Government Will Report on Deforestation Nov. 30
10/11/97
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Headline: Government Will Report on Deforestation Nov. 30
Source: Reuters
Date: 10/11/97
Copyright: Reuters Limited 1997
BRASILIA - The Brazilian government will reveal the latest deforestation
data for the Amazon rain forest on Nov. 30, officials said on Thursday.
Eduardo Martins, president of federal environmental agency Ibama, said he
expected satellite information from 1995 and 1996 to show "stabilization"
in deforestation rates at some 0.4 percent of the total area of the Amazon
per year.
"I'm guessing of course because we have to wait for the analysis. But I
think the rate of deforestation will have remained the same (as in 1993 to
1994)," Martins told reporters.
The latest data, divulged over a year ago, showed the annual rate of
deforestation in the Amazon region rose to 5,750 square miles (14,896
square km) in 1994 from 4,298 square miles (11,130 square km) in 1991. That
was equivalent to about 0.4 percent a year of the total remaining Amazon.
In the 1980s, before environmental awareness became the vogue, the rate of
deforestation in the world's largest remaining chunk of tropical forest was
virtually double that.
A delay in analyzing satellite data from the past two years has raised
eyebrows in the environmental community, which has pointed to a 28 percent
increase over 1996 in fires in the Amazon as a signal deforestation could
be on the rise.
Thelma Krug, general coordinator of earth monitoring at the government's
Space Research Institute (Inpe), angrily dismissed charges Brasilia had
tried to hide the latest deforestation data because of fears it would show
a sharp increase.
"No one monitors their forests like Brazil does," she said. "The work
involved is immense. It's rigorous. It's detailed. Our work is reason for
pride."
Krug said Inpe had 100 people analyzing 229 separate Landsat images
covering 3.1 million square miles (5 million square km), an area in which
Western Europe would fit easily leaving plenty of room to spare.