Swedish tycoon defends interest in Amazon
Johan Eliasch, a London-based Swedish tycoon who is in legal hot water with Brazil over logging on land he owns in the Amazon forest, on Wednesday defended his environmental credentials in a statement published by the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
In the article, Eliasch, the 46-year-old boss of the Head sports company and an environmental advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, did not address a 275-million-dollar fine Brazil has levied against one of his companies for allegedly illegally cutting down 230,000 trees and lacking certification for Amazon land it owns.
A source close to him in London told AFP on Saturday that the allegations are false and related to decisions made by the company, Gethal, before Eliasch bought it in 2005.
Instead, Eliasch concentrated on another charge Brazilian authorities have reportedly made against him for allegedly telling businessmen in 2006 and 2007 that “‘only’ 50 billion dollars would be needed to acquire all the forest.”
“I never said that!” Eliasch wrote in his newspaper comment published in Portuguese.
He asserted that what he said was that “the amount spent by insurance companies to compensate the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — around 75 billion dollars — was greater than the hypothetical value of the Amazon forest.”
