19/05/2005 – With over
26,000 square kilometres lost last year
– more than half the size of Switzerland
– the annual deforestation rate in the Amazon
has again increased and is at its second
highest ever.
Around 17 per cent of the natural vegetation
in the Brazilian Amazon has already been
devastated.
According to WWF, this clearly shows that
the Brazilian government has not met its
objectives, set in 2003, to reduce the deforestation
of the Amazonian forest.
The global conservation organization criticizes
the Brazilian government for promoting inconsistent
policies, which encourage real estate speculation
within forest areas in order to expand cattle
ranching and industrial-scale farming.
According to WWF, this causes environmental
and social devastation because of illegal
land clearing, exploitation of workers,
and criminal activities.
WWF also highlights the failure of the
federal government and most of the region's
states to adopt sustainable development
as a policy for the Amazon.
"Despite the efforts of the Ministry
of Environment, the federal government and
state authorities are not committed enough
to the fight against deforestation,"
said Denise Hamu, WWF-Brazil’s CEO.
"Governmental bodies and business
corporations must do much more to reduce
such a shocking deforestation rate, otherwise
we run the real risk that a considerable
part of the Brazilian forest will disappear
before it has even been explored."
Although the Amazon Protected Areas Programme
(ARPA), launched in 2002 and supported by
WWF, set aside almost 16 million hectares
of land for conservation and sustainable
use, WWF believes that much more needs to
be done to save the world's most important
rainforest.
"Creating protected areas is a truly
effective conservation measure, but it is
not a sufficient mechanism to stop deforestation,"
added Denise Hamu. "We need to halt
the rampant destruction of the forest and
ensure that its resources benefit both people
and nature."
NOTES:
1. The latest satellite data released by
Brazil’s National Space Sciences Institute
(INPE) reveals that deforestation in the
Amazon from August 2003 to August 2004 significantly
increased from the year before, when more
than 23,000 square kilometres of Amazon
forest disappeared.
2. The ARPA Proramme launched in 2002 by
the Brazilian Federal Government is meant
to protect a representative sample of the
Amazon biodiversity through the creation
and implementation of at least 50 million
hectares of protected areas and the promotion
of sustainable development in the region
over the next ten years. Coordinated by
the Ministry of the Environment and Ibama
(the official environmental agency), it
is implemented in partnership with state
and municipal governments, the Brazilian
Biodiversity Fund (Funbio), the Global Environmental
Fund (GEF), the World Bank, KfW (The German
government cooperation bank), GTZ (The German
technical cooperation agency) and WWF.
