OT: Brazil To Offer Free Internet Access To Amazon Tribes

[Guest guest]

My opinion .. More Eye Wash to pacify those who are concerned about

the Rain Forest. The quickest way to get rid of the Indian tribes ..

besides cutting down the forests .. is to modernize them. ;-) Butch

 

Brazil To Offer Free Internet Access To Amazon Tribes

 

POSTED: 1228 GMT (2028 HKT), March 30, 2007

 

Story Highlights

• Brazil will provide Internet signal by satellite to 150 Amazon

communities

• Goal is to allow tribes to report illegal logging and ranching to help

save rain forest

• Brazil ministry: City, state governments must install telecenters with

computers

 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's government said it will

provide free Internet access to native Indian tribes in the Amazon in

an effort to help protect the world's biggest rain forest.

 

The environment and communications ministers signed an agreement

Thursday with the Forest People's Network to provide an Internet

signal by satellite to 150 communities, including many reachable only

by riverboat, allowing them to report illegal logging and ranching,

request help and coordinate efforts to preserve the forest.

 

The goal is to " encourage those peoples to join the public powers in

the environmental management of the country, " Francisco Costa of the

Environment Ministry said in a statement. " The government intends to

strengthen the Forest People's Network, a digital web for monitoring,

protection and education. "

 

The ministry said city and state governments must first install

telecenters with computers in selected areas, including indigenous

lands. The federal government then will provide the satellite connection.

 

The areas in 13 states, including the Pantanal wetlands and the poor

northeast, were chosen by the Environment Ministry, the National

Indian Foundation, or Funai, and the government environmental

protection agency Ibama, the ministry said.

 

Francisco Ashaninka, a native Indian from the Ashaninka tribe who

works for the western Acre state government, said the arrival of the

Internet was a success for the Forest People's Network, created in 2003.

 

He said there are currently a few telecenters on the outskirts of

cities, but that the new ones will be built deep in the forest and

will allow Indians easy access to public officials so that they can

alert them of illegal miners, loggers and ranchers.

 

" It will be a real chance for the indigenous communities to acquire,

share and provide information to public officials, " Ashaninka said. He

added the Internet would " strengthen indigenous culture by linking

them and providing environmental education. "

 

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.