Environmentalist organisations and social movements in the south of Maranhão and Tocantins have denounced a growing environmental crisis in the region, under the impact large-scale ranching and soya production, public projects like the construction of hydroelectric plants and the neglect of indigenous populations and natural resource by government bodies. The NGOs have launched a petition asking the Federal Government for a clearer policy on the preservation of important biomes, like scrubland areas in Maranhao, and demanding action to protect threatened indigenous lands.

From the social perspective, the situation is serious. Two indigenous reserves and their populations have been abandoned, according to Jaime Siqueira, coordinator of the NGO, Centre for Indigenist Work. The former Environment Minister, Sarney Filho, who represents the Green Party in Maranhao in parliament, has been informed of the situation which threatens water sources and important ecotourism sites in Carolina in Maranhao and other regions in Tocantins.

The manifesto of the campaign follows:

"The population and social movements of the south of Maranhão and north of Tocantins, whose principal organisations have signed this document, are campaigning for the conservation and protection of the environment in this region, which has been the target of large-scale projects, developed mainly in the context of the Avança Brasil programme. These projects represent models of development which are extremely predatory in relation to the environment and have been implanted without any planning in relation to the resulting social-environmental impacts. We have seen the construction of innumerable hydroelectric plants on the Tocantins river (between Palmas and Maraba) and on the Farinha river (between Estreito and Carolina), the implantation of monocultures of eucalyptus in Tocantins and large-scale soya cultivation in the north of Tocantins, around the Kraho indigenous area and in the south of Maranhao, close to São Raimundo das Mangabeiras, Riachão and Carolina. Unfortunately, the populations of these regions are at the mercy of this unplanned "progress", as they are located in the path of the "soya corridor" and an avalanche of large-scale projects, after years of serious impacts caused by the Carajas programme.

We would, therefore, like to express the commitment of the organised civil society and popular movements in the region, to create a sustainable use reserve - a mosaic of conservation areas - of various categories, such as extractive reserves, sustainable development reserves, including the delimitation of a national park in the municipality of Carolina - the Chapada das Mesas National Park, owing to the extraordinary beauty of its waterfalls, rivers and hills and its vocation for the development of ecotourism.

It is important to highlight that the area incorporates a belt of land from Itacaja in Tocantins to Porto Franco in Maranhao, establishing a "corridor" between the Kraho and Apinaje indigenous areas. This area is described in the document "Evaluation and Identification of Priority Measures for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Sharing of the Benefits of Biodiversity in Brazilian Amazonia", elaborated by the Ministry of the Environment with support from a number of NGOs. This document identifies the area as TO 027, with a priority level of 10. It recommended the creation of a sustainable use reserve joining the Kraho and Apinaje ITs. This area could be expanded further to incorporate existing extractive reserves like Imperatriz and Mangabeiras.

As well as the pressure imposed by large-scale projects and the richness of biodiversity in indigenous areas and area of scrubland and transitional forest areas, another justification is the existence of a number of organised groups which are already developing sustainable development projects. With this, economic alternatives are being created for the people of the cerrado (scrubland) - Indians and small-scale agro-extractivist producers - which contribute towards the conservation of the environment and the construction of a new model of development.

We are certain that the appropriate authorities, under the guidance of our new, more democratic and popular Federal Government, will be sympathetic to our demands which are legitimate and, above all, urgent.

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