BRASILIA - The Brazilian government said on Monday the deforestation of the
Amazon rain forest fell by 30 percent in the 12 months up to August but it
failed to convince environmentalists there would be a lasting effect.
Based on satellite images, the government's space agency Inpe estimated 7,297
square miles (18,900 square km), an area nearly the size of New Jersey, were
razed in the world's largest tropical forest.
"It is still an absolutely scandalous figure," said Paulo Adario, Amazon
campaign coordinator with Greenpeace.
That figure was down from a revised 10,500 square miles (27,200 square km)
during the same period a year earlier.
It is the first reduction in the deforestation rate since 2000-2001 and the
largest since the 1995-96 period, when the rate fell 37 percent from a high of
11,216 square miles (29,050 square km). An Inpe official said the definitive
rate for the 2004-05 season would ...