Organizations will mobilize civil society against alcohol plants in Pantanal

The Environmental and Sustainable Development Forum of Mato Grosso do Sul (Formads) had carried through a meeting in October 9th, which argued the law project that wants to enlarge the capacity of production of the alcohol plants in the Pantanal basin.

In the meeting, the Forum decided to take some actions to hinder the law project, already disapproved on another voting at the State Parliament, to be applied.

According to the ECOA’s president and the Pantanal Network executive-director, Alessandro Menezes, the Environmental and Sustainable Development Forum of Mato Grosso do Sul intends to create some actions with the purpose of combating the project. First, to make a juridical evaluation, as the idea is unconstitutional, even by the state legislation (article 4º of Law 328) as by the National Council of Environment (Conama), 01/85, both forbidding the creation of alcohol plants in the Pantanal basin.

“It’s the same project, but masked, says Menezes.  If you have a 1 liter engine car, and transform it in a 2 liter engine, it won’t be the same car”.

Another strategy is an international mobilization which will show the problems of the Pantanal to the international community. A coalition of NGOs, including SOS Mata Atlantica, Cerrado Network, Atlantic Forest Network, Pantanal Network, WWF, International Conservation and Greenpeace will be composed.

The third action will be a meeting with the elect governor of Mato Grosso do Sul, Andre Puccinelli, to know which are the “real plans” for the Pantanal, as on his government project he considered an ecological/economic zoning, and on an interview to a news website in Campo Grande, he suggested the creation of royalties to stimulate the conservation of the biome. State Deputies also will be visited, so they will be able to define a position, therefore the Deputy Dagoberto Nogueira’s project, according to Alessandro Menezes, are provoking “a wastage at State Parliament before the society, because the project was already rejected before.”

As a next step, the Formads, the NGOs Coalition and the international society want to organize a campaign so that the alcohol production in the region of Pantanal be refused by the external market. The executive-director of the Pantanal Network emphasized that the alcohol used by the European market is treated “as the example of the soybean” in Amazon. In this case, the European Union do not buy soybean from companies which had not respected the protection laws of the Amazon. The position of the market is based on requirements of the European civil society.

Alessandro Menezes explains that, this campaign is not against the alcohol plants, but against the implantation of these companies in the Pantanal. Moreover, according to him, the law project would allow that only two companies operate in the region with exclusiveness: the one that is located in Quebra-Coco and the one in Sonora.

Participate of this campaign, click here and send your message to the State Deputies of Mato Grosso do Sul  http://www.riosvivos.org.br/canal.php?canal=342