Brazilian president says 'gringos' must pay to protect Amazon

Brazil's president said today that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich western countries had caused much more environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rainforest. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was speaking before an Amazon summit at which delegates signed a declaration calling for financial help from the industrialised world to halt deforestation, which contributes to global warming. "I don't want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree," Lula said. "We want to preserve, but they will have to pay the price for this preservation because we never destroyed our forest like they mowed theirs down a century ago." In Brazil, the word "gringo" generally refers to anyone from the northern hemisphere.