Rolling Stone article- original text

STING: Is He Raping the Virgin Forest?

EXPLOITATION: (eks’ploi’tay’shun), n. : 1. The act of exploiting, utilization; especially, selfish or unfair utilization. 2. Hence, to make use of for one’s own advantage or profit.

The exploitation of the Amazon rainforest is a sad fact. However, the exploitation of the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest is also a fact. Whereas the former is evidenced by columns of smoke rising over a green canopy, the latter is masked by a smokescreen of selfless scarifice to a noble cause. However, exploitation, by definition, does require someone to make a benefit, and, in this case, the culpable parties are clearly visible.

Sting, the former lead singer of the Police and now solo artist, has recently joined the fray. Waving the banner of ecological concern, he has quite publicly stepped to the forefront of this burning issue. Armed with a group of ‘pop’-environmentalists, he has begun a worldwide campaign to single-handedly raise public consciousness.

That may be true, but he is also trying to raise money. He is asking you to donate funds to his charity, and that changes everything.

People who solicite money from the general public are always subject to scrutiny, whether it is a clouchard in the street, or the cancer society in the post.

When a celebrity is asking you for money, they are held, quite properly, to a higher standard, because their fame allows them free use of the powerful media machine. They can gain access to the press, television, and radio merely by the use of their name, and, for that reason, they must be absolutely honest and forthright. A celebrity and his cause is subject to close examination, and Sting fails the test.

First, a little background. In 1987, Sting was in Rio de Janero putting on a concert, when he was approached by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, a Belgian documentary film-maker who, in 1979, had made a film on Raoni, chief of the Brazilian rainforest tribe of Kayapo indians. Dutilleux took Sting, and his ‘companion’(commonly called in journalese ‘Mrs. Sting’), the actress, Trudie Styler, on a four-hour overflight of the rainforest to watch the clearing by fire, and introduced him to Raoni.

Is Sting impressed? Immediately committed to try and stop the destruction and come to the aid of the impovrished indians?

Well, no. But wait.

A year later, after the topic of worldwide tropical rainforest destruction has appeared in the media, Sting is back in Brazil. He is, strangely enough, raising consciousness and raising money by playing with the Amnesty International Tour in Sao Paolo. Dutilleux tries again, bringing Raoni with him to meet Sting. This time, the idea of the Foundation is formed.

So, in February 1989, Sting goes back to the Amazon with Dutilleux and meets again with Raoni, gathers up a couple of other good-looking, disc-in-the-lip, native indian chiefs, and holds a press conference.

The FUNDACAO MATA VIRGEM (roughly translated: the foundation for the Virgin Forest) is announced and sets off on an around-the-world crusade.

What is the purpose of the Fundacao Mata Virgem? To stop the wholesale destruction of the rainforest?

Well, not exactly.

The primary stated objective is to raise $3.5 million for the demarcation of a nature park in the Amazon. Specifically, that part of the Amazon where Raoni and his tribe live.

Is that going to stop the wholesale destruction of the rainforest?

Well, not exactly.

Considering that it only amounts to about .36% of the total, this park doesn’t account for much.

But it’s a start. And it’s good press. And that’s what they want you to believe.

So now Sting, along with Dutilleux, film crews and photographers, have a 45 minute meeting with President Jose Sarney of Brazil and ask him to support their project. Sarney is a little pressed for time because he has to leave for Emperor Hirohito’s funeral in Tokyo, but ‘gives them the green light’. That is a downright magnanimous thing to do, considering he’s also giving the ‘green light’ to just about everyone and their brother who wants to torch the forest.

Exactly what Sarney agreed to is rather ambiguous, but he did agree to smile and shake hands and pose for the press photographers with Sting, the famous rock star. At most, Sarney agreed to let them study a proposal of the demarcation of a national park. There is no park, not yet, and not a promise of being allowed to do anything. In every piece of literature from the various foundations, a single term keeps appearing: “the Green Light.” President Sarney gave them “The Green Light.” Exactly what “The Green Light” was given to is never clearly stated. Whatever Sarney gave his “Green Light” to, that light will go out in March, when, barring a military coup d’etat, a newly elected president will take office. The two presidential candidates in the December 17th election are not noted for their environmental stance or great concern for the Amazon, and neither of them has given a “green light”, or, for that matter, any light at all, to anything concerning their proposed project.

This is where the Sting sting starts to take shape. Perhaps it is naivety, and his intentions are truly environmental; perhaps it is not just self-aggrandizing publicity he seeks, but is a real concern for our endangered atmosphere; perhaps he is sincerely perturbed by the decimation of the tropical home of the indigenous indians.

It just doesn’t seem that way. The facts show something else: He is either exploiting the issue, or else is, himself, being exploited.

What followed was a worldwide publicity campaign employing all the slick, quick-fire video techniques that advertising professionals have perfected. Instead of marketing soap, this time they were merchandising a ‘pop’-humanitarian and playing on people’s fears to generate money.

Just look at the television spot he made to raise funds for his Rainforest Foundation:

It opens with Sting, then photos of Sting with the indians, then Sting showing maps of possible projected deforestation. There is a cut to stock footage of floods and other disasters while Sting gives the voice-over:

“The faster the forest burns, the quicker the planet warms up....the greenhouse effect...... earthquakes...hurricanes....droughts... famines....

I am worried...What are we leaving for our children?

If you want to protect the rainforest for the indians and for your children and grandchildren, you can help create a vast Amazon National Park by making a donation to the Rainforest Foundation. It’s up to us...Now..”

Now, wait a second here. Let’s back up.

“Earthquakes?” “Earthquakes???”

Is this a new scientific discovery? The burning of tracts of Amazon forest causes earthquakes???

Sting, the ‘pop’-geophysicist, has discovered a new cause-and-effect for continental plate drift. The citizens of San Franciso must be relieved. Not to mention all the victims of hurricanes and droughts throughout the centuries that now know the reasons for their suffering. Not that any of these things ever occurred before Sting discovered how to exploit the Amazon.

And the money? Is it going to help create a vast Amazon National Park?

No.

In fact, the land to be demarcated consists of the Xingu National Park (of which Raoni’s nephew is the Director) and the adjacent territories of several indiginous indian tribes whose land is already legally protected under the terms of the new Brazilian Constitution. In fact, the boundries of the Xingu National Park are already marked, with signs posted, and, under the Brazilian law, the boundries of the other indiginous indian lands must be marked within the next five years. At best, the money allocated for ‘demarcation’ will go to carry out an obligation of the Brazilian government, or else be turned over to Fundacao Nacional do Indio (FUNAI), a department of the Ministry of the Interior.

And Dutilleux, for one, is fully aware of that.

Then what is the reason for trying to convince everyone that the goal is to create “a vast Amazon National Park”?

Sting revealed what he and Dutilleux told a FUNAI official in order to gain his cooperation: “the Foundation needs a project that will capture people’s imagination. If we do that we can raise a lot of money, but we need the demarcation.”

The money.

What of the claim to “protect the indians”?

Which indians? If Sting were so truly concerned about the intrusion into the lives of native tribes, he wouldn’t be concentrating on Raoni and his group of Kayapos. The Kayapo are secure in their region of the Amazon and are under no threat. He should be screaming about the Nambiquara and the Yanomami.

The Nambiquara tribe lost over half its population when a new road was put through the western state of Rondonia. Those that weren’t shot down when they attacked the settlers, quickly succumbed to western diseases they had neither the immunity nor medicine to combat.

The Yanomami, located in an isolated corner of the Amazon near Venezuela, were only ‘discovered’ in 1950. They continued to live, relatively undisturbed, in their primative backwater until 1975 when, unfortunately for them, gold, uranium, an a few other valuable ores were dug up in their backyard.

Eager to exploit these riches, the government started putting in roads, and miners started opening mines, and very soon, the Yanomami were under invasion. The Yanomami tried to fight back, but were up against powerful political, economic and military interests which were fully backed by the state. Like the American indians of the old west, their fate was sealed.

While Sting is playing a safe bet with the Kayapos in their undeveloped virgin forest, the Yanomamis, in their ore-laden enclave, are being decimated.

While he brings Raoni, in an indian headdress and a nice, new, blue running-suit, to confront the press with their microphones, the Yanomami, in their jungle, are confronting the miners and their guns.

Where was Sting’s interest in the indians in December 1988, when the Confernece of Brazilian Bishops, crying out to be heard, said, “The Yanomami are in extreme danger of extermination. [They] are being massacred as if they were not human beings.” What was he concerned about then?

He was concerned with a press conference being held in London. Was it held as a symbol of unity with the tragic plight of the indians?

Well, not exactly...

It was to announce Sting’s latest cause: his new vegetarian fast-food restaurant chain and ‘environmentally-sound’ consumer products company!

There will be no Brazilian beef in his veggie-burgers, and ‘ARK’-brand soaps and detergents will not pollute the Thames.

While the Yanomami are being murdered by miners, Londoners will be happily munching soybean burgers served by that well-know conservationalist-capitalist, Sting. While 40 tons of mercury are dumped into the Amazon rivers each year to leach out gold, housewives at Harrod’s can save the environment and still get out the stains. Along with ‘Ark’ partners David Bowie and film director David Puttnam, Sting is into ecology for a profit.

Exploitation is going on here and, obviously, it’s not just exploitation of the forest. That may be a harsh thing to say, but ‘res ipsa loquitor’, as it’s put in Latin: the thing it speaks for itself.

The facts:

The destruction of the Amazon forest is the policy of the Brazilian government. It has been the aim of the government to clear land for economically productive uses, and open up the interior of the country for reasons ascribed to ‘national defense’. Brasilia, the nation’s capital, was itself cut out of virgin forest only some thirty years ago.

Why doesn’t President Sarney, if he is so concerned about this vanishing wilderness, take Draconian measures to stop the destruction?

Well, he’s concerned, but not really about the forest.

Faced with a stagnant economy and a staggering foreign debt, he’s surrounded by a mountain of problems, including a strong military with a history of overthrowing civilian governments it doesn’t like.

Revenue is needed and the forest is a saleable commodity. The majority of cleared forest land is used for cattle grazing, yet, because of various factors, ranching in Amazonia is unprofitable. It does, however, provide foreign exchange when exported and reduce imports when consumed domestically. Therefore, it is a major beneficiary of tax credits. In the past decade alone, over $1 Billion in subsidies have been spent to keep the industry viable and, in effect, encourage the destruction of the forest. The most obvious of these is the lower tax rate on cleared land versus forest. The most economical way of clearing forest and thus reducing tax rates, is to set it alight. Furthernore, a settler can stake a claim to any unowned forest land by merely ‘improving’ it, and that means clear it of trees.

In South America, military power means everything, and the Brazilian military wants the forest opened up. Neighboring such countries as Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina, access to the border regions allows the army to exert influence over domestic and foreign policy.

The best way of giving the military what it wants without the expenditure of government funds is by encouraging the timber industry. Logging requires roads and roads mean access. Timber exports generate both revenue and jobs, develop domestic resources, open up the interior and placate the generals. Everybody is happy, and it doesn’t cost the government any money.

Usually, but not always.

A case in point: A sweet little road was proposed to run from Acre Provence, in the heart of the Amazon Basin, through Peru to the Pacific Ocean. The idea was that hardwoods logged in the Basin, instead of having to go the long, log-losing, 2000-plus mile downriver route to the Atlantic, could instead be trucked to the Pacific. The World Bank was set to finance it, but backed out because of mounting international political pressure to stop deforestation. Japan, the major buyer of Brasilian tropical trees, came along offering to bankroll construction. It was a done deal.

The done deal, however, was destroyed. Enter George Bush, who, trying to live up to his tag as the ‘conservation’ president, armtwists the Japanese during, surprisingly enough, Emperor Hirohito’s funeral, not to fund the highway.

Sarney, when he heard this, was enraged. How dare the United States and Japan interfere with Brasilian sovereignty. Sarney then declared the road a national priority and announced that Brazil would fund it itself.

So, the road is going in, and Japan will get its hardwoods.

Sarney may sound a little hypocritical, giving Sting the ‘green light’ one day and helping to destroy the forest the next, but his stance on the issue is quite clear.

He has described environmentalism as “a Trojan Horse” to hide foreign interests in controlling Brasil’s economic and military development. He confronts the World Bank’s assertion that 12% of the forest is gone, claiming the same LandSat photos show it to be less that half of that. Leveling charges that this is all a vast conspiracy of multinational corporations, he says their true aim is to maintain control of world metal prices and delay exploitation of the vast Brasilian resources until they can buy up the land. “The Amazon is ours!” he cries with nationalistic fervor.

Equally blunt was the Peruvian Foreign Minister (Guillermo Larco Cox) who, denouncing foreign pressure to save the rainforest, said the Amazon countries would not accept “impositions from people who try and boss us around.”

They turn and point the finger to the northern hemisphere, crying ‘hypocrisy’ and cite the continuing deforestation and pollution there.

Brasil is also determined to develop its mineral resources and mining needs power. Electrical power. While attention is focused on fires, the destruction of the forest by flooding goes on relatively unnoticed.

To extract iron ore, tin, bauxite, and gold, as well as to feed the needs of a domestic population which will grow an estimated 60 million(to 200 million) by the year 2000, Brasil has 90 hydroelectric dams planned and 136 possible sites. The Amazon, being a relatively flat topographical region, will require vast tracts of forest to be flooded for a relatively small power output. The environmentalists tend to leave this topic alone, because the alternatives are equally bad, or worse: Nuclear power generation and the possibility of weapons capability or the burning of fossil fuels.

Brazil must continue to develop its economic strength to meet their future needs, and, for the present, to confront their $115.9 Billion foreign debt. Interest payments, alone, in 1988, were nearly $11 Billion. That’s Billions, with a ‘B’. That means a whole lot of zeros.

Along come some well-meaning and well-educated ecologists who figure that preservation will only be promoted when it’s profitable, and so devise what is called a “debt-for-nature swap.” The worried Western banks, already starting to write off the debt as worthless, instead sell it at a fraction of it’s value to a conservation front. They, in turn, donate the foreign, dollar-based debt, to Brasil, which, in exchange, issues the equivilant face-value amount in domestic currency bonds, which are donated to a domestic environmental institute charged with protecting a forest.

By garnering enough public support, especially by using well-known names to generate political backing, the industrialized countries and their banks will be pressured to exchange foreign debt for preservation of forested lands.

It sounds so nice, reducing a burdensome foreign debt for nothing but a promise of preservation. With all those legally protected indiginous indian lands to bargain with, Brazil has good reason to hold out for all it can get.

And what’s being discussed is ‘Billions’, with a ‘B’, and all those zeros.

So, of course, Sarney gives wholehearted support to Sting. The more noise Sting and his cohorts make, the greater the potential debt that can be written off.

But, what are the Brazilians really saying? Keep cutting down those trees and exporting the hardwoods for hard currency. Keep paving those roads to the mines. Keep extracting those ores and building those dams.

It’s all exploitation. And it’s all hypocrisy.

And what of Sting’s altruistic message to save the forest? As Shakespeare said, “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The destruction of the Amazon and all the other South American tropic forests contribute roughly seven to ten percent of the total carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere. That has got little to do with the ‘greenhouse’ effect.

Seventy percent of the 2 to 3 billion tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere each year comes from the burning of fossil fuels by industrialized nations. If that isn’t enough to heat up the greenhouse, then all the ozone-eating CFC’s the industrialized countries expel, will. Those are the real culprits. It is the cars we drive, the electricity we use, the oil and the coal.

The slash-and-burn techniques of tribal African farmers to clear the savannah for agriculture contribute three times as much CO2 as the burning of the rainforests. It’s just not as fashionable an topic, although it is almost equally impossible to do anything about.

In both of those cases, the majority of offenders are peasants faced with a subsistance level existance. They cannot understand, in any way, how burning a few hundred acres of an immense wilderness, so as to provide food for their families, is going to endanger the world.

They have never heard of Sting and really couldn’t care less. Maybe, if they clear a few hundred more acres, and are blessed by the gods with good weather and a bountiful harvest, they may just be able to earn enough disposable income to buy one of his cassettes and play it on a Walkman which had its circuits cleaned with Freon.

Sting knows this. “If I were a poor Brasilian with a family to feed,” he said, “I’d probably be out there burning down the forest too.”

But he’s not a poor Brasilian, is he? No, he a rich, famous British ‘pop’ star, who wants to become a ‘pop’-ecologist. He is exploiting the indians, exploiting the press, and exploiting the public.

If he were merely trying to ‘raise consciousness’ that would be excusable, but he’s not. He is trying to raise money.

He is using his celebrity status to get himself on the television and ask some little old lady, sitting alone in her living room, to send him 100 francs from her Social Security. And he is doing it dishonestly.

For that, there is no excuse.

So, where is the money going, and what is it being used for? Well, that is another can of worms.

First of all, Sting filmed his commercial in seven different languages. He sat in front of a camera and read the phonetically printed script off of a telepromter, after having his pronunciation coached by a language teacher. The commercials were distributed to the various rainforest foundations that were set up about the time of the round-the-world trip with Raoni. Each of those groups is seperate and autonomous, although Sting, Trudie Styler and Dutilleux sit on the Board of Trustees of several of them. Friends, associates, and family members also play a part. Dutilleux’s father, for example, heads the Belgian organization.

Each of these independant foundations have their own facilities, staffs, programs, and expenses. They employ their own methods of fund-raising and are not wholly accountable to the international association. Funding requests are submitted by the international foundation to the independant national groups, who can sent the money for use in Brazil or not.

Exactly how much money has been contributed is difficult to say, but the international foundation has raised over one and a half ($1.5) million dollars. That means that the individual national foundations have raised much more than that. Most of the money gets lost in a maze of accountants, lawyers, staff salaries and office expenses. Only a small percentage of what is donated will ever get near the Amazon.

A classic example of this was a fundraiser for ‘l’Association Pour La Foret Vierge’(The Association for the Virgin Forest), which was started by J.P. Dutilleux, Trudie Styler, and a few friends in Paris recently. They held a press party in one of Paris’s most fashionable restuarants, Le Doyen. Within the confines of it’s rich mahogany panelling, they were hustling 150 lithographes by a painter named Giuliano Mancini, for 12,000 francs each(roughly $2000).

Autographed by the Brazilian soccer star, Pele, the publicly announced goal was to raise funds for the Association, and henceforth, for the protection of the forest. When it was pointed out to one of the Association’s founders that the autographed lithograph being displayed was numbered 44 of 400, yet the run was supposedly limited to 150, the founder was at a loss to explain the whereabouts of the other 250 prints.

“Maybe the rest were destroyed,” she said.

Yeah, maybe.

Another foundation member, when confronted, explained that the artist had actually donated 200 signed prints, but fifty were being given out as gifts and promotions.

And the other 200?

“I don’t know. Maybe the artist kept them.”

Yeah, maybe.

And where was the money going from the sales of these artworks?

Well, only half of it would be going to the foundation. The other half was going to various participants, mostly the press agency that had been hired to promote the event.

And what an event it was! There was a princess and a Frech film star (Guy Hannion) and lots of well-dressed business types with coquettes in evening gowns in tow. Dutilleux was there and, of course, the ‘actress’, Trudie Styler.

All were standing around guzzling Moet Champagne and caviar and shrimp, watching a fifteen minute Dutilleux documentary on the destruction of the rainforest, and lamenting how terrible, gulp, munch, it all was.

That realization didn’t dampen the persistent ‘pop’ of champagne corks, however. Anything for a good party, and besides, it’s for charity. Except, it is being paid for with money donated for the rainforest.

But that’s just a little bit of hypocrisy.

Afterwards, the crowd and, especially, the press, was invited to watch a private screening of a new movie called ‘Fair Game’, starring, in her first lead role, who else but, Trudie Styler! What the hell that had to do with the destruction of the rainforest, nobody knows. It was, however, good P.R. for a really bad film. Bad, that is, unless you really want to see Mrs. Sting wiggle across the screen for ninety minutes in a bikini.

Using the forest issue to promote her film was a bit hypocritical, and a little bit of exploitation.

But there’s more...

After the champagne-dulled screening of the documentary, Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, that concerned ecologist, got up before the crowd and gave a little five minute speech on how terrible the destruction of the forest was, and how we all must try and stop it.

Facing the microphone and the cameras, he was dressed in a rumpled, green, khaki outfit, and sported a wide white necklace beneath his throat.

When the cameras were down, and the microphones off, Dutilleux mingled with the ‘bubbly’ and caviar crowd.

Asked about his distinctive necklace, he replied that it was made especially for him by a good friend of his.

And what was that wide, white, band of material which was lashed together in the middle of it?

“Pieces of old piano keys,” he said, somewhat evasively.

You mean IVORY??? The stuff they’ve been killing all those elephants in the forests for??? IVORY???The stuff that chain-saw weilding poachers have hacked off of African elephants to the point of extinction??? IVORY????

“Well, yes,” he whispered, “but, don’t tell anyone.”

Now that is hypocrisy, addressing a press conference, purportedly as a protecter of the environment, with bits of dead elephant tusk dangling from your neck.

And where is Sting in all this? Well, he didn’t make it to that press conference, but he does have a book out. Singer, actor, conservationist, resturanteur, soap salesman and now, author!

“Jungle Stories: The Fight for the Amazon” written with his pal, Jean-Pierre Dutilleux. A spokesperson for Berry and Jenkins, the London publishers, said that “all royalties are going to the Rainforest Foundation”. They were unwilling to discuss payments and profits, but anyone familiar with book contracts knows that royalties don’t amount to much unless it’s a blockbuster best seller.

Dutilleux confirms that “all royalties go to the Rainforest Foundation.” He was less eager to talk about payments and profits, but did admit that he had been paid to do the book and the foundation had yet to receive a royalty check. That’s brings up another problem.

And was Sting paid to do the book?

“I think you’d better ask Sting,” Dutilleux replied.

Well, we did ask Sting and....................

There is no proof, nor is there any allegation being made that any of these principal players, Sting, Trudie Styler, or Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, have taken a single centime from the funds which have been donated. Yet, they have benefited.

For Trudie Styler, the benefits are intangible. She has been given a level of recognition and respectability that could never have achieved as merely the ‘companion’ of a rock star. She now is a respected trustee of numerous rainforest foundations, and courted after as an authority on deforestation and the environment. All of this despite the fact that she has absolutely no practical scientific, economic, or educational background. “I’m not a scientist,” she said, “I’m an actress and a concerned mother.”

For Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, the benefits are much more tangible. By his own admission he was on the verge of bancruptcy in 1986, before he introduced Sting to the rainforest issue. “I was so broke I even had to sell my car to pay my bills,” he revealed.

Now things are a little different. First, there was the “Jungle Stories” book, and now there is a new one out, about Raoni on his world tour. Unlike the first book, however, only one-half the royalties will go to the rainforest foundation.

Money is always a tender topic to discuss, especially when it’s being related to a charitable foundation, and Dutilleux replies, justifiably, that he is a photographer, and makes his living by selling his photos and articles. He says that he has given almost half of what he has made to either Raoni or the foundation, and, a moment later, added that he has given them over $100,000. Well, you figure it out.

Sting has certainly reaped career benefits from all of this. If nothing else, he has elevated himself above the ranks of mere rock star. Whether it improves his box office draw as an actor, is yet to be seen, but all the free publicity couldn’t have hurt. To what extent he has benefited financially, he has refused to say............

Although the ethicality of this may be in question, there is no law that says one must take a vow of poverty to promote a cause which you believe in. However, deceptively soliciting public donations, is different. The public, in reality, is being asked to fund a publicity campaign, which in turn makes the market for book sales and fund solicitation even bigger. It is like a multiple fusion reaction, it gets bigger and then sustains itself, and then gets bigger and sustains itself again. All the while, the public is pumping in the money.

Aside from the continuing public relations effort, just where is the money going? What is the $1.5 million dollars that has finally reached international foundation being used for?

To protect the rainforest?

No.

To protect the indians that live in it?

No.

What then?

They bought an airplane. A nice, slightly used, twin engine Piper Seneca, costing somewhere between $160,000 and $200,000.

The reason: Somewhere along the line, they had promised to buy Raoni an airplane so he could fly around and visit the other chiefs, and, now with the money in the bank, he wanted his airplane. It should be noted that not all the national foundations went along with this. The Belgian foundation, for one, refused to participate, even though it is headed by Dutilleux’s father.

Is that going to help protect the rainforest?

Not when you have to clear a runway to land it on. But it will provide employment, however, unless they can teach Raoni to fly it. Then there is the international foundation’s medical program to combat indian malaria. Although that sounds like an impressive use of donated funds, in reality, it revolves around a plan to relocate Raoni’s village.

How this came about is that Raoni is the indian with malaria. Apparently a doctor was called in to look at him and other afflicted indians. The treatment wasn’t conventional anti-malarial medication or anti-mosquito insecticide. He recommended moving Raoni and his entire tribe to a new part of the rainforest.

Raoni’s nephew, the director of Xingu National Park, said this would cost $30,000. The Brazilian FUNAI official who oversees the Kayapo and must grant his approval for such a move, reportedly laughed when he heard that. According to one eyewitness, he said, “Where did you get that figure? It will cost $150,000. Give me $150,000 and then they can move.”

Now this guy knows how to exploit the rainforest!

As a result, the ‘medical project’ is budgeted somewhere between $30,000 and $180,000.

Is that going to help protect the rainforest?

Not likely.

In the final analysis, is there anything Sting’s Rainforest Foundation going to do that will actually protect the rainforest?

It is highly doubtful. Certainly, the money they are trying to raise will do nothing.

In commenting on this fiasco, Trudie Styler may have summed it up best. “I know this looks like a mess,” she said, “but our hearts are pure.”

That may be true. Perhaps it was only their judgement that was clouded.