Group: Amazon deforestation
drops in late 2008; good
enforcement, bad economy cited
By
MARCO SIBAJA, Associated Press
Writer
Brazil: Deforestation in
the Amazon dropped sharply
in late 2008, a Brazilian
environmental group said
Friday. The government
credited improved law
enforcement, but
environmentalists say a
slowing economy likely
contributed.
The
Imazon environmental group
said satellite images showed
that
635
square kilometers
(245
square miles)
of forest — an area about
the
size
of Chicago
— vanished in the last
5
months
of
2008,
down from
3,433
square kilometers
(1,325
square miles)
for the same 5
months
of
2007
That was a drop of
82%.
Environment Minister
Carlos Minc attributed the
improvement to increased
government vigilance and to
policies such as cutting off
loans to farmers, ranchers and
loggers who have illegally
cleared land.
"It's an important drop but
we're not celebrating," Minc
told reporters. "The level of
deforestation is still
unacceptable."
"In the past, every time there has been a global economic slump or a Brazilian slump, deforestation has immediately slowed," said Charles Roland Clement, a senior researcher at the government's National Institute for Amazon Research.
The government's National Institute for Space Research said it would not release its own new deforestation survey until the end of February because researchers want to more closely examine images in which there was significant cloud cover.
Before the deforestation slowdown in the last half of 2008, Imazon said
The
Amazon was losing the equivalent
of one-and-a-half
American football fields
of forest every
60 seconds
to logging, ranching and
farming.
About
20 %
of the forest, which covers an
area larger than Western Europe,
has been destroyed.
When Amazon trees are felled by
loggers or burned, they release
an estimated
400,000,000 tons of
carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere annually, making
deforestation one of the
country's top sources of
emissions.
