ACTION UPDATE

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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Brazilian Government Disputes Bleak Amazon Deforestation

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ACTION STILL NEEDED:

Amazon Rainforest Threatened by Massive Road & Infrastructure

Development

http://forests.org/emailaction/brazil.htm

01/31/02

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

Amazon rainforest deforestation has increased sharply in the late

1990s.  The Brazilian government is in crisis control mode, as they

try to refute recent rigorous scientific findings regarding this

growing threat to the Amazon rainforest.  This is perhaps THE major

rainforest conservation news story of the decade.  Rates of

deforestation in the Amazon are soaring to levels not seen in decades. 

And planned new massive infrastructure development is poised to

penetrate the last major expanses of Amazonian rainforest wilderness. 

The Brazilian government, as well as those of the overdeveloped World,

must be held accountable for failing to conceive, finance and

implement plans to maintain this critical global ecosystem engine. 

The Brazilian government plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on

new highways, railroads, hydroelectric reservoirs, power lines and gas

lines in the Amazon over the next few years.  These projects will

penetrate the pristine heart of the Amazon, increasing forest loss and

fragmentation on an unprecedented scale.  Please protest this

dismantling of the Earth’s ecological infrastructure at:

http://forests.org/emailaction/brazil.htm . Without the Amazon the

Earth may not be habitable in the long term.

g.b.

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Title:  Brazilian Government Disputes Bleak Amazon Deforestation 

Source:  Copyright 2002 NewsFactor

Date:  January 29, 2002  

Byline:  By Brian McDonough

A team of Smithsonian researchers examining satellite data has

concluded that deforestation in the Amazon rainforest continues at an

unnerving rate, despite the Brazilian government's insistence that the

once-epidemic destruction is under control.

William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute led an

analysis of deforestation estimates produced by Brazil's National

Space Agency that were based on detailed satellite images of the

Amazon since 1978.

"We felt that nobody had really tested the [Brazilian] government's

claims carefully," Laurance told NewsFactor. "Our gut sense was that

the numbers wouldn't support their claims, but we wanted to do a

really rigorous analysis to make sure any conclusions we drew couldn't

be easily dismissed."

However, Roberto Goidanich, who handles environmental, human rights

and social affairs issues for the Brazilian Embassy in Washington,

D.C., told NewsFactor that his government's analysis of the figures is

correct, and that current deforestation rates are much better than in

previous decades.

The Brazil National Space Agency estimates were produced using images

from two NASA satellites, the Landsat Multispectral Scanner and

Landsat Thematic Mapper, Laurance said. Both satellites are designed

to provide accurate measurements of changes in forest cover and land

use.

Doing the Math

"We used a rigorous statistical analysis to see if Amazonian

deforestation had dropped in the 1990s, relative to the 1970s and

1980s," Laurance said.

During the 70s and 80s, a catastrophic rate of Amazon destruction

prevailed. "This [decrease] should have happened if -- as the razilian

government maintains -- deforestation really has been brought under

control."

But the team's analyses failed to support the Brazilian government's

claims, according to Laurance. He maintained that deforestation

increased "sharply" in the latter half of the 1990s.

Most of the numbers cited by Brazilian Embassy spokesperson Goidanich

were derived from a Brazilian government report. While they do show a

decrease in deforestation from the late 70s to early 90s, they also

show a marked increase late in the last decade, as Laurance said.

Goidanich told NewsFactor that the mean gross deforestation rate for

the years 1978 to 1988 was 21,130 square kilometers (8,158 square

miles); from 1988 to 1998, it was 17,860 sq. km (6,896 sq. miles), a

slight drop. However, individual years show an uptick at the end of

the 90s:

Mean Gross Deforestation:

1989/90 -- 13,810 sq. km (5,332 sq. miles)

1990/91 -- 11,130 sq. km (4,297 sq. miles)

1991/92 -- 13,786 sq. km (5,323 sq. miles)

1992/94 -- 14,896 sq. km (5,751 sq. miles)

1994/95 -- 29,059 sq. km (11,219 sq. miles)

1995/96 -- 18,161 sq. km (7,012 sq. miles)

1996/97 -- 13,227 sq. km (5,107 sq. miles)

1997/98 -- 17,383 sq. km (6,712 sq. miles)

Goidanich put the 1998/99 rate around 17,000 square kilometers (6,500

square miles), but did not provide an exact figure.

Question of Interpretation

The Brazilian numbers, then, would suggest that the gross

deforestation rate in the last two years of the 1990s had decreased by

not quite 18 percent from the rampant deforestation of the 70s and

80s.

Goidanich framed his perspective from the year 1995, when Brazil's own

numbers showed an alarming spike in deforestation to nearly 30,000

square kilometers in the 1994/95 period.

"The facts can be interpreted and qualified as you wish," he said.

"You could say, for instance, that since 1994/95, the rate of

deforestation had in fact shown a trend of decrease -- from 2.9

million hectares to around 1.7 million."

While that is true, the comparison would appear to make the point more

that 1995 was a particularly bad year to be a Brazilian tree, rather

than that the forest's lot has markedly improved, considering the

bigger picture.

"Forest destruction from 1995 to 2000 averaged almost 2 million

hectares [20,000 km] a year," Laurance said. "That's equivalent to

seven football fields a minute, and it's comparable to the bad old

days in the 1970s and 1980s, when forest loss in the Amazon was

catastrophic."

Brazilian Efforts

Goidanich pointed to a number of successes claimed by the government

in managing the rain forest in recent years. "It is also a fact that

the Amazon forest is one of the most well-preserved tropical forests

in the world," he said. "Eighty-six percent of the original rain

forest is still intact -- almost 4 million square kilometers, or 1.55

million square miles. [That is] about 10 times the size of California.

Thus, the fear that the Amazon will 'disappear' doesn't seem to be

realistic."

Yet his government is concerned, Goidanich stressed. He said the

Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Natural Resources is

fighting illegal logging and illegal forest fires in the Amazon

region. "And in 1996, the Brazilian Forestry Code was amended by a

provisional measure which increased the proportion of conservation

areas in large private rural properties in the Amazon from 50 percent

to 80 percent," he said.

A number of laws have put substantial penalties in place for

environmental crimes, he said. "Since 1997, [the government] has

seized 1.8 million cubic meters of illegally harvested timber."

The battle against forest fires has also gone well, he said. "In 2000,

forest fires were reduced as a result of the preventive measures taken

by the Brazilian government," Goidanich said. "The Program to Prevent

and Control Forest Fires in the Deforestation Belt contributed to a

significant reduction -- 34 percent in the dry season -- of heat spots

in the region."

Technology will increasingly come into play, as will increased

enforcement manpower, he said. A program to be implemented this year

will allow the government to use real-time satellite images of

deforestation and forest fires in law enforcement actions.

"More than 100 IBAMA offices in the Amazon region will be integrated,

by computers, with the three centers of the Amazon Vigilance System,"

Goidanich said. IBAMA is the environmental protection agency of

Brazil.

Ongoing Threats

Despite the efforts Goidanich cited, Laurance maintained that forest

loss is forest loss, and the satellite data as released by Brazil does

not show improvement in overall forest loss. He added that his team

looked into related factors as a way to mitigate the apparent loss,

but did not find any. He said the team factored in the massive

population influx into Brazilian Amazonia in recent decades.

"We incorporated data on Amazonian population growth, both for rural

and urban populations," Laurance said, noting that the region has a

population of 20 million today, up from about 2 million in 1960.

"We wanted to see if the deforestation increases were simply caused by

the rapidly growing Amazonian population. But even when we calculated

per capita deforestation -- the amount of forest loss caused by each

Amazonian resident per year -- there was still a strong increase in

forest loss from 1995-2000."

Infrastructure Spending Planned

Laurance stressed that the findings are crucial because the Brazilian

government plans to invest over US$40 billion in new highways,

railroads, hydroelectric reservoirs, power lines and gas lines in the

Amazon over the next few years. About 5,000 miles of highways will be

paved. The government claims that these projects will have only

limited effects on the Amazon.

"There's no way you can crisscross the basin with all these giant

transportation and energy projects and not have a tremendous impact on

the Amazon," Laurance said. "When you build a new road in the

frontier, you almost always initiate large-scale forest invasions by

loggers, hunters, and slash-and-burn farmers."

While Brazil and the Smithsonian agree on the deforestation numbers,

if not their interpretation, Goidanich said Laurance's estimates of

upcoming government investment for developing the Amazon were wrong.

"The overall investment foreseen for the Amazon from 2000 to 2007 is

around $12 billion, not $40 billion," Goidanich said. "Furthermore,

the $12 billion include a series of sectors such as social

development, information and environment. The preservation of the

environment, and particularly of the rain forest, is a top priority.

Infrastructure accounts for no more than $8 billion."

Still, $8 billion dollars can buy an awful lot of infrastructure in

previously untouched reaches of the rainforest, and Laurance warned

that it is tough to put the cat back in the bag once initial

incursions are made.

"The scariest thing is that many of the highways and infrastructure

projects will penetrate right into the pristine heart of the Amazon,"

Laurance said. "That could increase forest loss and fragmentation on

an unprecedented scale."

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