As George Bush prepared to attend Emperor Hirohito's funeral in February, a top aide alerted him to a problem that would once have been considered unworthy of presidential attention. Since Japanese furniture makers are eager for tropical hardwoods, officials in western Brazil hoped that Tokyo would finance the paving of a 500-mile road that would link the Amazon to a Peruvian highway, allowing lumberers to truck their timber directly to Pacific ports. But the plan, Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates cautioned the President, would subject the western Amazon to more of the slash-and-burn land clearing that has already devastated much...
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