Brazil’s Deforestation Drops, But It Is Still Impressive

Deforestation in the state of Amazonas, Brazil, between the months of June and October this year was 68% less than during the same period last year (falling from 971 square kilometers to around 315 square kilometers).

According to the state Secretariat of Sustainable Development (SDS), the figures are based on data from the Deter System satellite, which is managed by the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe).

The state also reports that deforestation in its southern region from January to November this year was around 520 square kilometers, compared to 764 square kilometers during the same period last year.

The reduction of 244 square kilometers is important and considered a victory of sorts because the area has been the target of a crackdown (Operação Uiraçu) by the Brazilian Environmental Protection Institute (Ibama).

Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, says that lower numbers are the result of the government’s Amazon Deforestation Prevention and Combat Action Plan launched in July 2003, which is run jointly by 13 ministries under the supervision of the office of the presidential Chief of Staff.

"The reduction was the result of, in the first place, persistence. Persistence in planning, persistence in strategy, persistence in budgetary terms and persistence on the ground where our people did hard work," said the minister.

The reduction in deforestation reported by the Inpe is the first in nine years. Minister Marina Silva, declared that her goal is to halt the "snowball effect" where forest devastation just keeps growing and make progress toward a balanced environment where people can live and work without wiping out natural resources.

"Our challenge is to coordinate action by the Environmental Protection Institute (Ibama), the Federal Police, the Army and the Land Reform Institute (Incra) toward achieving sustainable development," said the minister.

Silva went on to say that she considers it essential to approve legislation dealing with the issue, for example, the bill for Public Forest Management, which was passed in the Chamber of Deputies but has been bogged down in the Senate for nine months.

Another law would install Sustainable Forest Districts projects that would create jobs, income and sustainable development of forest resources.

Silva points out that a serious problem is predatory and destructive illegal logging activities which the project would make not only legal but sustainable, for example, in the region of the BR-163, a highway that links Cuiabá and Santarém.

Agência Brasil

Tags:

You May Also Like

Sex-Abuse Program to Reach 1,000 Brazilian Cities

Beginning next month, Brazil’s Ministry of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation’s Sentinel Program to ...

After Debate, Brazil’s Lula Is More Candidate than President

Both the Brazilian government and the opposition claimed victory in the first televised debate, ...

Brazilian Companies Go Looking for Foreign Partners

The National Confederation of Industries (CNI) is investing in services at its International Business ...

Blood, Deceit and the Brazilian Miracle

A new book reveals Brazil’s General-President Ernesto Geisel talking in a taped conversation about ...

Brazil’s Bradesco Bank Joins Amex, and Google to Fight Child Porno

Brazilian bank Bradesco has become the First Institution in the Latin America region to ...

Brazil Building Industry Puts a Show in the Middle East

Brazil is showing the world the potential of the Brazilian building industry. A group ...

Brazil Ready to Pardon Debts As Long As Someone Else Pays

Five Latin American countries seek to have their debts with the Interamerican Development Bank ...

Scores of dead Paulistas are being buried in unmarked graves

The Dogs of War are Unleashed in Brazil

The outburst of violence which broke out in São Paulo on May 12 and ...

Maternal Mortality Still Too High in Brazil: 74 Deaths Per 1,000 Births

In 2002, the infant mortality rate in Brazil was 25.1 deaths before the age ...

LETTERS

By Are We? Re: "We Are Paying for This War" — www.brazzil.com/p102apr03.htm, Comrade Stédile ...