Word: brazill
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Collor proclaimed a "change of mentality" in Brazil, and his early measures earned international applause. But now he is under the same fire from environmental critics as his predecessors. "There has been no forward movement," says Fabio Feldmann, the leading environmentalist in Brazil's Congress. "On the contrary, what we have seen is total paralysis...
Activists put much of the blame for Brazil's lack of progress on Lutzenberger, the brilliant but eccentric and irascible Environment Secretary. Branded a disaster for his lack of administrative and political skills, he was abruptly fired by Collor in March. The dismissal came a week after Lutzenberger urged World Bank officials in New York City not to lend Brazil money to clean up its environment because the main government agency that would handle the funds was a "nest of corruption." Collor sacked the head of that agency at the same time he fired Lutzenberger...
...gist of Collor's disagreement with his former Environment Secretary goes right to the core of the Rio summit agenda. Lutzenberger refused to endorse Collor's version of "sustainable development" -- the notion that preservation of Brazil's rain forests and other natural resources is compatible with economic growth. The interim Secretary, a nuclear physicist named Jose Goldemberg, is a strong advocate of this vision of controlled development...
Collor argues that "we cannot discuss the environment issue without taking into account the situation of poverty and misery in which three-quarters of humanity lives" -- including the 70% of Brazil's 146 million people who < barely earn enough to feed themselves. Even fervent environmentalists concede the point. "Brazil is very important to the international community because of its biological diversity," says Feldmann, "but within the country, other issues are much more important. It's hard to relate to sustainable development when you also have problems of equity and social justice...
...official meetings leading up to the Earth Summit, Brazil's representatives argued that the developing world cannot let environmental concerns get in the way of the need to find homes and jobs for its citizens. In February, 800 representatives of Brazilian environmental groups, universities and government agencies signed the Vitoria Declaration, which, among other things, states that the developed world is responsible for global warming and that "Third World countries have the right to increase their consumption of energy to attend to their development needs...