Two disparate developments this month—the murder of an American nun and a government decision to reinstate 14 logging licenses—have administered a double dose of public attention to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará.

By far the higher-profile of the two events was the Feb. 12 killing of Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old nun who had worked for years in Pará promoting small-scale sustainable farming and forestry while opposing illegal land grabs and deforestation by large-scale loggers and ranchers. (See “Brazil conflicted over road paving plan,”—EcoAméricas, June ’03.)

Stang, formerly of Dayton, Ohio, was gunned down in a small settlement near the town of Anapu, about 435 miles (700 kms) southwest of the Pará state capital of Belém. Immediately after the killing, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who knew Stang, dispatched a special investigations unit to the area.

The government announced it also would send environment and land-reform officials as well as federal police and army personnel to step up the fight against land grabs and protect other activists in the area who have been threatened with death.

Harder line urged