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Articles:
1) Rain Forest Is Losing Ground Faster in Amazon, Photos Show [New York Times] -- 06.27.03
2) The great rainforest tragedy [The Independent] -- 01.21.03
3) Destruction of Amazon rainforests accelerating [The New Scientist] -- 06.27.03
4) Amazon destruction jumps; environmentalists are shocked [Reuters] -- 06.27.03
5) Disappearance of Amazon rainforest brings pledge of emergency action [The Guardian] -- 06.28.03
6) Answering questions on deforestation [mongabay.com] -- 06.28.03
Rain Forest Is Losing Ground Faster in Amazon, Photos Show
By TONY SMITH
The New York Times
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, June 27 -- Newly released satellite images show that the Amazon rain forest is disappearing at an increasing rate, with about 10,000 square miles lost mainly to pasture land, soybean plantations and illegal logging in the 12-month period that ended last August.
The government said on Thursday that the area represented a 40 percent rise in deforestation compared with a year earlier, when about 7,000 square miles of rain forest were lost.
It was the fastest acceleration in the loss in the Amazon forest, the world's largest continuous area of rain forest, since the same 12-month period in 1994 and 1995, environmentalists said.
"It is terribly serious," said Luis Meneses, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's Amazon project in Bras"lia. "Our fear is that the period for 2002-2003 could be even worse."
The environmental group Greenpeace has warned that the rain forest could be wiped out in 80 years if deforestation rates are not slowed. Scientists say about a fifth of the Amazon has already vanished, helping to accelerate global warming.
Brazil's new, left-leaning government, which has publicly embraced environmental issues, pledged to act immediately. The environment minister, Marina Silva, called the new data "highly worrying" and promised "emergency action," although no specific proposals were offered.
Despite years of lobbying, the World Wildlife Fund says that of the six states with rain forest on their territory, only one, Acre, which contains less than 10 percent of the Amazon area, has put laws into effect to promote sustainable development through controlled logging and modern farming technology.
Another state, Rondônia, has passed a zoning law, but Mr. Meneses said the law was frequently ignored or altered to suit immediate political needs. About one third of the state has already been deforested.
The previous government's program to pave roads through the region has also been blamed for quickening the forest's demise. The project was suspended, but one third of the roads were already completed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/28/international/americas/28BRAZ.html?ex=1057377600&en=2b4d6f346c07c215&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
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The great rainforest tragedy
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
28 June 2003
Of all the world's great environmental tragedies it is the most compelling, and yesterday the deforestation of the Amazon was shown to be taking a huge turn for the worse.
After falling or staying steady for the past eight years, the rate at which Brazil's rainforest is disappearing has leapt by 40 per cent in a single year - and Europe's intensive farming may be a contributory cause.
Vast new tracts of virgin forest in the states of Mato Grosso and Para are being put to the chainsaw, according to figures from the Brazilian government, and turned into farmland - much of it used for growing soya beans, which end up as industrial cattle feed in Europe.
What is being destroyed is the most species-rich habitat on Earth. It provides much of the world's oxygen. It has been the subject of more green protests, and had more voices raised in its defence, than any other piece of ground on the planet. They seem to have availed it nothing.
Data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, based on satellite observations, reveal that in the year to August 2002 the amount of rainforest cut down was 25,500 square kilometres, or 10,190 square miles - an area about the size of Belgium. This has leapt from the previous year, when the area cut down had been 18,170 sq km (7,266 sq miles), an area about the size of Wales.
The more recent total was the second highest in the whole 30-year saga of Amazonian deforestation, exceeded only by the exceptional year to August 1995, when 29,059 sq km (12,200 sq miles) were destroyed. Since then the figure has dropped and remained steady at about 18,000 sq km - giving people some hope that the situation was not as hopelessly out of control as once it seemed to be.
But now the sudden increase in the deforestation rate has appalled even hardened Amazon-watchers. "This is shocking," said Mario Monzoni, a project co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth in Brazil. "The rate of deforestation should be falling; instead the opposite is happening."
Brazil's Environment Minister, Marina Silva, herself a former rubber tapper from the Amazon who also worked as a maid by day, said there would be "emergency action to deal with this highly worrying rise in deforestation". Promising an announcement next week, she said the government was considering real-time monitoring of deforestation and, for the first time in Brazil, to force all ministries to consider the environment when enacting policies.
All those who care for the Amazon will warmly welcome her comments, but not hold out excessive hope. The social and economic forces behind deforestation are stupendous, and for three decades have been far beyond the ability of bureaucrats in Brasilia or Sao Paulo to control them. In a huge country with a burgeoning population and oppressive poverty there is insatiable hunger for land, and the Amazon provides a ready answer.
It can take a lot of punishment - its rainforest covers 60 per cent of the territory of Brazil and extends for 1.6 million sq miles, an area as big as western Europe. But already about 16 per cent of it has been destroyed for development, logging and most of all farming.
There now seems to be a new and even more intense agricultural advance into the treeline, especially from large-scale growers of soya beans. Brazil is expected to overtake US soya production in a few years, making it the world's leading producer of a crop that offers its farmers large profits and gives a sizeable boost to its national trade accounts.
David Cleary, director of the Amazon programme at the Brazilian office of the Nature Conservancy, the US green charity, said that last year's deforestation figures were at least 30 or 40 per cent higher than historical trends. "It's clear that the soya boom is an important element of this in the southern Amazon, and if ways are not found to minimise the impact it is difficult to see these figures falling in coming years," he said.
We may have a role in this ourselves. Much of the soya bean crop is exported to Europe as part of the 55 million tonnes of cattle feed the EU imports annually, attracting strong criticism from environmentalists, who say it is promoting industrial factory farming as well as helping to subsidise rainforest destruction.
That destruction seems even worse if you clothe the new raw data with a little imagination. At the new rate, about 28 sq miles of forest is being obliterated every day. How many trees in 28 square miles, an area seven miles long by four miles wide? A thousand? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand, more? Doesn't matter. They'll all be down by the end of today.
And what a forest it is, containing about 30 per cent of all the world's known plant and animal species, besides the uncatalogued insects, which may run into many millions. There are about 80,000 species of trees and flowering plants; in a single hectare of forest there may be as many as 300 tree species, more than 10 times that in the most diverse North American forest. There are more than 2,000 species of birds, almost a quarter of the world's total; there are 2,000 species of freshwater fish and more than 3,000 species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians, ranging from the jaguar to the poison-arrow frog.
And now the chainsaws are slicing it down at a rate that could only be described as frenzied. It is the great green lung of the world, the Amazon rainforest, and the shadow on it is advancing unstoppably.
© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=419695
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Destruction of Amazon rainforests accelerating
17:01 27 June 03
NewScientist.com news service
Newly released satellite imaging data has revealed a 40 per cent jump in deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforests.
The massive leap is the worst acceleration in the loss of the tropical jungle since 1995 and is in sharp contrast to the drive to preserve the world's largest area of continuous rainforest. The forest harbours enormous biodiversity and plays a significant role in the world's climate.
The data from Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (INPE), published on Wednesday, reveals that forest clearing jumped from just over 18,000 square kilometres in the year to August 2001 to almost 25, 500 sq km by August 2002.
"It's huge," says Sandra Charity, interim chief executive of WWF Brazil. She points out that the loss in the single year to August 2002 makes up five per cent of the area lost over the last 500 years. Mario Monzoni, a project coordinator for Friends of the Earth in Brazil, told Reuters. "The rate of deforestation should be falling, instead the opposite is happening."
The Brazilian government immediately pledged to take action. "We are going to take emergency action to deal with this highly worrying rise in deforestation," said Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva on Thursday.
The new Brazilian government has set up an interministerial committee to tackle the problem alongside non-governmental organisations and is considering real-time monitoring of deforestation. But Charity warns these policies will take time to work. "It's quite likely we will have large rates again next year."
Much of the destruction has been blamed on the illegal logging of land for soya production, say experts at Nature Conservancy in Brazil. Only the US now produces more of the profitable crop.
Charity agrees. "There have been large government incentives to increase the export of soya from Brazil [in 2002]," she told New Scientist. The election of a new president in Brazil in January might also have had an effect on forest clearance, she speculates: "In the year before a new government comes in, the office is usually characterised by a lack of enforcement."
But increasing the production of soya and preserving the rainforest are not incompatible, she says. Thirty per cent of the deforested land is left empty and could be used for crops. Also, improving agricultural practices could increase productivity meaning less land is needed for the same harvest.
WWF is launching a large rainforest protection programme that aims to designate 12 per cent of Brazil's rainforests as protected land over the next 10 years.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993883
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Amazon destruction jumps; environmentalists are shocked
27 June 2003
By Axel Bugge,
Reuters
BRASILIA, Brazil — The deforestation rate in Brazil's Amazon, the world's largest jungle, has jumped a dramatic 40 percent, sparking alarm Thursday among environmentalists.
"This is shocking," said Mario Monzoni, a project coordinator for Friends of the Earth group in Brazil. "The rate of deforestation should be falling; instead the opposite is happening."
Preliminary figures from the environment ministry, released late on Wednesday, showed deforestation in the Amazon jumped to 9,840 square miles last year — the highest since 1995 — from 7,010 square miles in 2001.
The ministry said the new center-left government, which has an environment minister from the Amazon, would announce measures next week "to reverse this situation" which led to the deforestation of an area slightly smaller than Haiti.
The Amazon, an area of continuous tropical forest that is larger than Western Europe, has been described as the "lungs of the world" because of its vast capacity to produce oxygen. But environmentalists fear its destruction because it is home to up to 30 percent of the planet's animal and plant life and is an important source of medicines.
Most of the deforestation takes place due to burning and logging to create farms, and the jump in 2002 suggests soy farming is growing rapidly in the area, as has been feared for years by environmentalists. Brazil is expected to overtake U.S. soy production in a few years, making it the world's No. 1 producer of a crop which offers large profits for farmers and gives a sizable boost to Brazil's trade accounts as a bumper export.
"It was a long, dry season, but the deforestation figures are at least 30 or 40 percent higher than historical trends," said David Cleary, director of the Amazon program at the Nature Conservancy in Brazil. "It's clear that the soy boom is an important element of this in the southern Amazon, and if ways are not found to minimize the impact of the inevitable spread of soy farming, it is difficult to see these figures falling in coming years," he said.
Monzoni said the surge in deforestation was also worrying, as last year Brazil's economic growth was in a slump, and deforestation rates normally tend to fall in such periods.
Because of the size of the Amazon, it is virtually impossible to control deforestation, which is carried out by farmers, illegal loggers, and miners. The poor are often drawn to the Amazon from other parts of Brazil and take part in illegal logging, which is extremely lucrative, especially in the trade of rare tropical timber species like mahogany.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-06-27/s_5841.asp
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Disappearance of Amazon rainforest brings pledge of emergency action
John Vidal, environment editor
Saturday June 28, 2003
The Guardian
The deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon, the largest stretch of forest in the world, has increased by 40% in the past year, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the Brazilian government.
Almost 10,000sq miles (24,000sq km) of virgin forest - an area the size of Albania - were lost, mainly to soya farming and logging.
The figures do not include the destruction of the forest by fires which have been intense this year in some Amazonian states. "We are going to take emergency action to deal with this highly worrying rise in deforestation," said the environment minister, Marina Silva, a former Amazonian rubber tapper and environmental activist.
She promised to announce new measures to protect the forest, but environment groups fear that there is little that can be done unless new threats like industrial scale farming can be brought under control.
"These figures are the worst in many years. It is alarming how the agriculture frontier is growing", said a Greenpeace Brazil spokesman, Paulo Adario.
"Almost 80% of the timber is illegally felled, but clearing land for industrial soya farming is now taking over from timber extraction as the major driver of forest loss in some regions".
Most of the deforestation is taking place in the southern Amazon, where soya farming is rapidly moving in to Para and Matto Grosso states.
"It was a long, dry season, but the deforestation figures are at least 30 or 40% higher than historical trends," said David Cleary, director of the Amazon programme at the US Nature Conservancy in Brazil. "If ways are not found to minimise the impact of the spread of soya farming, it is difficult to see these figures falling in coming years," he added.
The soya boom has been fuelled by European consumers who have rejected GM soya from the US in favour of the conventionally-grown crop from Brazil. During the past three years, Brazil's share of the world soya market has risen from 24% to 34%, while the US share has declined from 57% to 43%.
Brazil is expected to overtake US production within five years, but it may be at the expense of the Amazon forest.
A series of scientific reports have suggested that the Amazon forests, which are still 86% intact, face rapid future destruction because of interlinked climatic and human forces.
The previous Brazilian government planned to invest over $US40bn (£27bn) in new roads, railroads, reservoirs, power lines and gas lines in the Amazon over the next few years.
This was expected to increase forest loss dramatically, and to make the forests more prone to destruction by fire. However, the present government has not yet committed itself fully to the plan.
Rainforests cover less than 2% of the Earth's surface, yet they are home to some 40 to 50% of all life forms - as many as 30 million species of plants, animals and insects. Up to 30% of the world's animal and plant species are found nowhere but in the Amazon, an area of 1.54 million sq miles (4.1 million sq km) - larger than western Europe.
Scientists issue a warning that its rate of destruction poses serious threats, not just in respect of lost species but by reducing production of oxygen and unpredictable consequences for global weather patterns.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,13369,986846,00.html
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CONTENT COPYRIGHT THE THE GUARDIAN, REUTERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE INDEPENDENT, THE NEW SCIENTIST. THIS CONTENT IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.
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Additional information on rainforests
What are rainforests? Where are they found?
Why are rainforests important? What do we stand to lose by deforestation?
What causes deforestation? Why are rainforests being destroyed? Why is the Amazon being cut down and burned?
How fast are rainforests being destroyed? What are deforestation rates for various countires
What can we do to save the rainforests?
Where can I find pictures of the rainforest?
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