a log in a corrupt white city in Brazil.

[AlecBGreen]

25. "Less than 1% of rainforest destruction is due to logging *for lumber*."

link?

[joshcryer]

28. Go here:

http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

It's actually 2-4%, but a lot of that is illegal. In this case whatever is occuring that Greenpeace is protesting is legal, which is why I didn't consider it.

People want to fucking survive. Show them how to do it without cutting down the trees and then maybe we'll get somewhere. Banning them from utilizing their own livelihood will only result in mass revolt.

The people resisting against Greenpeace only serve to illustrate the point.

[AlecBGreen]

30. thanks for the link

its very informative :hi:

"People want to fucking survive. Show them how to do it without cutting down the trees and then maybe we'll get somewhere. "

Amen to that.

[joshcryer]

33. Hey I just noticed something on that site. Look at the Carbon Offsets Argument.

I went to the main part of the site and they have a recent posting about carbon offsets.

Is Amazon Conservation Worth More Than Clearing For Cattle Or Soy: http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1017-amazon.html

Very compelling argument, and it might show the way! :)

Give everyone in the Amazon Carbon Offset Stocks!

[The Stranger]

13. GO GREENPEACE!

Fight on, my brothers and sisters.