Press Release

"You can count on Brazil to protect the biodiversity of our planet".

Speaking today in New York, where he was meeting with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, hailed the decision of the President of Brazil, H.E. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to place 6.4 million hectares of the Amazon rain forest, an area more than twice the size of Belgium, under direct environmental protection as a major initiative for the protection of the biodiversity of our planet. Dr Djoghlaf welcomed the decree signed by the President of Brazil to create two new national parks in the Amazon rain forest and to introduce sustainable logging procedures in four national forests.

Publication Date
2006-02-17