Burning In Amazon Surges, Says Environmental Defense Fund
9/27/97
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Headline: Burning In Amazon Surges, Says Environmental Defense Fund
Source: Reuters
Date: 9/27/97
Author: Michael Christie
Copyright: Reuters Limited 1997
BRASILIA (Reuter) - The number of fires in the Amazon has increased by 28
percent, strongly suggesting that the rate of deforestation continues to
rise, an environmental group said on Thursday.
The Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said the latest
satellite data revealed there were 24,546 fires in the Amazon river basin
during a 41-day period in 1997, compared with 19,115 fires during a similar
period the year before.
"Increased burning ... strongly suggests that deforestation rates continue
to rise," the EDF said in a statement.
The Brazilian government's Space Research Institute, Inpe, has yet to
analyze satellite photographs of deforestation from 1995 and 1996.
Earlier this week, the head of Brasilia's environmental agency Ibama,
Eduardo Martins, told Reuters he was "extremely concerned" about the delay
in providing up-to-date information.
The world's largest remaining tropical rain forest, the Amazon is often
referred to as the "Lungs of the Earth" because it filters much of the
planet's carbon dioxide gases.
The latest data from Inpe, divulged more than a year ago, showed the annual
rate of deforestation in the Amazon region rose to 5,750 square miles
(14,896 square km) in 1994 from 4,298 square miles (11,130 square km) in
1991.
In the 1980s, the rate of deforestation was virtually double that.
Like Martins, the EDF said it assumed the rate the rain forest was being
cut down for farming, cattle ranching and logging purposes was on the rise.
While acknowledging that burning was not a direct indication of
deforestation, the EDF noted that increased forest fires in the past had
"in fact presaged increased deforestation."
"Were the 28 percent increase in burning to represent an equal increase in
the annual deforestation rate, and were such an increase to have occurred
twice in the three years since 1994 ... the current rate would be higher
than the (rate) recorded by Inpe in the late 1980s," the pressure group
said.
Most of the current burning is taking place in the states of Mato Grosso,
Para, Tocantins, Rondonia and Maranhao.