Amazon Risks Grow as Rainforest Gets Drier
9/14/98
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Title: Amazon Risks Grow as Rainforest Gets Drier
Source: Greenwire
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 9/14/98
"A year after the Brazilian government dismissed studies warning that
parts of the Amazon rainforest were becoming so dry they could burn
uncontrollably, fires have become a greater threat than ever to intact
rainforest and to indigenous peoples," the New York Times reports.
Environmental groups that monitor the Amazon say the fires, set by
ranchers and farmers to clear land for grazing and planting and
exacerbated by the weather phenomenon El Nino, have been burning out of
control at an alarming rate. The Brazilian government's own figures
indicate the number of fires this year has more than doubled compared to
last year (Greenwire, 8/12). And 10% of virgin rainforest -- covering an
area the size of California -- is at risk of catching fire this year,
according to the non-governmental group Environmental Research Institute
on the Amazon.
Government officials have created special teams to monitor and fight the
fires, but environmental groups contend such efforts are "too little too
late." And Joao Paulo Capobiano of the Socio-Environmental Institute in
Brazil says the government so far has freed up only a small portion of the
$30 million it pledged. Although Eduardo Martins, head of the Brazilian
EPA, rejected such criticism, he acknowledged that government efforts to
prevent the fires has been inadequate.
Meanwhile, the World Bank on 9/10 announced a $15 million emergency
project to aid fire fighting efforts (Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times,
9/13).
Originally published in Greenwire 09/14/98