News

News

TRH visit Rio de Janeiro in Brazil

12th March 2009

The Prince of Wales today warned the world risked bequeathing future generations a “poisoned chalice” if climate change wasn’t tackled.

In a speech to business leaders in Brazil, The Prince highlighted how we had only “100 months to act” to alter our behaviour or risk “catestrophic” environmental damage to the world.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall have travelled to South America to focus on the UK Government’s climate change priorities, and The Prince’s speech in Rio de Janeiro follows on from one he made in Chile on environmental issues.

Addressing the Brazilian business leaders at the Itamaraty Palace, The Prince said that global greenhouse emissions were still rising inexorably despite the evidence of the damage they were causing to the planet - disappearing glaciers, melting icecaps and more extreme weather.

The Prince described this failure to adequately tackle the causes of the problem as "gambling away our future".

But he added the global economic downturn offered the world an opportunity as it told us that sustainable development would be the primary driver of economic prosperity in the future.

Speaking in Rio de Janeiro ahead of a visit to the heart of Brazil's Amazon rainforest, The Prince echoed a speech he made in Brazil in 1991, warning that economic difficulties should not stop the world tackling environmental problems.

He told the invited guests: "... any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the worldwide economy.

"It will result in vast movements of people escaping either flooding or drought; uncertain production of food and lack of water and, of course, increasing social instability and potential conflict."

He added: "If we once more redouble our efforts to unite the world in meeting perhaps its greatest and most crucial challenge, then we may yet be able to prevail.

And thereby to avoid bequeathing a poisoned chalice to our children and grandchildren we only have 100 months to act."

During his address delivered at the Itamaraty Palace, The Prince praised Brazil's efforts to safeguard the Amazon.

Last summer the country's President Lula launched a global fund to protect the rainforest and combat climate change with officials hoping to raise 21 billion US dollars by 2021.

At four million square kilometres the rainforest is the world's largest, covering most of the vast Amazon basin but around 14% of it has already been destroyed.

The Prince’s concern for the vital eco-systems led him to set up an initiative in October 2007 to help stop their destruction.

The Prince's Rainforest Project is working to make the natural resources "worth more alive than dead" in countries where producers are clearing the land to meet a demand for goods like beef, palm oil, and logs.

During the speech His Royal Highness also described a proposal his Project is developing to launch a bond which would be bought by investors and underwritten by developed countries with the proceeds going to rainforest nations to help them develop their economies without destroying the forests.

While The Prince of Wales was addressing the business leaders, The Duchess of Cornwall visited the National Trauma and Orthopaedics Institute (INTO) where she met with a team of doctors and nurses and patients who have been treated for fragility fractures. 

INTO is a federal institute run by the Ministry of Health and is South America’s leading institute for trauma and orthopaedics.  Covering the whole chain of osteoporosis diseases including post-trauma osteoporosis and prevention, its research projects focus on both male and female patients. 

The Duchess also met with representatives of FENAPCO, the National Federation of Associations of Patients and Prevention of Osteoporosis.  Affiliated with the International Osteoporosis Foundation, its mission is to give support to organisations in Brazil related to osteoporosis and to inform the public about prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. 

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall later visited the Luta pela Paz (Fight for Peace) project in one of the disadvantaged areas of the city. 

Set up by Briton Luke Dowdney, the project helps underprivileged kids through sport, education and work opportunities to lead them away from a life of crime and violence. 

When Their Royal Highnesses first arrived at the Complexo da Mare, a collection of favelas in Rio, they were mobbed by dozens of the area's residents who were lining the narrow cobbled streets and standing in front of their makeshift dilapidated homes.

Young children ran around The Prince and The Duchess and His Royal Highness was encouraged to dance by three flamboyantly dressed samba women when a band of percussionists began hammering out an earth-shattering beat.

One of the dancers, Eris Chocolate, 28, said through an interpreter after dancing with the heir to the throne: "It means an awful lot to the community the Prince coming here and the community want to embrace him in return."

Mr Dowdney, a former amateur boxer, was a masters student studying anthropology who travelled to Brazil to work on a thesis about violence against street kids.

He later became involved in using sport to help the disadvantaged youngsters and in 2000 set up his Fight for Peace centre in the middle of the favela offering boxing training as a means to reach out to the kids.

Mr Dowdney said: "It's tragic a 10-year-old from the favelas will choose involvement with the drugs trade instead of going to school.

"The big tragedy is we have hundreds of kids dying from gun violence - it's a very harsh life, there's no second chances but we're trying to find them a second chance.

"We say to them, 'Come in and we can get you a job or get you into school'."

Their Royal Highnesses toured the centre and watched boxers sparring in a ring and others working out with punch bags and there were also wrestlers practising their moves.

They also met one of Mr Dowdney's success stories, Roberto Custodio, 21, a light-welterweight boxer on the Brazilian national team who first came to the project aged 14 and developed into a promising boxer who only yesterday returned from a bout in Italy.

In the late afternoon, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited Rio’s tropical garden to tour the outdoor space and meet Brazil's environment minister Carlos Minc.

Chief Raoni Mentuktire, leader of the South American country's Kayapo Indians, chatted briefly to The Prince and urged him to publicise the battle to save the Amazon.

The campaigner had a traditional wooden disc in his lip and has travelled around the world with popstar Sting promoting their fight to save the eco-systems.

Before leaving the garden The Prince and The Duchess strolled through its wide avenues and stopped to look at the famous Rio statue Christ the Redeemer that stands on a huge outcrop overlooking the city.

---