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Hard Labor

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Laura Ling heads out with Brazil's anti-slavery task force in the Amazon jungle.
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3 responses // Hard Labor

  • Laura and I shot this the day after Thanksgiving--a holiday that occasioned that brilliant episode of SuperNews, a Thanksgiving story. SuperNews kind of lays it out all there, but if you were going to summarize the attitude in Brazil that is causing the vast forests of the Amazon to disappear, it is that all the concern and condemnation that they get from North America seems to them to be based on hypocrisy. They feel that North Americans, who didn't stop the elimination of much of the American wilderness as the USA developed don't have much moral authority for condemning the destruction of the Amazon as Brazil develops... In this particular piece, as Laura and I follow Brazilian federal police looking to free indentured servants--slaves--the destruction of forest was being done by abused workers in the employment of ranchers. But all sorts of others are out there chopping away at the forest too... In fact, I've covered stories in the Amazon twice--on this trip Laura and I got quite far in both in the northwest side and the southern side--and I've never seen a jaguar or a monkey, but I've seen a lot of charred wood and vast, depleted stretches... At the risk of displaying some North American hypocrisy, it makes me pretty sad... Laura and I have been contemplating making a return trip... We'll keep you posted...
    MitchKoss
  • Yes, it's terrible that they are erasing the trees, but they're trying to survive. They need other options. So, now they starve? Offer them another way of earning a living before you take this away..
    patsarts
  • The deforestation of the Amazon is terrible indeed, however I reckon the fact that slave labour still exists in that part of the world of of grave concern. Further, the issue of deforestation of the Amazon in Brasil was covered in one of Adam Y's pods, and gives a closer look at the issue, what some in the area are trying to do to prevent or slow deforestation, and the lack of ability of the Federal government to enforce anti deforestation laws.

    Good work guys.
    UWAZell

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