RIO DE JANEIRO (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday in a national forum here that the Amazon belongs to the Brazilian people.

""The world must understand that the Brazilian Amazon has an owner, and that the owner is the Brazilian people,"" the president stressed, adding that Brazilians are aware of the need to reduce deforestation, as well as to develop the rainforest region.
These remarks appeared to be in response to some international sources who questioned the country's sovereignty over the region last week.
An article in The New York Times on May 18 expressed concern that the Brazilian government may not have the ability to take care of and preserve the rain forest. Several sectors of Brazilian society, including politicians and the media, slammed that viewpoint.
""We have the world's tenth largest economy, which proves that we know how to manage Brazil. I think that (the developed countries) do not doubt that,"" Minister Gilmar Mendes, president of the country's Federal Supreme Court, told the press, following the meeting with the governor of Mato Grosso state, located in the Amazon region.
As to the rumors that foreign investors could acquire more land in the area, Mendes stressed that ""the Brazilian government has mechanisms"" which can control the acquisition of land by foreigners.
He also promised that the government would obverse the issue ""in an appropriate way.""
The Amazon rainforest, which borders several South American nations and is home to 27 million people out of Brazil's total population of 185 million, is facing the risk of excessive deforestation.