The Amazon for sale for 50 bln dollars? Not in Brazil's book

Yahoo News 26 May 08;

A Swedish-born tycoon who acts as a deforestation advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stirred up controversy in Brazil for reportedly claiming all the Amazon could be bought for 50 billion dollars.

Johan Eliasch, the 46-year-old boss of the Head sports equipment company, is under investigation by Brazilian police and intelligence services for the alleged comments and for 160,000 hectares (395,000 acres) of Amazon forest he is believed to have bought, the newspaper O Globo reported Monday.

He reportedly made the assertions to stimulate land acquisition as part of his role as director of Cool Earth, an organization he co-founded which finds sponsors for the rainforest as a way of protecting it.

"Eliasch held meetings with businessmen between 2006 and 2007 in which he proposed that they buy land in the Amazon, and told them 'only' 50 billion dollars would be needed to acquire all the forest," according to a report by Brazil's Abin intelligence agency cited by O Globo.

The issue is a sensitive one for Brazil, which has been offended by statements by British politicians suggesting that the Amazon is too important to all of mankind to be left to the management of Brazil's government alone.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday stated that "the Brazilian Amazon has an owner, and that owner is the Brazilian people."

He told a gathering in Rio de Janeiro that while he was conscious of the need to conserve the forest, "there is also need to develop the Amazon."

Brasilia has been progressively tightening laws aimed at protecting the huge forest by cracking down on illegal ranchers, farmers and loggers, and stepping up vigilance against foreigners looking to exploit its biodiversity.

Eliasch, who lives in London and has an estimated net worth of 790 million dollars, stopped being a significant donor to Britain's conservative party last September. He switched allegiance to Brown's Labour Party, apparently winning his special consulting post in the process.

Although Cool Earth has generally received positive evaluations in Britain and the United States, some accuse the organization of embarking on "green colonialism" and compounding the problems of indigenous groups living in the Amazon.

British charity 'bewildered' by Amazon inquiry: spokesman
Yahoo News 27 May 08;

British-based environmental group Cool Earth said on Tuesday it was "bewildered" by reports that its co-founder was being investigated by Brazilian authorities over comments he made about the Amazon.

The O Globo newspaper reported on Monday that Brazilian police and intelligence services were investigating Cool Earth's millionaire co-founder Johan Eliasch -- a British-Swedish national -- for comments he allegedly made claiming that all of the Amazon could be bought for 50 billion dollars.

Brazil's new Environment Minister Carlos Minc said he was shocked by the report, and that one of his first acts in his new post would be to open an inquiry into the matter.

"It's bewildering because we do not own any lands in Amazonas, we fund various protection projects through our partners," Cool Earth Director Matthew Owen told AFP.

He added that Cool Earth had received "no information" about an inquiry in Brazil.

"We are aware it's been announced in the press but we've had no information whatsoever ... We are a quite high profile charity and we've done a great deal in a year to channel funds into conservation and protection," Owen said.

"The ownership of the Amazon is a very politicised topic and understandably the government wants to understand what all players are doing.

"We are successful in bringing ... funding in the Amazon protection but there is no evidence whatsoever that we infringed any regulations."

A source close to Eliasch, the 46-year-old boss of the Head sports equipment company and an environmental adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, claimed the investigation was started to "whip up nationalism for political purposes."

According to Owen, Cool Earth doesn't "own any land in Amazonas, we fund conservation projects but we are not interested in owning lands which we think would be an inappropriate use of a UK-based charity."

He said that around 32,000 hectares of land were "protected" by funds provided by Cool Earth in Brazil and Ecuador, and added that the group was looking at funding similar projects in Peru.

The source close to Eliasch estimated that around 70 percent of the Amazon was owned by the Brazilian federal government, with 20 percent owned by indigenous tribes and the remainder in private hands.

At a 2006 conference, the source said, Eliasch had linked deforestation in the Amazon with storms in the Gulf of Mexico, which cost insurers 75 billion dollars, and suggested that the Amazon could be preserved for around a third of that cost.