***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Annual Amazon Forest Loss Three Times What Previously Thought

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

12/27/97

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

A new report by the Brazilian congressional committee investigating

foreign logging companies estimates that the Amazon is being lost at a

rate of 20,000 square miles a year, three times the previous estimate.

Twelve percent of the Amazon has already been lost--mainly to logging

and wildfires. And this comes as the threats are growing

exponentially--both from El Nino induced burning and an influx of

industrial loggers with intentions to greatly expand the scale of

forest harvest. The article also discloses that the Brazilian

government's own figures concerning deforestation rates are being

withheld in what amounts to a cover-up. What is known is that

satellite analysis indicates that deforestation is occurring over a

larger area than previously. The Amazon, responsible for maintenance

of global ecological systems, will be lost within 50 years if current

trends continue. Failure of developed countries to make the resources

necessary to conserve/manage this global eco-treasure amounts to

complicity in dismantling of the Earth's maintenance systems.

g.b.

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Brazil quiet as evidence of Amazon's demise mounts

Source: Associated Press

Status: Copyright, contact source for reprint permission

Date: Monday, December 15, 1997

Byline: By Michael Astor

RIO DE JANEIRO -- No one disputes that the Amazon rain forest is

shrinking, but just how fast it's disappearing is a mystery -- and a

political hot potato in Brazil.

A new report by a congressional committee investigating foreign

logging companies says the Amazon is vanishing at a rate of 20,000

square miles a year.

That's more than three times the rate of 1994, the last year for which

official figures are available.

About 12 percent of the 2 million-square-mile wilderness is gone.

Scientists say the loss -- mainly from wildfires and logging -- adds

to the greenhouse effect that is believed to cause global warming.

"If nothing is done, the entire Amazon will be gone within 50 years,"

said the 110-page report's author, Rep. Gilney Vianna of the leftist

Worker's Party in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso.

Although the numbers are only estimates, it's hard for the government

to refute them without figures of its own. That's another problem,

because the official numbers have been under wraps for nearly three

years.

The government had promised to release its figures Dec. 1. They were

withheld after Eduardo Martins, president of Brazil's Environmental

Protection Agency, asked for more data on the average size of

deforested areas and the types of vegetation affected.

"The rate of deforestation is only good for a headline but does

nothing to resolve the problem," said Martins. "I wanted to look at

the causes."

Vianna and several leading environmentalists say the release was

delayed to avoid potential embarrassment for Brazil at the

international conference on greenhouse gas emissions in Kyoto, Japan.

Martins denied it, but he admitted the government's numbers will show

that Amazon destruction is on the rise.

He said figures on western Rondonia state reflect the deforestation

trend across the Amazon: deforestation rose sharply in 1995 before

leveling off slightly in 1996 and 1997.

Determining the extent of deforestation is the job of the

government's National Space Research Institute.

At its headquarters in Sao Jose dos Campos, 190 miles southwest of

Rio, 120 analysts have spent the last five months toiling over photos

from NASA's Landsat-TM satellite showing deforestation from 1995 to

1997.

In 1994, 80 percent of Amazon deforestation was revealed in 38 of the

229 satellite images that cover the Brazilian Amazon.

This year, the number of images that captured the same percentage of

deforestation climbed to 47, said Ulf Walter Palme, the project's

technical director.

The increase means the area of destruction has expanded since then by

122,544 square miles -- an area roughly the size of Italy.

The government relies solely on satellite images in compiling its

figures. Vianna's report arrives at substantially higher figures by

including estimates on the cutting of lots smaller than the 16-acre

minimum measurable by the satellite photos.

Vianna has called for a 10-year moratorium on cutting and burning in

the Amazon.

"We need the moratorium because the government has no coherent policy

in the Amazon," he said.

"Seventy percent of the burnings are authorized by the government and

so is the vast majority of the deforestation."

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

This document is a PHOTOCOPY for educational, personal and non-

commercial use only. Recipients should seek permission from the

source for reprinting. All efforts are made to provide accurate,

timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all

information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest

Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/

Networked by Ecological Enterprises, gbarry@forests.org