José A. Lutzenberger, weltweit bekannter und aktiver Ökologe, Pionier einer biologischen Landwirtschaft und Kritiker der neoliberalen Globalisierung ist am 14.5.2002 in Porto Alegre (Südbrasilien) gestorben. Wir haben mit ihm seit vielen Jahren zusammengearbeitet und seine Texte in Europa verbreitet. Sein letzter Text "Sinn des Lebens" wurde uns am 6. 6. 2002 von seine Tochter Lilly zur Veröffentlichung zur Verfügung gestellt
Zum Tod von José Lutzenberger:
Lieber Matthias und liebe Maria,
Ja, es stimmt leider, dass unser Vater diese Woche gestorben ist. Er
ist am Dienstag, den 14. Mai um 10:45 AM an einem Herzanfall
gestorben. Er wurde die letzten Monate und besonders die letzten
Wochen immer schwächer, aber niemand von uns hätte erwartet dass er
uns so plötzlich verlassen würde!!
Es ist unser Wunsch seine Arbeit, besonders über die Stiftung die er
1987 gegründet hat, die Fundação Gaia, fortzuführen.
Alles Liebe,
Lara und Lilly Lutzenberger
Porto Alegre (Brasilien)
17.5.2002 abends
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Siehe auch noch den Nachruf von Christian Felber: "Grünes
Gewissen Brasiliens" ist tot
Naturbeobachter, Nobelpreisträger, Globalisierungskritiker Lutzenberger gestorben
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José Lutzenberger wirkt weiter
In der Internet-Suchmaschine Google (mit über 1.500 Einträgen zum José Lutzenberger) habe ich (am 18.5.) keine Meldungen deutschsprachigen Medien über seinen Tod (am 14.5.) gefunden. Nur im "Guardian" (siehe unten), eine kleine Notiz in der "New York Times" und einen Bericht in der brasilianischen Zeitung "Estada". Diese berichtet, dass José Lutzenberger in einem Wäldchen auf seiner Farm "Rincão Gaia", nördlich von Porto Alegre beerdigt wurde.
Als sein langjähriger Freund werde ich seine Bitte weiter erfüllen, seine Ideen, Texte und ihre praktische Umsetzung weiterzutragen. Ihr findet einige davon in unserer homepage www.begegnungszentrum.at/texte/lutzenberger und weitere Informationen in mehreren Sprachen direkt auf der homepage seiner Stiftung "Gaia" www.fgaia.org.br. Wir haben auch noch ein Video über einen Vortrag in einer Landwirtschaftsschule "Gegen die Abschaffung der Bauern" *).
Unser Freund Lutzenberger, geehrt mit dem "Alternativen Nobelpreis" war nicht nur für die Bauern ein Pionier der biologischen Landwirtschaft und der alternativen Energien, sondern auch für uns alle einer, der in die Debatten - etwa zur Ökologie und zur Globalisierung, aber auch zu überentwickelten Strukturen (Beispiel: EU, USA...) - immer wieder grundsätzliche Überlegungen einbrachte. Seine Fragen, ob und wo diese negativen Entwicklungen eine Grenze unumkehrbar überschritten haben, waren eine für viele unbequeme Herausforderung, mit der er sich selbst und seine Gesprächspartner ständig konfrontierte. Seine Mahnrufe sind nicht ungehört verhallt, sondern werden von Millionen - vor allem auch Bauern im verarmten "Süden” - aufgegriffen und in ihre Kampagnen und Protestaktionen weitergetragen. Er hat noch gemeinsam mit Hermann Scheer (Deutschland) bei dem 2. World Social Forum (WSF) Ende Jänner 2002 in seiner Heimatstadt Porto Alegre einen Workshop geleitet und seinen Text über "Die Absurdität der modernen Landwirtschaft" zu der Textsammlung des WSF beigesteuert.
Bitte verbreitet auch ihr seine Informationen weiter!
Matthias Reichl
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit,
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Österreich
e-mail: info @ begegnungszentrum.at
www.begegnungszentrum.at
*) Kritik der techno-bürokratischen Machtstrukturen (ein eder Videofilm - 1995)
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Jose Lutzenberger
Jan Rocha
Thursday May 16, 2002
The Guardian
A one-time chemical engineer with a multinational company, he changed sides to become Brazil's foremost environmental campaigner
Jose Lutzenberger, who has died, aged 75, of heart failure after respiratory complications brought on by asthma, was one of the pioneers of Brazil's environmental movement. Unconventional and outspoken, he went from being the employee of a multinational chemical company to becoming an award-winning environmentalist and vehement critic of biotechnology companies like Monsanto.
He was born in Brazil's most southern state, Rio Grande do Sul, to a family of German descent, one of the thousands who had come to Brazil in the 19th century to settle the land. With a degree in chemical engineering at the local university and a PhD from the University of Louisiana, he went to Germany to work for BASF Chemicals in the 1950s. He was sent to Venezuela and Morocco and seemed to have embarked on a successful career as a multinational employee. But when BASF began making pesticides, Lutzenberger decided to return to Brazil.
Back in his home town, Porto Alegre, in 1971 he helped to found Agapan, Brazil's first green non-governmental organisation, and became its president. The NGO made a name for itself by leading a public campaign against a Norwegian woodpulp factory, whose evil-smelling fumes were polluting Porto Alegre. This was at a time when the military were in power, and criticism of any kind was seen as subversive. The campaign forced the company to sell up to a Brazilian one, which installed anti- pollution equipment.
Lutzenberger was also one of the first to denounce the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, appearing as narrator in British film maker Adrian Cowell's TV series on the subject. In 1987 he left Agapan to become president of Brazil's Gaia Foundation, and in 1988 he was chosen to receive the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel, one of the 85 awards he won for his work in defence of the environment.
But in 1990 he surprised the green movement by accepting the post of environment minister in the government of President Fernando Collor, a political up start who had unexpectedly won the election and whose administration later ended in ignimony when he was forced out of office for corruption.
Collor had realised the influence of the international environmental lobby and decided that Lutzenberger would give him useful green credentials, while Lutzenberger believed that he could achieve more in government than outside. He began by persuading Collor to recognise and protect the land of the Yanomami indians in the northern Amazon, expelling hordes of wildcat goldminers who were decimating the Indians and destroying their rainforest habitat.
It was also largely thanks to Lutzenberger, a visitor to Highgrove, that Prince Charles visited the Amazon aboard the Royal Yacht in 1991, hosting an environmental gathering on board. And in May 1992 Rio was the site of the biggest ever United Nations conference on the environment and development - the first Earth summit.
But by then Lutzenberger had left the government, disillusioned with the intrigues and corruption. He later said: "Just to remember Brasilia makes me feel ill". He turned up instead at the parallel alternative summit in Rio, to give a passionate speech warning of the dangers of the transnational biotechnology corporations, which were beginning to take over the world's seed companies as part of their plan to control the world's farmers. From then on Lutzenberger devoted his life to promoting sustainable agriculture and denouncing what he said was the social and environmental havoc being wrought by modern farming methods.
Two years ago, I went to interview him with Sue Branford, because we were writing a book on the MST, Brazil's non-violent movement of landless peasants, which has won land and set up hundreds of settlements around the country. At the Gaia Foundation's centre, where he was giving some of the MST settlers courses in organic farming, he told us: "The modern farmer is only a tractor driver or a poison sprayer. He is only a tiny cog in an enormous and highly complicated techno-bureacratic structure that begins in the oilfields, goes through the whole chemical industry and the huge agribusiness industry - I'd rather call it the food-manipulating, denaturing and contaminating industry - and ends up in the supermarkets".
Passionate and unconventional to the last, he gave us the interview sprawled naked in a deckchair, beside a disused quarry used for skinny dipping. He went on: "Another lie they spread is that peasant farming is unproductive. By comparing say maize yields between Mexican Indian farmers and modern farms. But in between their rows the Indians grow beans and other crops. You can't compare this with monoculture".
Lutzenberger was a heavy smoker up to the age of 50. He is survived by two daughters, both biologists.
· Jose Lutzenberger, environmental campaigner, born December 17 1926; died May 14 2002
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Lutzenberger é enterrado dentro desantuário ecológico
O desejo expresso pelo ambientalista em vida foi atendido: seucorpo foi enrolado num pano, sem sapatos, e colocado na terra
Porto Alegre - O corpo do ambientalista José Lutzenberger foi enterrado hoje dentro um bosque no Rincão Gaia, um santuário ecológico que ele mantinha em Pantano Grande, no interior do Rio Grande do Sul. Conforme desejo expresso em vida, Lutzenberger foi enrolado num pano, sem sapatos, e colocado na terra sem caixão.
Lutzenberger morreu ontem de parada cardíaca, aos 75 anos. Em vida notabilizou-se como defensor da natureza, após abandonar o emprego de executivo da Basf, em 1971. Criou a Associação Gaúcha de Proteção ao Ambiente Natural (Agapan), uma das primeiras entidades ambientalistas do Brasil, forçou o fechamento de indústrias poluidoras, atacou desmatamentos, agrotóxicos e transgênicos. Também ganhou o prêmio The Right Livelihood Award, o Nobel Alternativo e foi ministro do Meio Ambiente do governo Collor.
Nos últimos tempos criou polêmica com o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra ao defender os latifúndios do sul do Rio Grande do Sul por formarem, segundo Lutzenberger, um cenário natural intocável.
Elder Ogliari
http://www.estadao.com.br/ciencia/noticias/2002/mai/15/318.htm
http://www.artewebbrasil.com.br/webingles/expoanterioresi/JoseLutzi/conteudolutzeni.htm
Vater José Lutzenberger (mit Abbildungen )
(Put on the internet on 19.05.2002)