|
 Carlos Minc, the Environment minister of Brazil, claims increased
policing have brought a sharp drop in Amazon deforestation over the
past year, despite July's jump in logging. Minc says there has been a
46% fall in the rainforest's destruction since July 2008, with just
4375 sq km cleared.
He also predicts that 2009 will witness a significant decline in clearing. However, satellite data obtained by the Brazilian government suggests that some 8365 sq km were cleared in July alone, an increase on the previous year. Minc says that the 8500 sq km expected to be felled in 2009 is an improvement.
"Deforestation rates are still very high, but this year we will have the smallest deforestation rate of the past 21 years," he said. A peak of 27,329 sq km was cleared in the 2003/2004 period, Minc added.
The drop may allow Brazil to claim some success at delivering on a pledge to reduce deforestation during a major world climate summit in Copenhagen this December. The government has been under pressure to slow the encroachment of loggers and ranchers for decades, while attempting to develop the resource-rich region.
Deforestation has in the past increased when demand for soy beans, beef and timber have gone up, and officials point out that when police attempt to confiscate trucks loaded with illegal wood, the situations can turn violent very quickly.
Minc attributed 90% of the deforestation reduction to improved policing. And while experts give authorities some credit for the trend, they say lower commodity prices resulting from a global economic crisis also was a factor.
The states with the biggest reduction were Rondônia and Mato Grosso, both in the southwestern region of the Amazon. The worst performing state was Mato Grosso, whose governor Blairo Maggi, is often called the "king of deforestation."
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
way to go brasil you should be so proud of lula
The less you know, the more you believe.