To conserve unprotected land as national parks and ecological reserves, Brazil recently cancelled thousands of false and undocumented land ownership claims in the Amazon region. The strictly protected lands will be used to implement the first phase of the Amazon Region Protected Areas project, aiming to create 28.5 million hectares of new protected areas within 10 years. The other reclaimed areas will be protected as extraction reserves and national forests.
Earlier, in April 2001, when the Brazilian Parliamentary Commission was holding hearings into the issue of loggers and farmers squatting on Amazon public lands, Greenpeace and eight other civil organisations had presented a proposal to the commission to conserve lands reclaimed from the squatters.
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