November 22, 2009
Sting urges Brazil to listen to tribal dam fears
He was speaking at a press conference in Sao Paulo where he was reunited with indigenous leader Raoni Metyktire who joined him in a similar campaign 20 years ago which attracted worldwide attention.

Indigenous tribes in the Amazon say the Belo Monte project, which would be the third largest hydro-electric dam in the world, poses a threat to their way of life.

Sting said Brazil was in the front line of the fight against climate change and it was even more important now to listen to the voices of those who live there than it had been 20 years ago. Continued

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20 Years of Work

In 1989, Sting and Trudie Styler founded the organizations jointly known as Rainforest Foundation. Since then the Foundation has been supporting indigenous peoples and traditional populations of the rainforest in their efforts to conserve their land and defend their rights.

Continued

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Do Trees Grow on Money?

Rainforests are back on the global agenda in a big way. Governments now recognise the importance of protecting tropical forests in order to avoid dangerous climate change, and there is now much debate. As governments try to thrash out the details of a new international agreement, expected to be signed at the end of 2009, they are discussing how best to include measures to save rainforests, and thereby address one of the major causes of climate change. Worldwide, forest destruction generates more greenhouse gas emissions each year than do all the trains, planes and cars on the planet. So if we are to tackle global warming, there is an urgent need to find ways to reduce the 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by forest destruction each year, and to keep the remaining forests standing.

Continued

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