Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes (fwd)

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Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/30/amazon.internet.ap/index.html

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.This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



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