Brazil Amazon jungle fires reach Indian reserve

www.alertnet.org 15 Mar 2003 02:00

BRASILIA, Brazil, March 14 (Reuters) - Forest fires burning in Brazil's northern Amazon jungle have spread to the reserve of the Yanomami Indians, one of the world's last hunter-gatherer tribes, and the government urged farmers not to light more fires during the dry season.

Environment Minister Marina Silva said on Friday the government would offer financial compensation to farmers who don't burn their land in preparation for the sowing season after fires set so far burned out of control in some parts of Roraima state.

Silva said satellites revealed that fires had spread two miles (three km) inside the Yanomami reserve, although they were still far from Indian villages in the remote area bordering Venezuela.

The fires, fueled by unusually dry weather caused by the "El Nino" phenomenon, have prompted fears of a repeat of the devastating 1998 blaze in the same part of the Amazon -- a region which is home to up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant life.

"While the situation is serious, if we make a comparison with 1998, it is completely different," said Silva. "Before there were no specialized firefighters."

Brazil has five helicopters, 500 men -- including specialized firefighters and soldiers -- and dozens of vehicles in the area helping to put out the fires.

Silva said another 1,000 firefighters were on standby in Brasilia.

With the worst of the dry season approaching, the government offered financial compensation to prevent more farmers from burning their land, a common practice ahead of sowing.

The Yanomami, one of the world's only true Neolithic tribes, had lived in near-total isolation for about 2,000 years until the late 1970s, when Brazil's military government conducted aerial surveys in the area. There are an estimated 26,000 of them living in the jungles.

Environmental authorities estimate about 23 square miles (60 sq km) of forest have been destroyed in the current fires while in 1998, 185 square miles (480 sq km) were destroyed.