Primate researcher Jane Goodall says biofuel crop growing is damaging rainforest in Brazil; former Brazilian ag minister says “It is an absurdity”

At the Clinton Global Initiative, primate scientist Jane Goodall said that crops growing for biofuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming. “We’re cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now,” Goodall said.

Last week, at the Americas Conference in Miami, former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Roberto Rodrigues pointed out that sugar cane does not grow in the Amazon region, and that Amazonian rainforest is not being destroyed in Brazil for sugar cane cultivation. “It is an absurdity to suggest otherwise”, Rodrigues said.

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