back to AcreAmazonLink | next
article 
In 1985 the "First National Meeting of Seringueiros of the Amazon" took place. The seringueiros demanded;
They founded the CNS - National Counsel of Seringueiros.
At this meeting the concept of the "extraction
reserves" was discussed for the first time; a
government-owned conservation area which should be controlled by the
communities of the seringueiros and other traditional inhabitants of the
forest. They would make a sustainable use of the rain forest and guarantee
its integrity. In return they would have control over the produce from the
forest. The union leader and environmental activist Francisco Alves Mendes
Filho from Xapuri/Acre, better known as Chico Mendes,
played an important role in the development of this proposal.
After the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank under
the pressure of international environmental organizations and the CNS had
canceled the credits for highway construction in the Amazon, the Brazilian
government had to reassess its development policy and in 1988 entered into
negotiations about extraction reserves with the CNS. In Acre the first
reservation "Alto Juruá" emerged. In 1989 the
representatives of the CNS and the "Union of the Indian Nations"
(at that time informal indigenous organization) met in Rio Branco for the
"First Meeting of the Peoples of the Forest". It led to the "Declaration
of the Peoples of the Forest" , expressing the wish of the
inhabitants of the rain forest to have their living space preserved.
In 1990 the "general decree for the extraction reserves"
(nr 98.897/90) was issued in Brazil, which was the legal base for future
reserves. Today, there are many extraction reserves in Brazil, the biggest
of them being "Alto Juruá" and "Chico Mendes"
in Acre. The area of the "Alto Jurua" reserve is1,265,465 acres
with 6000 inhabitants, the area of "Chico Mendes" is 2,441,425
acres with 1250 inhabitants...