Amazon Deforestation In Brazil Increases Six-Fold, Crisis Center Created To Combat Huge Rise

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Brazil has set up a crisis center to combat increased deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, the nation's environmental minister said Wednesday.

Minister Izabella Teixeira said officials had to take action after satellite data showed a significant increase in deforestation over the past two months. In the previous year, Brazil recorded the lowest annual deforestation rates since records started being kept more than two decades ago.

"We created a crisis committee ... to determine and combat the causes of this increase," Teixeira said.

The committee, which will meet weekly, is made up of environmental agents, federal police, highway federal police and state agents, Teixeira said.

The committee will coordinate about 700 agents and police officers in the region to fight deforestation, she said.

Satellite images from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed 230 square miles (590 square kilometers) of deforestation in March and April, nearly six times more than in the same period last year.

Deforestation in the Amazon last year dropped to its slowest pace in 22 years, Brazilian officials said. Between August 2009 and July 2010, 2,490 square miles (6,450 square kilometers) of forest were deforested, a 14 percent drop from the year before, and the least since 1988.

Government officials hailed the numbers as a sign that stepped-up enforcement of environmental laws were working.

Some environmental experts, however, warned that simple economics were driving the deforestation rates, and that as the global economy recovers from financial crisis, the rates would rise again as demand for soy and cattle raised in the Amazon increases. Farmers and ranchers would likely clear more land to produce those products.

Teixeira said the biggest challenge awaits in the western state of Mato Grosso, which had contained deforestation over the past two years but saw a significant increase in April and March.

Brazil's environmental protection agency Ibama said it's increased the number of operations to control deforestation and has seized in this year alone 40 tractors and 76 trucks used in illegal logging in Mato Grosso.

Brazilian farmers, meanwhile, have been demanding the country's Congress ease environmental laws in the Amazon region. They support a bill that would let them clear half the land on their properties in environmentally sensitive areas. Current law allows farmers to clear just 20 percent of their land in the Amazon zone.

Comments

[Lorraine Goodrich]

02:40 AM on 06/04/2011

They are going to turn that entire region into a DESERT. The sun is too intense there. The soil will bake, the rainy clouds will vaporize , blow away and then the loggers will REALLY be sad, but it will be too late.

The forest itself is its own shield against desertification.

[ThomasPaine1776]

01:25 AM on 05/24/2011

Invade Brazil.

[b525]

09:50 AM on 05/22/2011

Cattle should only be raised in areas where grasslands and grazing animals occur NATURALLY.

Clearing tropical rainforest to create temporary/artificial grasslands for cattle is highly damaging to the land, soil and water.

After clearing of these forests, the tropical topsoil, which has been protected under tropical forest canopy for millions of years, becomes scorched and dried out by the intense/year round tropical sun.

The heavy year round tropical rains then wash away the topsoil which flows into local rivers and streams, suffocating and killing river fish. Often this run-off can even reach coastal waters killling coastal marine life/corals etc.

Pesticides and synthetic fertilizers cause further damage to local streams, rivers, and river and coastal fish.

Although some Amazon Indians practiced agriculture, it was always small scale/shifting cultivation which utilized naturally occuring tropical forest plants/fruits and moved, from year to year, to allow the soil and land to recover.

Feeding these animals chemically fertilized and pesticide treated soy and corn is not natural, cows have a four-chambered stomach evolved to eat GRASS ONLY.

Often raising soy and corn to feed cattle can require enormous amounts of irrigation water, which drains rivers and underground aquifers in arid non-tropical areas such as the far western U.S.

Free range/grass fed cattle require FAR LESS water than soy and corn fed cattle.

[vanrainey]

01:03 PM on 05/20/2011

The right of property as it applies to the masses has only been in existence for the last three hundred years and has served in promoting enlightened self interest and the continued productivity and progress that we have enjoyed during that time. However, it is clear that we are rapidly driving towards a wall that will only hurt more the faster we continue to accelerate. What is needed is a fundamental reexamination of the principles of property, economic liberty, and degree of governmental purview to address the matters of sustainability that are becoming more pressing as each days passes. The problem is that most of the world has turned away from the complexities of such issues that are unquestionably daunting and difficult to fully comprehend. This blissful ignorance is straining the efficacy of what is necessary to sustain our notions of democracy and representative government. At some level, we collectively recognize the catastrophic course we are on and it expresses in the body politic an intransigence to consider any other approach to problem solving other than the predatory perspective of every man for himself. We need to wake from our dangerous slumber and throw off the seemingly warm cloak of self interest and start figuring out ways to take care of each other and the planet which cares for us.

[Ron Quintia]

06:00 PM on 05/20/2011

...in short, this is a bad thing...and we are sitting on a time bomb...

[teleah]

10:00 AM on 05/20/2011

i thought it was the sugar cane grown for their bio fuel that was causing deforestation - the cane by products are used for cheap feedstock for cattle but exclusively blaming beef seems like a red herring to me

[Fbigdeal]

06:18 AM on 05/20/2011

correction:

"Jail dem who are doing this"

[Fbigdeal]

06:17 AM on 05/20/2011

One of the most prestige and scare place on earth is being destroy. We will suffocate soon, if not already- The world needs the Amazon!!!!! and THAT pic is disturbing. Stop this deforestation!!!!
Jail the dem.

Can the G8 address this problem, instead of financial problem? If we cannot enjoy earth, then how can we enjoy money.

[YgorCoelho]

11:14 PM on 05/23/2011

I'm sorry, but it's Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and other countries that own the Amazon territory that must address this problem and solve it. And in fact we've had some success in the last years: even if we now face a new increase in the speed of deforestation, Brazil has diminished its deforestation rate, on a yearly basis, by more than 60% in about 10 years. Other South American countries have also attained some successes, even if partial ones.

That said, I reinforce that if the G8 tries to "own" this problem it'll only create instability and diplomatic problems, and not help us focus on the serious matter of rapid deforestation. Amazon isn't international, and the fact it's extremely important doesn't make it an international land. A place worth of international concern? Certainly, but according to all principles of law and justice it's still part of sovereign countries that own those lands and have inhabited them for centuries.

So, I hope that the countries in G8 are aware that they can help us, but not tell us what and how to do. We certainly aren't telling Russia and Canada what to do with their huge and extremely important reserves of water and timber. As for the US and Europe, they were once two of the most forested places on Earth. Now, unfortunately, the humankind has very little to be worried about in those regions, as most of them (70%? 80%?) were destroyed.

[Fbigdeal]

11:13 PM on 05/24/2011

Your last paragraph worries me..

So what are you doing right now to stop this.. looking at this aerial picture - it make me so sad.

Maybe a third party should be involved.

[RudyHaugeneder]

12:43 AM on 05/20/2011

Continued deforestation reduces the rainfall cycle in the Amazon and causes changes in wind patterns and a reduction of the amount of rainfall onto the American plains, especially in American southwest regions like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, etc.
Anybody there noticed any increase in droughts over the past quarter century and especially in recent years?
Now you know why. But I doubt anyone will do anything to halt or even shrink Amazon deforestation.

[JScott]

11:53 PM on 05/19/2011

It's what happens when the BRIC countries follow the US model of capitalism based on infininte consumption instead of a more sustainable model, I dunno why anyone's surprised.

[Malcolm Hensley]

11:08 AM on 05/20/2011

Well I'm surprised!

Isn't by your definition everyone else on the planet better than us Americans?

Again American companies are not to blame and you can't with any intellectual honesty blame America for this!

[collettethehedgehog]

05:07 PM on 05/23/2011

Banana Republics, ever hear of them? The US has many links and ties to this deforestation. There are may natives who are being murdered and their land stolen too. This is the agribusiness version of outsourcing.

[lah007743]

08:58 PM on 05/19/2011

Just look at that picture, that's an outright crime, and people wonder why there is global warming.

[Fbigdeal]

11:19 PM on 05/24/2011

Yes that pic is saddening.. [the poor/local or corp will do anything to survive].. can they not ban all wood or timber that is coming from the Amazon. Make it unsaleable.

This looks like a hugh company is doing this- not the guy down the cabin.

[Malcolm Hensley]

08:53 PM on 05/19/2011

I have recommended before that North America & Europe need to go to an added Environmental tax on goods sold in those countries. This environmental tax or tariff would be based on the ecological footprint of the product sold covering the manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability of the product.

Destroying rain forest to grow cattle is not sustainable! So beef from Brazil would be very expensive.

Now many would think this unfair but people if we truly have man made climate change - FAIR SHOULD BE THE LEASE OF OUR WORRIES!

After all it is the future of the 90+% of the species on the planet we are talking about!

[YgorCoelho]

11:17 PM on 05/23/2011

I agree with you (unfortunately, people always learn a lesson better when they lose money, and not when they are convinced that something's morally or even scientifically wrong). However, for the sake of good information, I must inform you that beef in Brazil doesn't originate in its entirety from the Amazon region. In fact, most of the Brazilian cattle husbandry takes place in the Center West region, which is covered by savanna (another region that is being rapidly destroyed, but strangely almost nobody in the world, including Brazil, seems to care about).

[JeffJeckyll]

08:01 PM on 05/19/2011

Earth will be here long after humans fail to destroy it. (and trees are dumb)

[Fbigdeal]

11:21 PM on 05/24/2011

grow a houseplant!! u might like it.

[Damian Micale]

04:56 PM on 05/19/2011

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[gallon]

05:31 PM on 05/19/2011

Get a room.

[MmeFlutterbye]

04:39 PM on 05/19/2011

I remember back in the late 60's/early70's reading an article on the alarming rate of deforestation of the Amazon. The deforestation was due in large part to make grazing land for cattle which were raised primarily to supply McDonald franchises and those of other fast food entities with beef. The author of the article predicted that because of the deforestation, there would be enough climate disturbance to cause huge storms that have never been experienced before. I must say that to my then much younger and naive mind I was skeptical. Now as the huge storms develop. I am remembering the predictions of the author. My apologies for a terrible failing of not remembering the names of authors of important articles such as the one I have just described..

[LastAngryWoman]

12:21 PM on 05/20/2011

I remember those articles, too. I remember the gas line ups...and I remember everyone talking about changing our lifestyles in order to conserve. I remember Denmark saying they were going to start a comprehensive plan to "get off OPEC dependency" and I remember folks here p0ohpo0hing this...saying it would take thirty years to get there before it would make a difference.
And here we are...and now I look at Denmark with envy...knowing they are dependent upon OPEC for energy exactly 0%. 0%!!!!!!!! sigh

[collettethehedgehog]

05:10 PM on 05/23/2011

And they didnt fall back on nuclear power either.

[Minolta321]

04:35 PM on 05/19/2011

From what I can tell the answer from the left is to come up with alternative forms of energy that create more carbon waste than oil and coal and then call them green and declare they are saving the planet.

[gallon]

05:34 PM on 05/19/2011

Your political spin provides no insight into the problem.

[Malcolm Hensley]

08:38 PM on 05/19/2011

It's not always carbon waste.

Check out NF3!

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_greenhouse_gas_that_nobody_knew/2085/

17,000 times stronger than CO2, has quadrupled Since Kyoto, and long lasting 500+ years!

Used to make solar cells!!

[ChasG]

01:15 AM on 05/20/2011

Thanks for the link.  Something to look into for sure.  I confess I had no idea.

[ChasG]

01:38 AM on 05/20/2011

Looking into this compound I see it's also used to make computer chips and a variety of products besides thin-film solar cells.  A gas that is 17,000 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2 is something to reckon with, but how much of this chemical is attributable to solar cell manufacture, and what is the ultimate footprint on cells that can produce clean electricity for 40 years or more?  At its current application levels, all NF3 applications account for just 0.04% of all anthropogenic global warming effects.
 
Scripps News Release
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Posted by feww on October 24, 2008
 
http://feww.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/45-times-more-nf3-in-atmosphere-than-thought/
 
The Scripps article confirms your assertion that NF3 is 17,000 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2, so they have taken that into account in arriving at 0.04% of total contributions to global warming, or one 2,500th of the problem.  So far, that barely registers, but at that potency level, and with even more widespread use in the manufacture of computer chips (the "plasma etching" of silicon wafers) it deserves to be monitored and regulated.
 
So far, I don't see this as the condemnation of solar power that you implied.  But thanks for the heads up.