Brazil reduces deforestation of Amazon

The rate of loss of the rainforest know as the world’s ‘lungs’ has been reduced to its lowest in 21 years: Brazil govt.

BRASILIA: Brazil experienced the smallest loss of its extensive Amazon rainforest over the past year in more than two decades, the government said, attributing the change to its tougher environmental policies.
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Historically a large portion of deforestation in Brazil can be attributed to land clearing for pastureland by commercial and speculative interests; misguided government policies. One of the major concerns arising from deforestation in Brazil is the global effect it produces on climatic change. The rainforests are of vital importance in the carbon dioxide exchange process, and are second only to oceans as the most important sink on the planet to absorb increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from industry.

The most recent survey on deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions reports that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is responsible for as much as 10% of current greenhouse gas emissions due to the removal of forest. The problem is made worse by the method of removing the forest where many trees are burned to the ground emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, not only affecting air quality in areas of Brazil but affecting the carbon dioxide levels globally in addition as a result.

In 2005 the burning of the forests in Brazil created widespread health implications across the Amazon region, including airport closings and hospitalizations from smoke inhalation.

But that was 45 per cent less than what was lost during the previous 12 month period to inroads by ranchers, loggers and other human development in the planet’s largest expanse of tropical forest, officials said.

‘Brazil is going to give the world a gift,’ said Environment Minister Carlos Minc.

‘We are going to do a lot, and we are also going to demand a lot’ from the industrialized world, he said.

Minc attributed the slowing pace of rainforest loss to the government’s efforts to shut down illegal logging operations and require that settlers have title to their land.

A US study published last month in the journal Science found that the scope of the forest’s degradation is twice as great as previously estimated due to selective logging under the forest canopy.