Brazil Races to Stop New Amazon Fires
4/9/98
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Title: Brazil Races to Stop New Amazon Fires
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 4/9/98
Byline: William Schomberg
BRASILIA, April 10 (Reuters) - With the fires that ravaged a large chunk of the
northern Amazon still smoldering, Brazil faces a race against time to stop new
disasters when this year's dry season reaches the rest of the rain forest.
The wet season has so far been one of the driest on record, thanks to the El
Nino weather phenomenon. Officials are worried that areas of the Amazon
normally too humid to burn pose a major fire risk when the annual drought
begins in July.
``I've never seen rain this low at this time of year,'' said Gilvan Sampaio, a
meteorologist at the government's National Space Research Institute (INPE).
On an INPE map, a deep purple stain denoting abnormally low rainfall in March
stretches over a large area of central Mato Grosso state and into Para, on the
Amazon's southern fringe.
That region lies in the so-called Arc of Deforestation stretching thousands of
miles (kilometres) from the Bolivian border to the Atlantic. It accounts for
most of the Amazon's deforestation to date, in an area equivalent to France.
Along the arc, extensive logging and farming have pushed into what used to be
pristine forest, clearing it entirely in some places and reducing the remaining
jungle's natural humidity and its resistance to flames.
Further north on the INPE map, a thick band of purple twists and turns through
Roraima state, the scene of recent huge fires, and Amazonas, the biggest of the
Amazonian states.
Last year, choking smoke from burning farmland and jungle smothered Amazonas
state capital Manaus just as representatives of the G-7 industrialized
nations gathered there to discuss ongoing funding of projects to protect the
Amazon.
Officials fear worse this year.
``We are faced with something very new, fires in the rain forest,'' Eduardo
Martins, the head of Brazil's Environment Institute, said. ``Our concern is
that the fires could happen again and this time with more severity.''
BRAZIL WAS UNPREPARED FOR RORAIMA DISASTER
Martins admitted Brazil was unprepared for the fires that raged out of control
between January and early April in Roraima, on Brazil's border with
Venezuela. ``We believed it couldn't happen,'' he said.
It is common for large areas of Roraima's savanna to burn as fires set by
subsistence farmers spread. Year after year, the tough, scrubby vegetation
grows back. But this year, with a six-month drought, the flames raced into the
low, transition forest on the edges of the savanna and ate into the thick rain
forest further in.
Martins said he believed the fires burned mainly in forest undergrowth and
caused little damage to trees but the fact that they penetrated the jungle's
inner core was a new development.''We have to learn the lesson of Roraima,'' he
said. ``The fires are not going to go away.''
It took nearly two months for the Brazilian government to respond to
appeals for help from Roraima, eventually sending 1,500 firemen and soldiers to
the remote frontier state. For two weeks the troops flapped at flames with
brooms and branches, backed up by four helicopters lent by Argentina.
When offers of wider international help were made, they were immediately
rejected by the armed forces, which have long dreaded foreign intervention in
the Amazon. In the end, only freak rainstorms saved Roraima from even greater
damage.
Government estimates of the area affected range from 2,300 square miles (6,000
square km) to 11,500 square miles (30,000 square km), an area roughly the size
of Belgium.
BRAZIL SCRAMBLES TO HEAD OFF FIRE THREAT
Stung by criticism of Brazil's handling of the crisis, officials are rushing to
improve monitoring of the Amazon region and find ways of tackling new fires
before they burn out of control.
A $1.2 billion air surveillance and environmental monitoring system is not
scheduled to be fully operational until 2002. But a detailed map of the areas
most at risk is due out in May. Air force planes will make routine surveillance
flights over critical areas and commercial airline pilots will report sightings
of smoke.
Farmers will be organized into 100 firefighting brigades equipped with
rubber mats and water sprayers and an educational program to hammer home the
risks of traditional slash-and-burn techniques will be widened. In another
move, official Banco do Brasil bank managers will be held responsible for
government loans that result in damage to the forest, Martins said.
But it remains unclear whether Brazil is prepared to invest in its first
water-carrying planes and helicopters despite the prospect of a World Bank loan
to cushion the cost. Some government officials believe fires beneath the
Amazon's thick forest canopy may be unreachable from the air.
GREENS SAY BRAZIL DOING TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
Environmentalists say Brazil is now paying the price of using the Amazon as a
dumping ground for tens of thousands of land-hungry settlers over the last 25
years. Despite recent measures to reduce the damage done by the farmers,
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso risks doing too little, too late, they say.
Satellite data released in January showed an area twice the size of Belgium was
chopped down or burned between 1995 and 1997. Officials said the numbers also
suggested small farmers were increasingly responsible for the damage.
``Stopping forest fires is like fighting a war. You need men, you need
equipment and you need intelligence. Brazil is not going to be able to do that
this year,'' said Roberto Kishinami, the head of Greenpeace in Brazil.
He said that while the government was taking some measures to slow
deforestation in the Amazon, its plans for new highways and waterways in the
region were creating soybean and grain centers on the edge of the forest and
stoking the land rush.
The recent arrival in Brazil of powerful logging companies from Asia, where
the few remaining rain forests are dwindling, was another worrying sign.
``The choice is clear,'' Kishinami said. ``Either Brazil keeps on consuming the
Amazon or it takes a longer term view and prizes biodiversity as an economic
resource. Unfortunately, there are no signs it will take the more intelligent
path.''
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