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World Bank wants development-environment balance in Amazon(EFE Ingles)By Teresa Bouza. Sao Paulo, Dec 21 (EFE).- The World Bank, whose new president just made an extensive tour of Brazil, wants to play a mediating role in the heated debate over how development and modernization should proceed in the vast Amazon basin, which, as the earth's biggest producer of oxygen, is vital to the planet's health. World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz told EFE that the sheer size of the planet's largest natural reserve was one of the things that most impressed him during his six-day trip through the country, which ended at midnight Tuesday. The degree to which he was impressed by the region's splendor became obvious Sunday, during his day of rest on the banks of the Tapajos River, when he decided to ignore his tight agenda and asked his aides and bodyguards to extend his stay as much as possible. "This natural treasure belongs to Brazil and the Brazilians," Wolfowitz told EFE, adding that it is also vital for the South American continent and the world. The perception that the immense tropical jungle is a valuable shared asset leads Wolfowitz to believe that the international community is ready to contribute additional funds to help the region pursue both economic development and environmental protection, a twin objective advocated by the World Bank. In a speech on climatic change in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, Wolfowitz said "many Brazilians" have asked him to get the bank to work more closely with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the various Brazilian Amazon states, which "are developing a vision of the future and need help translating that vision into action." Short-term plans are far from uniform, and therein lies the complex dilemma facing the planet's green lung, which produces more than 20 percent of the world's oxygen through photosynthesis. One contending current opposes change and wants to stop all additional damage to the environment. "Over the past five years alone, some 112,000 square kilometers (43,000 square miles) were deforested in the Amazon basin, Brazil's pride, the largest biodiversity reserve in the world and a vital economic asset for the indigenous population," Wolfowitz said in Sao Paulo. Non-governmental organizations lead the opposition to development, as do some Amazon residents, such as Maria das Dores Diaz, a gaunt, 75-year-old woman who told Wolfowitz that "life was better" in her youth, when the forest was completely virgin. Though Diaz and others like her would have wanted the Amazon region to remain totally pristine, Wolfowitz calls that desire "unrealistic." On the other extreme are, among others, some multinationals, who want to boost economic development by supporting large-scale farming of products such as soy, which is already widely grown in the region. The profitability of that farming has been the incentive for much of the deforestation, according to Gregor Wolf, World Bank official in charge of the Amazon basin. But Saran Kebet-Koulibaly, associate director for Latin America of the International Financial Corporation, the branch of the World Bank that provides loans to the public sector, insists the soy farmers are not going away, and that it is better to work with them to reduce the environmental impact of their activity. The government and the various states cannot seem to make up their minds, and adopt ambiguous legislation that hampers effective control of development projects. Despite such problems, Wolfowitz praised Brazil's leadership in the area of energy alternatives, noting that 42 percent of the country's energy comes from renewable sources. Wolfowitz also expressed interest in continuing to work jointly with the Latin American country along those lines, in which there would be space for the public and the private sector. "We owe it to our children and the grandchildren of Brazil and the world to show them that the coming decades can be very different," he said in a speech before leaving for Washington. EFE tb/mp |