http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=120878
[America News]: ANAPU, Brazil - Brazil’s president ordered the creation of a huge Amazon environmental protection area in a lawless region coveted by soy farmers and ranchers less than a week after an American nun was gunned down trying to protect the jungle from deforestation.
Decrees signed on Thursday by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will form a reserve of 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) and a national park spanning 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) in the state of Para, where 73-year-old Dorothy Stang was shot to death in a dispute with a powerful rancher.
“We can’t give in to people committing acts of violence,” said Environment Minister Marina Silva, who announced the decrees in the capital, Brasilia. “The government is putting the brakes on in front of the predators.”
Stang, a naturalized Brazilian originally from Dayton, Ohio, was attacked Saturday in a settlement 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Anapu, which is located in Para. A witness said she read from a Bible after being confronted by two gunmen and was then shot six times at close range.
The decrees were announced after more than 60 groups signed a letter to the president demanding strong moves to curb “violence and impunity associated with the illegal occupation of lands and deforestation” in the Amazon - and especially in vast Para state.
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