The Rachel Carson of Brazil

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Entire Indian cultures are being wiped out, as well. What right, other than that of brute force, allows our own society to invade the Indians' world with heavy machinery, chain saws, and chemical defoliants sprayed by airplanes? Who, in such a case, are the real barbarians?

As the Amazon caboclo [Indian] says, "Where cattle move in, hunger comes along and we move out." Yet the meat production on our "modern" ranches is ridiculously low . . . around 30 pounds per acre per year. Compare that to what's being done in northern Europe, where—despite a much more difficult climate—yields of 600 pounds of meat and 800 gallons of milk per acre per year are achieved.

But the owners, who are mostly powerful Brazilian politicians or the executives of multinational corporations, don't care. Their profit derives from the incredible size of the operations, from government subsidies, and from corruption.

Yet we have sufficient land in Brazil to allow us to easily postpone "developing" the Amazon until we know enough about the marvelous patterns of life there to do so intelligently and sustainably. Our government must find ways to restrain both its own greed and that of foreign companies. We have much to learn from the remaining Indian tribes.

DALY: With the failure of the touted "Brazilian Economic Miracle" and the nation's overall declining economy, such restraint is pretty unlikely.

LUTZENBERGER: Yes, the economic situation has never been worse in Brazil. A few members of the military, which—back in 1964—had a great opportunity to create order, chose instead to become henchmen for multinational businesses. As a re suit of the actions of such individuals and the firms that support them, inflation is now over 140% annually ... and we owe more than $60 billion to outside interests. Since our country earns only $13 billion a year from its exports, more than half of our national trade income goes simply to pay interest on debt. The remainder isn't even sufficient to finance our petroleum imports.

So the debt will likely grow and inflation will get worse. Nevertheless, the governing mafia plans to build 60 nuclear power plants by 1995! Never before has one seen such madness! Fortunately, it will probably not succeed. I put some hope, ironically, in the world depression that has already been triggered.

DALY: Within this bleak picture, many people are placing all their hopes on Brazil's alcohol fuel program, PROALCOOL.

LUTZENBERGER: The alcohol program is—unfortunately—another calamity. It will be solely in the hands of the international petroleum, automobile, and chemical companies and will spread over the rest of Brazil the kind of feudal landholding system that already disgraces our Northeast.

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