Why do I never know that these things are going on?

[the_future_modernes]

May 31 Tropical Forest Summit Opens

BRAZZAVILLE, May 31, 2011 (IPS) - Heads of state from the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong basins are meeting in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville: leaders hope to reach an accord on sound management of valuable rainforest ecoystems, but civil society actors believe the problems faced by local populations may be ignored.

The host of the meeting, the president of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, said the summit constitutes a final "decisive step" before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development which will take place in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. According to organisers, the Brazzaville summit will also allow the reinforcing of South-South cooperation; the Congolese environment minister, Henri Djombo, told reporters the objective was to ask all the countries involved to form a united bloc.

Worldwide worries

Ahead of the summit, forest policy in several countries came under the spotlight. In Brazil, the government is considering a controversial revision to its Forest Code, which if passed by the Senate, will expand the amount of forest that is threatened by deforestation. The same day that the lower house of Brazil's legislature approved the code, forest defendersJosé Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, were shot to death by as-yet unknown assailants. The two had received death threats for their activism against illegal logging in the northern Amazon state of Par".
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