Dear Dr. Shrestha,

Public opinion polls do exist and they clearly show that Brazilians are rather worried about this

and would like to have deforestation stopped. However, that raises some complex issues since

most Brazilians live in the south and center of the country and for them the Amazon and

deforestation are somewhat abstract comments. I don’t know of any opinion polls in the Amazon

itself but my intuition tells me that the average person living in the region is not particularly

concerned at all – to the contrary he or she sees the forest as a resource to be exploited and

converted into something else, which is not in itself an unreasonably proposition.

regards,

David Kaimowitz

—–Original Message—–

From: shressp [mailto:shressp@mallard.duc.auburn.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 9:44 PM

To: Kaimowitz, David (CIFOR); CIFOR-Polex Listserve

Cc: Benoit Mertens (CIRAD)

Subject: RE: Beefing up the Brazilian Amazon

Do we know? how much Brazilians are worried about this?

Let us take public opinion of Brazil.

Dr. Suraj P. Shrestha

Faculty of Forestry and the Forest Environment

Lakehead University

Thunder Bay

Canada