BIOPLAN POSTING 2001-5-5
BIOPLAN POSTING 2001-5-5
David.Duthie@unep.org
Sent by: owner-bioplan@undp.org
05/16/01 10:55 AM
bioplan
David.Duthie@unep.org
Dear BIOPLANNERS,
Here is news that underscores the magnitude of the challenges facing
biodiversity planners. New issues are emerging all of the time,
yet the
"crises" of the 1980s persist into the new millennium.
Best wishes
David Duthie
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Brazil's Amazon Rainforest Shrinking Fast
BRASILIA, Brazil, May 15, 2001 (ENS) - Deforestation of the Brazilian
Amazon was greater last year than at any time since 1995, according
to new
satellite data released by the government today.
Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which monitors
deforestation by satellite, issued a provisional estimate for the period
August 1999 to August 2000, based on a sampling scheme. The mean
annual
rate of gross deforestation in the 1999 to 2000 time period equalled
19,836
square kilometres (7,658 square miles). From August 1998 to August
1999,
the mean annual rate of forest cut down was 17,259 square kilometres
(6,663
square miles), a rate based on INPE's complete and final assessment.
Environment Minister José Sarney Filho, said that there
are a series of
factors which cause deforestation. He cited settlements and the building
of
roads as examples of how the enviroment is harmed. Sarney said,
"The
federal government has done its homework and is doing everything it
can to
stop deforestation in Brazil." The government will introduce
an
environmental licensing system for properties in areas of the rainforest
where deforestation is greatest, an environment ministry official said
today.
The satellite TM-Landsat, used by INPE, does not include deforestation
of
areas smaller than 6.4 hectares (.02 square miles). This means that
the
impacts of hundreds of thousands of small scale farmers and selective
logging of lucrative species are not included.
"The new figures clearly show that efforts by the Brazilian government
have failed to stop, or even to slow, deforestation of the Amazon,"
Greenpeace Amazon campaigner Paulo Adário said from Manaus where
he
monitors illegal logging in cooperation with the Brazilian environment
agency IBAMA. "This loss of forest cover in the Amazon is unacceptable
and
unsustainable. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that Amazon
soil is
not suitable for agriculture and cattle ranching. The biological richness
of the region lives only in the standing forest. To continue unchecked
deforestation means to condemn the Amazon to inevitable environmental
and
social crises," said Adário.
Greenpeace is calling on the government of Brazil to reduce deforestation
to zero by the year 2010. "In 1970, only one percent of the Brazilian
Amazon had been deforested. By 2000 almost 15 percent has been destroyed.
This means a forest area the size of France was lost in only 30 years.
Stopping forest destruction has become a global priority. It must become
a
Brazilian priority before it is too late to act," Adario warned.
But the current electricity crisis in Brazil might mean the construction
of more power plants which will require clearing of more of the rainforest.
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso today officially created an agency
for
management of the energy crisis that will implement emergency measures
to
ensure a supply of electricity in the country. Environment Minister
Sarney
said today that the decision by the government to use an emergency
bill
signed by the president that goes into effect immediately and that,
later,
will be voted on by Congress to speed up studies on the environmental
impacts of emergency construction in the electricity sector, specifically
the building of fossil fuel generating plants, is not going to change
legal
procedures. "No procedure will cease to exist, the law will be
carried out
in all its details," stated the minister.
But some groups want national forest protection laws changed.
Since 1999,
the farmers' lobby group of the Brazilian National Congress, represented
by
Federal Deputy Moacir Micheletto and by the National Confederation
of
Agriculture, has been lobbying for a proposal to change Brazilian
legislation on forest protection, the Forest Code. If successful, this
would allow, among other things, deforestation of up to 50 percent
of
private properties in the Amazon region. If it becomes law, Areas of
Permanent Preservation might be reduced or eliminated.
The Brazilian Amazon comprises the states of Acre, Amapá,
Amazonas, Mato
Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins and portions
of Maranhão and
Goiás, totaling an area of approximately five million square
kilometers,
roughly equal to the size of Western Europe. Of this, approximately
four
million square kilometers is covered by forest.
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