Brazilian Ranch Wins Greenwash Award For 2009 - Thousands Of Bulldozed Acres Are "Nature Preserve"

[hatrack]

Indigenous rights organization, Survival International, has awarded Brazilian cattle company, Yaguarete Porá S.A., its 'Greenwashing Award 2010' for destroying indigenous peoples' forest—including uncontacted natives—and calling it conservation. The cattle company, Yaguarete, owns 78,549 hectares within the UNESCO Chaco Biosphere Reserve in Paraguay. However the land is the traditional home of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode tribe, which has been struggling since 1993 to gain rights to their land.

Recently, in response to satellite images revealing that Yaguarete has bulldozed thousands of hectares of land for cattle ranching, the company stated that it intends to create a 'nature reserve', according to Survival International.

The company is "dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians' forest as a noble gesture for conservation," says Survival International’s director Stephen Corry.

According to Paraguay's Environment Ministry this reserve will cover less than a quarter of the company's land (16,784 hectares) with the rest open to conversion. The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode tribe contends that any nature reserve steps on their rights as the traditional land holders under Paraguayan and international law.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0120-hance_greenwash.html

[MidwestTransplant]

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