Nature

The Amazon rainforest is not just an icon for the environmental movement, it is the largest and most biodiverse forest left on Earth. More, too, than a future world breadbasket, the Amazon is home to almost a million indigenous Indians. The two issues that predominate in the environmental debate, the destruction of the rainforest and the plight of the indigenous Indian population, are in many cases inextricably linked. Brazilians tend to react with outrage at being lectured on the preservation of their environment and the protection of native peoples by North Americans and Europeans, who less than twenty years ago were still accusing Brazil of failing to exploit the very resources they now seek to save. Justifiable as Brazilian accusations of hypocrisy may be, however, they cannot hide the fact that there is a real environmental crisis in Brazil, a reality that is finally gaining lip service at least among domestic politicians

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