Juliana Cézar Nunes
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The recent murders in the state of Pará, in northern Brazil's Amazon region, will serve to stimulate and even accelerate the process of creating extractive reserves and protected areas in the so-called Midland ("Terra do Meio"), located between the Xingu and Tapajós Rivers. This declaration was made on Wednesday (16), by Maurício Mercadante, the Ministry of Environment's director of Protected Areas. According to Mercadante, three more extractive reserves should be established by midyear, a well as a conservation and total protection unit, complete with an ecological station and park.

"Among the new reserves, one is planned for the region of Anapu, the city where Sister Dorothy Stang lived.[She was murdered last Saturday, February 12, by hired gunmen] The reserve will contain 80 thousand hectares and will be named Bacajá," Mercadante revealed. According to him, the nun supported and defended the creation of this reserve.

With the addition of the new units, the total area covered by extractive reserves in Pará should attain 4 million hectares. In 2004 the Ministry of Environment legalized the first two reserves in the Midland region: Evergreen, which contains1.3 million hectares, and Anfrísio's Little River ("Riozinho do Anfrísio"), which contains 700 thousand.

"The reserves, besides protecting traditional communities, prevent the removal of timber and inordinant occupation of the forest," Mercadante observed. "For this reason, it is natural for the creation of reserves to cause dissatisfaction among some sectors."

According to Mercadante, the law permits only small-scale exploitation of natural resources, such as wood, Brazil nuts, rubber, and fruit, in the reserves. The riparian population is also allowed to develop agriculture activities, so long as they are for their own subsistence.

Translation: David Silberstein