Fires rage in Amazon rainforest park

[Omaha Steve]

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1004-amazon.html

Forest fires are raging in Xingu National Park in the Amazon rainforest, according to a pioneering cattle rancher-turned-conservationist in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

John Cain Carter, founder of Alian�a da Terra, one of the most innovative organization working in the Amazon, told mongabay.com that fires in the Amazon are presently among the worst he has seen in a decade in Brazil.


Photos by John Cain Carter.

"We are in the middle of our burning season and it is one of the worst I have seen," he said. "Three weeks ago I tried to land at the Kamayura Indian village and upon flying 300 feet over the village, was not able to land because I could not see it do to the smoke. A huge area of the Xingu National Park was on fire, truly sickening as it is a sign of things to come."

Carter says that his own ranch was also damaged by fires set by illegal land clearers.

"Our own ranch burned, thanks to land grabbers who started a forest fire in my neighbor's 65,000-acre forest reserve," he told mongabay.com. "That fire jumped into our property and wiped us out, both financially and emotionally. Our forest is toast, literally."

Carter says that high commodity prices are driving fire setting by land speculators who seek both to clear forest and to generate buying opportunities for cattle ranches.

FULL story at link.