Amazon an international patrimony

Every once in a while i get this text in a chain email, i thought i'd translate it, because i like it... i can't really prove its authenticity, nevertheless...

"During a debate in a university in the States (around year 2000), the then Brazilian Minister for Education, Cristóvão Buarque, was questioned about what he thought about internationalizing the Amazons (a topic that reoccurs often in some sectors of American society, and that bothers tremendously the Brazilians). A young American student asked this question, saying that he hoped to get the answer of a humanist and not that of a Brazilian. This was Mr. Buarque's answer:

In fact, as a Brazilian i would simply argue against the internationalization of the Amazons. As much as our governments don't show the proper care for this patrimony, it is ours. As a humanist, and feeling the risk of the environmental degradation the Amazons are suffering, i can well imagine its internationalization, as well as of everything else which is important for humanity.

If the Amazons, under humanistic ethics, should be internationalized, then let us also internationalize the oil reserves of the whole world. Oil is as important to the well-being of humanity as is the Amazons for our future. nevertheless, the owners of these reserves, feel they are entitled to raise or lower its extraction and raise or not its price.

In the same way the financial capital of rich countries should be internationalized. If the Amazons are a reserve for all the human beings, then it cannot be burned by the will of one owner or one country. Burning the Amazons is as serious as the unemployment caused by arbitrary decisions made by global speculators. We cannot allow that the financial reserves are used to burn entire countries by the lust for speculation.

Even before the Amazons, I'd like to see the internationalization of all the great museums in the world. The Louvre should not belong to France alone. Each museum is the guardian of the most beautiful pieces produced by the human genius. We cannot leave this cultural heritage, like the natural heritage of the Amazons, to be manipulated and destroyed by the taste of one owner or one country. Not too long ago, a Japanese millionaire decided he should be buried with a painting of one of the great masters. Before that, that painting should have been internationalized.

During this meeting, the United Nations are holding the Millennium Forum, but some of the presidents of some countries could not attend due to restrictions at the US border. Therefore, i think that New York, as the home of the United Nations, should be internationalized. At least Manhattan should belong to the whole of humanity. As well as Paris, Venice, Rome, London, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Recife, each city, with its specific beauty, its world History, should belong to the entire world.

If the US want to internationalize the Amazons, because of the risk of leaving it at the hands of the Brazilians, let's then internationalize all the nuclear weapons of the US. Even because they have already demonstrated that they are capable of using them, provoking a destruction thousands of times bigger than the regrettable burns made in the Brazilian forests.

In their debates, the current candidates to the US presidency, have defended the idea of internationalizing the Amazons in exchange for the debt. Let's start using this debt to guarantee that each child of the World has the possibility to EAT and go to school. Let's internationalize the children, treating them, all of them, regardless of the country where they were born, as a patrimony of the entire world. Even more than what the Amazons deserve. When the leaders treat the poor children of the world as a Humanity patrimony, they will not let them work when they should be studying, that they die when they should live.

As a humanist, i accept to defend the internationalization of the World. But as long as the World treats me as a Brazilian, i will fight for the Amazons to be ours. Ours alone!"