Brazil: Amazon Deforestation Drops To Slowest Pace In 22 Years

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil's government says deforestation in the Amazon rain forest has dropped to its slowest pace in 22 years.

Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira says satellite imagery of the National Institute for Space Research shows that 2,490 square miles (6,450 square kilometers) of the Amazon was deforested between August 2009 and July 2010, a 14 percent drop from a year earlier. It says the margin of error is 10 percent.

The space research institute says in a statement that the area deforested is the least since 1988.

Teixeira said Wednesday it is "the lowest deforestation level in the history of the Amazon and we are committed to continue to lower it."

The government credits better enforcement of environmental laws.

Comments

[lou Gold]

11:43 AM on 12/07/2010

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The dramatic reduction of deforestation in Brazil is very good news (indeed!) but it is important to note that the deforestation statistics refer only to total clearing (clear-cutting) and do not include forest degradation from fire and selective logging.

Recently, in part because landowners have been switching to logging smaller patches that are not defined as "deforestation" and because of other forms of back-country development, the result is that forest degradation has been surging and is an unreported but substantial source of carbon emissions.

Under the pressure of drought, selective logging, infrastructure development, small-scale fragmentation, etc, large areas of the Amazon are shifting from rainforests of timber to drier forests of tinder and approaching the really feared tipping point where much of the forest land shifts to savanna.

This shift has happen before in the history of Amazonia and has profound implications for the rainfall patterns across the nearby agricultural zones and for the global climate system.

Lou Gold
http://lougold.blogspot.com/2010/12/brazils-amazon-deforestation-falls-to.html

[wvprogressive2011]

12:29 AM on 12/03/2010

Viva Lula! Viva Rousseff!

[truthisneeded]

10:10 PM on 12/02/2010

great job Brazilian government this is awesome!

[AndreMachado]

09:52 AM on 12/02/2010

Nothing to do with the recession, Brazil has weathered it like a warm winter

[shthar]

06:47 PM on 12/01/2010

Which goes to show how bad the economy is, you can't even sell free land.

[Max Shaw]

04:55 PM on 12/01/2010

This should be one of Oprah's favorite things.

[JScott]

02:30 PM on 12/01/2010

credits better enforcement of environmental laws.

I'm sure the recession helped a lot.

[rolcb]

06:15 PM on 12/16/2010

What recession?