The World - News from April 7, 1989

Brazil’s President Jose Sarney announced a plan to protect the Amazon rain forest and castigated those who accuse Brazil of destroying the world’s largest wilderness. Features of the plan include the creation of a national fund for environmental protection, suspension of subsidies for cattle ranchers in the Amazon Basin and new controls on pesticides. The government said the program, called “Our Nature,” will have a budget of $178 million in its first year. “We are accused of something we cannot accept--of destroying our own territory,” Sarney said. “Our priority is the conservation of our ecological heritage.”