Press Report Europe WSF 2009 - OpenFSM!

Press Report Europe WSF 2009
against deforestation and the expulsion of forest communities from their traditional holdings in the Amazon region. In
1994 Silva was the first rubber tapper elected to Brazil's federal senate, and the country's youngest senator.
In 2003, she was made environment minister by newly-elected President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and set about
reducing deforestation in the Amazon region. She resigned from her post in May 2008 amid reports of disagreements
within the government about her environmental policies.
In her speech to the theology forum, Silva defended her record as environment minister, and said she had resigned to
ensure that the programme she stood for would continue. She said that after she stepped down, public pressure forced
President Lula to say publicly his country's environmental policies would not be changed.
The Amazon region, Silva said, is home to 24 million inhabitants, a large number of them indigenous peoples, and
traditionally had systems of belief dedicated to protecting the environment.
"With the destruction of the forest we are likely to destroy this entire way of looking at the world that is essential for
humanity," said Silva. She said that 75 per cent of Brazilian carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were a result of
deforestation. Still, developing countries accounted for only 20 per cent of global CO2 emissions, she noted.
Silva called for greater global efforts to combat emissions of CO2, which are held responsible for climate changed. She
also criticised the "anthropocentric view" that puts human beings at the centre and views natural resources as infinite.
"We have to find another way. I learned from the vision of the theology of liberation and this marked my life profoundly. It
is a time to think of new utopias," said Silva, who was brought up a Roman Catholic but later became a member of the
Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. "Spirituality has a huge contribution to make."
The World Social Forum first took place in 2001 in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, and Silva noted that it had been set up
as a counter to the World Economic Forum, a gathering of politicians and business leaders that takes place each year,
usually in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. "Many of the things that we said [in the WSF] have come about," said
Silva, referring to the global economic crisis. "The faith in the dogma of autoregulation [of the economy] went down the
drain when the state had to step in," she asserted. "Maybe a gesture of humility would
be to have a group from Davos to come here and hear what people have been saying
for eight years."
World Social Forum opens during economic crisis and 'opportunity'
(ENI)
27 January 2009 | 09-0068 |
Stephen Brown Belem, Brazil (ENI). Thousands of people are gathering in Brazil for the
World Social Forum to address exploitative globalisation, while organizers say the
economic crisis illustrates that its message, "another world is possible", is more
Chico Whitaker. Photo: ©
Stephen Brown/ENI
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