who owns the Amazon?

Brazilians are often concerned that other countries have designs on that part of the Amazon basin which falls within its borders; they fear that Americans and Europeans are starting to think of the Amazon as "too important to leave to the Brazilians". That particular quote actually comes from a recent editorial in The Independent, a leading English newspaper.

If you read the whole editorial (which I hope you will), you might find a different way of reading that phrase which sounds a bit less threatening to Brazilian sovereignty. After all, Brazilians themselves have said for years that their forests provide vital services to the rest of the world, and the editorial could be read as agreeing with that stance - saying, in effect, that the rest of the world ought to pay the Brazilians for keeping their forests intact. But the wording is such that it's hardly surprising that Brazilians are sensitive on this score (just as Canadians are nervous about American refusal to recognise their sovereignty over much of the Arctic).

The New York Times ran a similar article not long ago quoting, I believe, Al Gore to the effect that the Amazon was an international asset. What do you think of this idea? If the Amazon belongs to the world, where do you stop?