Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched a program on Friday to regulate land ownership and protect rainforest in the Amazon area.

The so-called "Legal Land and Green Arch" program combined giving land titles to Amazon residents with paying the habitants to prevent deforestation, Lula said at the launching ceremony in a Amazon frontier town in Mato Grosso state.

The program will regulate the ownerships of 296,000 buildings occupied by settlers in nine states of the area.

The program will begin in 43 municipalities most affected by deforestation, and the goal for this year is to issue 90,000 titles of land in 93 municipalities.

Government agencies will coordinate under the plan to prevent illegal logging and train some 300 officials to prevent land-grabbing in some municipalities.

At the launching ceremony, Lula said the new plan will help environment conservation, and promised that Amazon inhabitants will not be treated as criminals for their past deforestation actions.

"If there was a moment when we could fall trees, now that actions work against us," Lula said.

Some western countries and environmentalists accused Brazil's neglect on dwellers and speculators' occupying, stealing and selling state land for decades, which accelerated the destruction of the world's largest rainforest in Amanzon.

"We want to be reasonable so that no one can accuse Brazil of anything. That is why we are going to regulate," Lula said at the ceremony.

(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2009)