Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon Cut by Half

BRASILIA, Brazil, August 29, 2005 (ENS) - Over the last 11 months there has been a 50 percent drop in deforestation in the Amazon region, according to satellite data released Friday by the Brazilian Environment Ministry.

From August 2003 to July 2004, a total of 18,724 square kilometers were logged in the region. From August 2004 to June 2005, the area destroyed was 9,106 square kilometers, explained Environment Minister Marina Silva at a news conference in the capital.

Environment Minister Marina Silva announces the drop in Amazon deforestation over the past 11 months. (Photo courtesy MMA)

The purpose of STOP is to supply to the government and the public with information about new areas of deforestation in Amazonia.

"STOP underestimates the areas cleared, utilizing sensors of smaller spatial resolution with high frequency of observation to reduce the limitations of cloud cover," explains Gilberto Câmara, general coordinator of INPE's Land Observation division.

Silva told reporters that two sensors aboard different satellites, each monitoring deforestation, both show a downward deforestation trend.

The MODIS, aboard Landsat, has spatial resolution of 250 meters and covers Brazil every three to five days. The WFI, carried on the CBERS-2 satellite, presents a spatial resolution of 260 meters and covers Brazil every five days.

Câmara said areas over 100 hectares that have been recently clearcut can be seen by this method of observation.

Silva said the reason for the drop in deforestation is the government's Action Plan for Amazon Deforestation Prevention and Control, which has been in operation since March 2004.

The plan protects existing forests, promotes sound management of land that has been deforested, administers property rights, organizes infrastructure and exercises environmental control.

The minister pointed out that 13 ministries, state authorities, the Federal Police, Ibama agents and Army troops all work together in implementing the plan and controlling desforestation in the region.

Pristine rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon (Photo courtesy UC-Davis)

According to the conservation group WWF-Brazil, government measures to control and prevent deforestation in the Amazon, including the arrest of officials involved in illegal logging, and the creation of conservation areas, have played an important, but limited role, in the reduction of the deforestation rate.

Instead, WWF says, a drop in the price of soy beans has led to less land clearing for agricultural production. WWF believes the government should put more effort into implementing better forest management and land use planning to prevent the conversion of areas of high conservation value into soy plantations.

The estimates released Friday show a drop of 33 percent cleared in Mato Grosso, a drop of 38 percent in Rondônia and a drop in Pará of 81 percent.

Over the 11 month period surveyed, deforestation was shown to be declining in parks as well as in state and federal reserves, in native lands, and in the majority of the towns, with exception of Juara and Feliz Natal in Mato Grosso.

Clearcutting also fell in a 8.2 million hectare section of the BR-163 Area of Influence, a region set aside for sustainable development, where no logging was allowed by the government for the six months ending in August 2005.

In the 3.3 million hectare Ecological Station of the Land of the Way, the second largest Conservation Unit in the country, the minister said deforestation took 302 square kilometers in 2004. By contrast, only 29 square kilometers fell to the chainsaw in 2005, a reduction of 90 percent.

João Paulo Capobianco, secretary of biodiversity and forests with the Environment Ministry, said STOP "revolutionizes the control of the deforestation."

"Now, operations can be directed to the localities and in the moment that the deforestation is happening," he said.

WWF points out that logging opens up the forest to slash and burn cultivators who cut remaining forest to grow crops. (Photo by Mark Edwards courtesy WWF)

The government also has plans to create a Sustainable Forestry District in part of the BR-163 Area of Influence. Of the 16 million hectares in the district, five million would be set aside for sustainable forestry.

The state of the Mato Grosso, responsible for nearly half of the deforestation in Amazônia in period 2003 to 2004, will receive special attention from the government, Silva said.

The Environment Ministry and the state government have agreed to integrate the activities of Ibama and the state environment secretariat, the minister said. The agreement includes a system of environmental licensing for public lands, a task force for the creation of conservation units, and a system of rehabilitation for degraded farm lands.

WWF Brazil said the decrease in deforestation in the Amazon in 2005 is good news, but the conservation group said the drop in logging "is less a result of government actions than a consequence of the current bad economic situation of the country."

While giving credit to the government for creating conservation areas and improving controls in the Amazon, WWF said declining profits and investments in the agricultural sector are probably the main cause of the reduced deforestation.

"In the past, there have been several examples of decreasing deforestation rates immediately followed by increases in the years after," said Denise Hamú, CEO of WWF-Brazil.

Production of grains and soy beans has dropped, and Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues has announced that areas planted with grains and beans are expected to shrink between two and three percent. The international price of soy beans dropped by 36 percent between March 2004 and August 2005.

"We must now ensure that responsible forest management practices become the rule, as we know they can contribute to less deforestation on a more permanent basis," Hamú said.

Sustainable forestry operations need greater access to financial opportunities, WWF said. Mauro Armelin, forest policy officer at WWF-Brazil said, "While the government is prepared to renegotiate farmers' debts at a cost of roughly US$700 million, it is appalling that forest companies have difficulty getting access to government credit for the implementation of sustainable forest management."

Brazil's Amazon rainforest covers some 5.7 million square kilometers (2.2 million square miles) - about 75 percent the size of the Australian continent. Only about four percent of rainforest is contained in environmental reserves, while roughly 20 percent is protected as indigenous reservations.