Shamans fight Amazon blaze

Shamans fight Amazon blaze

BRASILIA (Reuters): Two shamans were called in Sunday to help
fight the fires that have raged through the Amazon rain forest
for two months and shown up Brazil's lack of readiness to combat
such disasters by conventional means.

"They are going to hold a ceremony inside the Yanomami
reservation," said Marcos Ferreira, an official at the
government's Indian Foundation (Funai). "It is a ritual to repel
the smoke and if possible, bring on rain."

Firefighters say only heavy rains can douse the fires, set by
poor subsistence farmers, which have burned out of control in
northern Roraima state and destroyed an area of highland savannah
and virgin rain forest potentially as large as Lebanon.

The state government declared a state of calamity in January
but its appeals for help from the federal government went largely
ignored until the media and environmental pressure groups drew
attention to the scope of the disaster in March.