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 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concluded today the South American phase of his latest tour with a visit to the Amazon rainforest and meetings with local indigenous leaders. Climate change remained the focus of his trip.
Ban took a boat ride on the Amazon River and visited Combu Island, where he met with indigenous community leaders, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told journalists.
Speaking to reporters at Combu Island, Ban described the Amazon as a common asset of all mankind that must be preserved, and he added that the region's inhabitants are the pioneers in preserving the rainforest.
The UN chief is now scheduled to travel to Tunisia to attend an international counter-terrorism conference, organized by the UN, the Tunisian Government and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. From there, he heads to Valencia, Spain, to participate in launching the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The Secretary-General has already visited Argentina, Chile and Antarctica before he reached Brazil, where he held talks yesterday with the country's President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The two men discussed the relationship between the UN and Brazil, Ban's appreciation for Brazil's contribution to UN peacekeeping missions, especially in Haiti, and the plans to hold a high-level meeting next year on the progress so far towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the set of anti-poverty targets which world leaders have committed to try to achieve by 2015.
Ban and Lula also talked about climate change, Ms. Okabe said, and the Secretary-General asked for a greater Brazilian contribution to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), given the growing number of natural disasters worldwide.
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Should everyone on Earth, every government on Earth have some influence over the territory of Amazonia just because it is so necessary for the well-being of the planet? I say no...No...NO!!!
There were regions of the Earth quite as fertile and important as the Amazon in Africa, Asia, and North America. Those regions were systematically destroyed to 'improve' their societies. Now the greatest intact natural habitat should be turned over to ministers from the same people who destroyed their own. Ah, they have now learned the lesson. Well, if they have learned their lesson and they are indeed sorry for their error, let them rebuild their forests and their natural habitat. Let them administer their own resources in such a way that others may learn to save the Amazon. Let them make ecological corridors on their territory to be administered by the UN or others. What will they contribute except their 'authority' to control what is not theirs.
There are ways to pressure the Amazonia nations to properly administer this territory. That pressure should be applied in such a way to remove the profit incentive. The indigenous peoples of Amazonia are the rightful owners and noone will acknowledge that from the beginning. They are not destroying their land for profit, yet no one proposes that they should administer their homeland. They have survived thousands of years without the interference of others, but where is the proposal to make them the guardians of this great treasure? Ha! They are too stupid, no? Well, let's give them the technology and skills rather than take over their property, because that is what this discussion of who controls Amazonia is about; property, land, and resources. The "world leaders" do not trust the present governments of the region to perform as good stewards of the land which 'must' be protected. See, that word 'MUST' is very critical in this respect because it provides the urgency and catalyst for whatever is agreed between the world powers. They simply had to do what they did to save the world!
As a first step,yes, the UN can provide administrative, logistical, and funding to save the region. Enforcement can only come from the indigenous peoples of the region. Since the situation is recognized as being urgent, given the amount of habitat being destroyed, and the pace of that destruction, the penalty for commercial activity in the Amazonia region should be 'life at hard labor, without the possibility for parole'. Destroying the habitat is tantamount to endangering humanity and should be dealt with very harshly. There are laws in place in several of the regions countries. The simple truth is that greed has outpaced enforcement. It is a very large region to police and that is where the UN and others can assist and 'observe'. The technology is readily available to find those destroying these lands. Satellites, aviation, wireless detection systems, and the indigenous people are all available to be used in this mission. However, the real issue is enforcement, and UN troops are not the answer. A 'professional force' of regional countries is more likely to be more effective. These forces should come under the direct control of an indigenous council with leadership of the council rotating among national members every 2 years. This prevents the councils corruption by shortening their leadership tenure. This is possible!