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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Amazon Fire Risk Rises Due to Logging, Farmers

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

3/16/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

Following is an update on the fires raging in the Amazon state of

Roraima. The blazes, which had primarily been burning in the savanna,

are now increasingly advancing into the rainforest. The article is

noteworthy in that shifting agriculture _and_ logging are given their

due as contributing to the worsening fire situation. The effects of

overly intensive logging, albeit selective, could be generalized as a

primary cause of worsening tropical forest burning worldwide.

g.b.

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Title: Amazon fire risk rises due to logging, farmers

Source: Reuters

Status: Copyrighted 1998, contact source for permission to reprint

Date: March 15, 1998

Byline: William Schomberg

BRASILIA, March 15 (Reuters) - The kind of forest fires now ravaging

the Amazon state of Roraima are becoming increasingly common as

loggers and farmers push deeper into the rainforest, according to

Brazil's top environment official.

"Forest fires are getting more and more frequent," Eduardo Martins,

president of the government's Environment Institute (IBAMA), told

Reuters at the weekend.

"This one is particularly intense because of climatic conditions. But

the numbers show that fires occur in areas with selective logging and

in situations like in Roraima," he said.

Loggers who cut their way into the Amazon's remotest corners in the

hunt for mahogany and other precious timber are believed to have put

large areas at risk from fire by reducing the forest's density and

humidity.

But in Roraima, where there is little logging, the fires were set by

subsistence farmers using primitive slash-and-burn techniques to clear

their meager plots.

About 2.2 million acres (900,000 hectares) of savanna in the state

have gone up in smoke over the last two months and now the flames are

advancing into the rainforest. The jungle, unlike the resilient

savanna, takes up to 100 years to recover from fires.

Martins said the El Nino weather phenomenon was to blame for unusually

dry conditions that have made the jungle more likely to burn.

But the government had also failed to persuade poor subsistence

farmers not to use fire to clear and fertilize their plots on the

fringes of the forest.

"We explained how it would be dry this year but people didn't believe

the climate could change like that and kept on doing what they've done

for years -- torching their land," Martins said.

The government will announce next week a series of measures aimed at

reducing the environmental damage wrought by small-scale farmers

settled in the Amazon under a land reform program.

Martins said the package sought mainly to settle landless families in

areas which have already been deforested.

It remained to be seen, however, if the government would come up with

the money for fertilizers and technological support that would be

needed for the arid, deforested areas.

The package is the latest in a series of measures taken by the

Brazilian government following January's release of satellite data

that showed an area twice of the size of Belgium was deforested

between 1995 and 1997.

"We're on the right track, but don't expect miracles," Martins said.

"You can't take all the people who have been settled in the Amazon

since the 1970s and expect to change the way they live in one go."

Martins also said the fires in Roraima showed Brazil needed to invest

urgently in airborne equipment. Brazil has no specialized fire-

fighting aricraft.

"We can't keep on relying on the rain," Martins said. "It's impossible

that Brazil with all its forests has no planes."

Roraima officials had expected to receive 22 water-bombing helicopters

from a private rental company in Venezuela on Monday. But officials

said Sunday that only six were available and would not arrive for

three or four days while repairs were carried out.

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