Deforestation Rampant in Amazon as Industrial Logging Takes Off

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

2/23/98

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

Following is additional detail regarding an increase in Amazonian

deforestation. In addition to generally increased deforestation,

there are a number of other worrisome trends. There has been an

increase in industrial logging activity, much of it illegal, and the

pattern is for more numerous but smaller areas of deforestation caused

by logging in areas where forests are more dense. Such trends portend

a major opening up of the Amazon to industrial forestry and put even

the most remote interior forests at risk. A global tragedy must be

averted and the necessary resources mobilized to protect the Amazon.

Strict limits must be placed upon the types of forest management

activities allowable, community forest activities tightly coupled to

strict preservation of large areas, and provision made for incentives

such as cash payments and technology transfers to compensate Brazil

for lost development options. A small portion of the funds spent on

military expenditures every year would be quite adequate to fund all

demand for rainforest conservation--and would respond to one of the

greatest potential threats to global security.

g.b.

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Title: Deforestation Rampant in Amazonia

Source: Interpress Service

Status: Copyright, contact source to reprint

Date: February 4, 1998

Byline: Mario Osava

/** ips.english: 409.0 **/

** Topic: ENVIRONMENT: Deforestation Rampant in Amazonia **

** Written 11:44 PM Feb 4, 1998 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 30-Jan-98 ***

Title: ENVIRONMENT: Deforestation Rampant in Amazonia

By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 30 (IPS) - The Amazon region of Brazil in three

years has lost more than 60,000 square kilometres of forests - an area

one-and-half times the size of Switzerland - which was visited this

week by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Alarming statistics, released Monday by the National Institute for

Special Research (INPE), showed that in 1995 an unprecedented 29,059

sq kms of forest was destroyed. This figure dropped to 18,161 sq kms

in 1996 and to 13,037 sq kms in 1997.

Before 1995, the largest territorial deforestation took place in 1988,

when 21,130 sq kms of trees were cut down. This generated

international protests and placed Brazil among the worst environmental

offenders.

According to environmentalist Jean Pierre Leroy, the deforestation

figures released by INPE for 1997 are only an estimate, based on

projections using the information available for the beginning of year.

The calculations do not take into account the severe drought during

the second semester, which has been attributed to the El Nino weather

phenomenon.

Last year, for the first time, smoke from forest fires covered the

city of Manaos - the capitol of the state of Amazonia - which is in

the center of the region. According to Leroy, one of the directors of

the National Forum of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), it was so

bad that the local airport had to be closed.

The decrease in deforestation over the past two years could create the

false perception that the problem is being resolved, whereas the

situation really is alarming. Recent satellite images revealed that

there has been a significant increase in deforestation resulting from

logging, Leroy maintained.

This is demonstrated by the visible change in the pattern of forest

destruction, he explained. The pattern now consists of more numerous

but smaller areas of deforestation in areas where forests are more

dense and more specific to logging interests.

Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs, warned that 48 percent of the

deforestation in 1995 took place in areas under 50 hectares which

exposed logging interests as the prime culprits. Moreover, satellite

monitoring does not register forest fires under the canopies of large

trees and is limited to areas already deteriorated by previous

logging.

These new patterns coincide with the entry of transnational logging

companies, particularly from Malaysia, into the Brazilian Amazon. The

government, for its part, has failed to implement measures to prevent

the environmental devastation that has ravaged Southeast Asia.

Another source of concern is that the release of these statistics has

coincided with a vote in the Chamber of Deputies on a bill that would

legislate punishment for environmental crimes.

The government caved in to pressure from the private sector and

withdrew 35 of the 90 articles in the original bill, eliminating

or softening penalties against companies that hurt the environment.

The new legislation was proposed precisely to put and end to the

impunity enjoyed by companies that damage the environment on a massive

scale. With the amendments to the bill that were supported by the

government, small scale farmers will continue to be the only ones

punished. This is also indicative of the lack of political will to

change the situation, complained Leroy about the fate of the bill in

parliament. Deputy Gilney Viana, author of a recent report on the

deforestation of the Amazon Basin, stated that legislators had entered

a terrible agreement, which had weakened the original bill.

Minister of the Environment, Gustavo Krause, welcomed he decrease in

deforestation of the past two years, but admitted that the overall

statistics were not comforting. He announced 13 measures to step up

the battle against this problem, including six laws and agreements

with the Ministries of Agrarian Reform and Agriculture to prevent

peasant settlements which contribute to deforestation.

The full results of studies about Amazonian forests, which were

interrupted in 1992, should be released toward the beginning of

December, environmentalists said.

Their original release date last year was postponed to avoid negative

repercussions during an official visit to Britain by President Cardoso

and during the World Conference on Climatic Change held in Kyoto,

Japan. Yet ironically, the latest brazilian figures came out two days

before Cardoso's visit to Switzerland. (FIN/IPS/mo/dg/en/mg/mk/98)

Origin: ROMAWAS/ENVIRONMENT/

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[c] 1998, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

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