ENVIRONMENT: Deforestation Rampant in Amazonia

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 30 1998 (IPS) - The Amazon region of Brazil in three years has lost more than 60,000 square kilometres of forests – an area one-and-half times the size of Switzerland – which was visited this week by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Alarming statistics, released Monday by the National Institute for Special Research (INPE), showed that in 1995 an unprecedented 29,059 sq kms of forest was destroyed. This figure dropped to 18,161 sq kms in 1996 and to 13,037 sq kms in 1997.

Before 1995, the largest territorial deforestation took place in 1988, when 21,130 sq kms of trees were cut down. This generated international protests and placed Brazil among the worst environmental offenders.

According to environmentalist Jean Pierre Leroy, the deforestation figures released by INPE for 1997 are only an estimate, based on projections using the information available for the beginning of year. The calculations do not take into account the severe drought during the second semester, which has been attributed to the El Nino weather phenomenon.

Last year, for the first time, smoke from forest fires covered the city of Manaos – the capitol of the state of Amazonia – which is in the center of the region. According to Leroy, one of the directors of the National Forum of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), it was so bad that the local airport had to be closed.

The decrease in deforestation over the past two years could create the false perception that the problem is being resolved, whereas the situation really is alarming. Recent satellite images revealed that there has been a significant increase in deforestation resulting from logging, Leroy maintained.

This is demonstrated by the visible change in the pattern of forest destruction, he explained. The pattern now consists of more numerous but smaller areas of deforestation in areas where forests are more dense and more specific to logging interests.

Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs, warned that 48 percent of the deforestation in 1995 took place in areas under 50 hectares which exposed logging interests as the prime culprits. Moreover, satellite monitoring does not register forest fires under the canopies of large trees and is limited to areas already deteriorated by previous logging.

These new patterns coincide with the entry of transnational logging companies, particularly from Malaysia, into the Brazilian Amazon. The government, for its part, has failed to implement measures to prevent the environmental devastation that has ravaged Southeast Asia.

Another source of concern is that the release of these statistics has coincided with a vote in the Chamber of Deputies on a bill that would legislate punishment for environmental crimes.

The government caved in to pressure from the private sector and withdrew 35 of the 90 articles in the original bill, eliminating or softening penalties against companies that hurt the environment.

The new legislation was proposed precisely to put and end to the impunity enjoyed by companies that damage the environment on a massive scale. With the amendments to the bill that were supported by the government, small scale farmers will continue to be the only ones punished. This is also indicative of the lack of political will to change the situation, complained Leroy about the fate of the bill in parliament. Deputy Gilney Viana, author of a recent report on the deforestation of the Amazon Basin, stated that legislators had entered a terrible agreement, which had weakened the original bill.

Minister of the Environment, Gustavo Krause, welcomed he decrease in deforestation of the past two years, but admitted that the overall statistics were not comforting. He announced 13 measures to step up the battle against this problem, including six laws and agreements with the Ministries of Agrarian Reform and Agriculture to prevent peasant settlements which contribute to deforestation.

The full results of studies about Amazonian forests, which were interrupted in 1992, should be released toward the beginning of December, environmentalists said.

Their original release date last year was postponed to avoid negative repercussions during an official visit to Britain by President Cardoso and during the World Conference on Climatic Change held in Kyoto, Japan. Yet ironically, the latest brazilian figures came out two days before Cardoso’s visit to Switzerland. (FIN-IPS-mo-dg-en-mg-mk-98)