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- WORLD, Page 76World NotesBRAZILFending Off The World
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- Though most of the 22,000 Yanomami Indians living in Stone
- Age conditions in South America are not aware of it, their
- survival has been a cause for conservationists and
- anthropologists for 20 years. Responding to their recent
- campaign, Venezuela in June set aside a 32,000-sq.-mi. preserve
- for the Yanomami.
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- At the end of October, Brazil's President Fernando Collor
- de Mello had been expected to do the same thing when he
- designated 71 protected areas for other indigenous peoples.
- Instead, under pressure from the military and mining interests,
- Collor postponed his decision. Several weeks later, he changed
- course again. He announced that 36,000 sq. mi. of Amazon rain
- forest adjoining the Venezuelan sanctuary will be set aside for
- the undisturbed use of the Yanomami, who roam freely across the
- area.
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- Leaders of the nonprofit Commission for the Creation of
- the Yanomami Park were jubilant, praising Collor for his
- courage. "This is the best news of my life," Claudia Andujar,
- the commission's coordinator, said last week. The Yanomami, the
- largest tribe still living in a primitive state in the Americas,
- offered no comment.
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