Destruction of Amazonian rainforest slows
08 April 04
NewScientist.com news service
Near record deforestation was seen in the Brazilian Amazon in 2003, new satellite data has revealed.
About 23,750 square kilometres of tropical rainforest were cleared between August 2002 and August 2003, according to statistics released by the Brazilian government.
Satellite images taken by the countries National Institute for Space Research show the destruction is two per cent higher than a revised estimate of 23,266 square kilometres cleared between 2001 and 2002.
Environment minister Marina Silva admitted that the figures for 2002/2003 were too high and reiterated the government's determination to crack down on illegal deforestation. In March, $140 million was pledged to increase protection.
But she argued that the new figures also represent good news because the accelerating rate of deforestation had been slowed down. The area cleared in 2001/2002 was 28 per cent higher than in the previous year.
Environmental campaigners have praised the government's plan but say action must be both drastic and urgent. John Burton, chief executive of the conservation charity the World Land Trust says: "It is still a fairly disastrous figure."
Carbon dioxide sink
Burton points out that even if the rates of clearance slow down, the forest is still being cleared and what remains untouched becomes even more precious.
"It's very easy to criticise governments, but there's no government in a lot of these areas," he told New Scientist. "We are talking about absolutely vast areas - how do you police it?"
The Amazon is an area of continuous rainforest larger than Western Europe. Campaigners are fighting for its survival because it is thought to absorb carbon dioxide at a globally significant level and harbours perhaps a third of the world's plant and animal species.
About 650,000 square kilometres of Amazonia has already been cleared - equivalent to about 16 per cent of its total area, says the Brazilian environment ministry.
The ministry highlights that a quarter of the deforested area has since been abandoned or is underused. "This wastefulness becomes more serious when it is considered that new areas continue to be deforested for the expansion of farming activities, without the adequate use of a great part of the opened areas already," it says in a statement.
Clearing land for increased soya farming is one reason for the recent hike in deforestation. Also, increasing global demand for Brazilian beef - believed to be free from mad cow disease - has helped deforestation rates to climb, according to a report by the Center for International Forestry Research earlier in April.
Shaoni Bhattacharya
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