posted May 20, 2005 09:42 PM
Greenpeace: Brazil rainforest destruction 'a national shame'
Amazon loss at near-record levels, government saysRIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Environmentalists on Thursday blamed government inaction and pro-business policies for the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, which authorities a day earlier said was disappearing at a near-record pace.
The Brazilian Amazon lost an area of 26,130 square kilometers (10,088 square miles) of rain forest in the 12-month period ending in August 2004 -- a rate of about six football fields every minute, the Environment Ministry said Wednesday.
That figure was almost 6 percent higher than 24,600 square kilometers (9,500 square miles) destroyed in the same period a year earlier and only slightly lower than the record of 29,000 square kilometers (11,200 square miles) set in 1995.
"Clearly the administration has failed up to implement the Action Plan to protect the Amazon," said Paulo Adario, coordinator of Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign. "The fact that annual average destruction has been more than 23,000 square kilometers (8,880 square miles) for the last three years is simply unacceptable. It's a national shame."
Adario said that most shockingly, 70 percent of the destruction occurred between May and July 2004, when the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had implemented a much heralded action plan to curb deforestation.
Adario said agribusiness was largely to blame, with almost half the destruction occurring in Mato Grosso, a state governed by Blairo Maggi, one of the world's largest soybean farmers.
"The administration has to decide if it wants to fight Amazon deforestation or to promote the expansion of agribusiness to pay Brazil's external debt."
In recent years, Brazil has become a major agricultural producer, with the world's largest beef herd and a rapid expansion in soy bean production that has it poised to overtake the United States as the world's largest soybean producer.
"While few sectors of the government pursue sustainability, the majority promote actions that have a negative impact, providing incentives for real estate speculation in the direction of the forests," the World Wildlife Fund-Brazil said in a statement.
Many soybean farmers claim they buy only cleared land. But environmentalists argue the success of soybeans has driven up the value of cleared jungle, leading to a cycle in which cattle ranchers sell off pasture land and then clear new areas, selling the wood to loggers.
Environmentalists also say the paving of a 1,780-kilometer (1,100-mile) highway from Cuiaba, the capital of Mato Grosso state, to the port of Santarem in Para state will open a vast swatch of rainforest to development, further speeding destruction.
Scientists say the deforestation reduces the area's rich biodiversity and contributes to global warming. Burning in the Brazilian Amazon releases about 370 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year about 5.38 percent of the world total.
Brazil's rainforest is as big as western Europe and covers 60 percent of the country's territory. Experts say as much as 20 percent of its 1.6 million square miles (4.1 million square kilometers) has been destroyed by development, logging and farming.
Last year, the government announced that 23,750 square kilometers (9,170 square miles) of rainforest had vanished in 2003, but on Wednesday it corrected the figure to 24,600 square kilometers (9,500 square miles).