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Brazil and FAO make Amazon pledge

18/11/2010
The Brazilian government has pledged to spend up to $2.25 million on encouraging sustainable activity in the Amazonia regions. The minister for agriculture, livestock and supply, Wagner Rossi, signed an agreement with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in mid-November to recover land in that part of Brazil that has fallen into disuse.

Mr Rossi said the programme had the potential to diversify and increase the food, energy sources and timber that people living in the region are able to produce at the moment.

After signing the agreement, the head of the FAO in Latin America and the Caribbean, José Graziano, commented: “The FAO is proud to take part in this work. This new agreement proves that Brazil is concerned not only with conserving the Amazon, but also in recovering what was lost in other political climates, when the policy was to occupy the territories at any cost.”

Estimates in Brazil suggest that there are 70 million hectares of land across the country that would fall into the category of having fallen into disuse, 16 million of them in Amazonia, as well as another 17 or 18 million hectares that have been cleared and later abandoned after attempts to raise crops on them failed. Wagner Rossi insisted after signing the agreement that this type of land still had potential.


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