Despite
having slowed since then, deforestation in the Amazon is
"still intolerable," said Chief Minister of the
Cabinet Jose Dirceu (Ricardo Mignone, Folha de Sao Paulo,
April 7, U.N. Wire translation).
Environment
Minister Marina Silva, however, said the new level shows
progress in protecting the forest, home to up to 30 percent
of the world's animal and plant species.
"We
don't want to be overconfident, but we managed to break
the rhythm of growth (in destruction) and this is highly
significant," said Silva.
Robert
Smeraldi, director of the environmental group Friends of
the Earth Brazil, however, said annual figures on Amazon
destruction are not as important as the overall average
since the early 1990s.
"In
the 1990s, you had an average of around 12,000 square kilometers
(5,000 square miles) disappearing every year," Smeraldi
said. "Now it is brushing up around 25,000 square kilometers
(10,000 square miles). In other words, it has almost doubled.
Never in history has the tropical rainforest disappeared
at such rapid rate" (Associated Press/CNN.com, April
7).
According
to the figures released by the government yesterday, deforestation
in areas of the Amazon protected by law increased almost
30 percent last year. The chopping down of trees in indigenous
land also increased by 57.3 percent from 2002 levels (Mignone,
Folha de Sao Paulo).
On
Friday, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
released a study saying the increase in beef exports from
Brazil in recent years is responsible for the sharp rise
in deforestation of the Amazon as cattle farmers are cutting
deeper into the forests.
According
to Hamburger Connection Fuels Amazon Destruction, the jump
in the worldwide demand for Brazilian beef - free of mad
cow and foot-and-mouth disease - caused the Amazon cattle
population to more than double in 12 years, from 26 million
head in 1990 to 57 million in 2002. Last year, the country
exported $1.5 billion worth of beef, compared with $500
million in 1995. Meanwhile, the Amazon lost 58.7 million
hectares of forest in 2000, compared with 41.5 million hectares
in 1990 (U.N. Wire, April 2).
Last
month, the Brazilian government presented a $136 million
plan to stop deforestation in the Amazon through the use
of satellites to monitor deforestation, criminal investigations
of those suspected of destroying the forest and the creation
of new laws to curb environmental crimes (U.N. Wire, March
17).
Environmentalists,
however, said those measures are not enough.
"The
tendency is for [deforestation levels] to stay high unless
drastic measures are taken, and I don't see the government
doing anything drastic," Rosa Lemos de Sa of the World
Wide Fund for Nature Brazil said (BBC Online, April 8).
Copyright,
National Journal Group, 2004
