Government Will Not Analyze Rainforest Deforestation
8/10/97
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Headline: Government Will Not Analyze Rainforest
Deforestation
Source: Associated Press
Date: 8/10/97
Author: Michael Astor
Associated Press Writer
MARABA, Brazil (AP) -- In this southeastern corner of the
Amazon, the jungle canopy has been supplanted by smoke that
hangs so thickly that, at times, it can inflict nosebleeds
and force airports to close for days.
The smoke rises from countless fires fed by foliage
stripped and then burned to make way for cattle pasture.
In the past two years, the Amazon rain forest has seen some
of its worst burning ever. And as the burning season again
approaches, environmentalists see little reason why this
year should be different.
They argue the fires are part of a little-noticed upswing
in Amazon deforestation this decade that followed a much-
publicized decline in the late 1980s. Just five years after
Brazil hosted the world's first Earth Summit -- amid
optimism that conservation was becoming a priority -- the
Amazon jungle is still going up in smoke.
``The number of fires where there formerly was forest is a
good, if indirect, indicator of deforestation,'' said Garo
Batmanian, president of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil.
The government says the fires do not necessarily translate
into deforestation -- many represent farmers maintaining
areas previously cut. But a government agency has satellite
photos that could determine exactly how much forest has
been lost. But it seems in no rush to analyze them.
``It would be irresponsible to say whether deforestation is
going up or down until the figures are ready,'' said Thelma
Krug, coordinator for the department with the National
Institute of Space Research that monitors deforestation.
The institute first promised figures for 1995-96 would be
released last November, then in March. It now says they
should be ready by October.
The official reason for the delay is a lack of funds to
analyze the 229 photos snapped by NASA's Landsat-5
satellite over the 2 million square miles of the Brazilian
Amazon.
The photos remain rolled up, gathering dust.
A visitor to the institute's Foundation for Science and
Space Technology Applications found the poster-sized photos
packed in cardboard boxes on the floor.
The foundation has state-of-the-art computers and printers
and employs some 30 analysts. But no one has permission to
analyze the photos detailing Amazon deforestation until the
government releases the $4.5 million promised for the
project.
Although that sum is repeatedly handed up as the reason
nothing is being done, Krug concedes that analyzing the
photos with existing equipment would cost only about
$400,000.
Environmentalists claim the government is stonewalling to
avoid unpleasant news.
``The only reason that data isn't analyzed and available is
that the government doesn't want it to be,'' said Stephen
Schwartzman, a senior scientist at the Environmental
Defense Fund in Washington. ``The government still deals
with it only as a potential international embarrassment and
not as something in the interest of the nation.''
By the late 1980s, about one-tenth of the Amazon's original
forest had been cut down. The destruction sparked an
international outcry that embarrassed the Brazilian
government.
But between 1988 and 1991, a slowdown in the rate of
deforestation - due more to an unraveling economy than any
coordinated action -- allowed the government to claim the
trend had been reversed. Much of the furor died down.
In July 1996, the government announced a series of measures
to protect the rain forest. They included a moratorium on
new concessions to cut mahogany and virola, a source of
plywood, and a law forbidding Amazon landowners from
cutting more than 20 percent of their forests -- down
from 50 percent.
Almost unnoticed, the government also released figures
showing Amazon deforestation had jumped from 4,450 square
miles in 1992 to an average of 5,950 square miles in 1993
and 1994 -- a 34 percent increase.
Much was made of the new measures, but little was said
about the renewed upswing in deforestation. Many people had
thought the problem of Amazon destruction had been
``solved.''
``The 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit was the last we
heard about the Amazon,'' said Philip Fearnside, a
scientist at the National Institute for Amazon Research in
the jungle city of Manaus.
``The impression people were left with was that
deforestation was going down. Then they released the data
that showed deforestation had been going up during the four
years the government has been claiming that it's been going
down.''
Eduardo Martins, president of Brazil's Environment
Protection Agency, is one of the few high-level government
officials willing to admit that Amazon deforestation
probably is increasing.
It is the agency's job to stop the destruction, and the
satellite data is crucial. Even with information in hand,
it's a daunting task for the fewer than 400 poorly paid
inspectors, who cover a region twice the size of France and
Spain combined.
``It doesn't help to have some general figure -- that only
adds to our anxiety and fears,'' Martins said. ``We have to
know where it is in order to focus our enforcement. And we
have repeatedly insisted that (the National Institute of
Space Research) reduce the time in which the information is
made available.''
The data is especially important in understanding how
Amazon deforestation is changing, he said.
In past decades, deforestation was largely a result of
large-scale projects such as dams, timber harvests, cattle
ranches, highways and peasant settlements -- often spurred
by government incentives.
Today, the forest is being eroded by a host of smaller
interests, from furniture makers to poor farmers searching
for land.
Another recent threat is an influx of foreign loggers,
mainly from Asia, who have been investing heavily in the
region since 1994.
A leaked government report recently published in the
newspaper O Liberal of Belem, a city at the mouth of the
Amazon River, said 80 percent of Amazon logging is illegal,
with many companies extracting 15 to 20 times the amount of
lumber legally permitted.