07 Sep
2006 - Brazilia, Brazil – Deforestation rates
in the Amazon are declining, but ranching, logging
and agriculture activities are still responsible
for continued degradation of the world’s largest
rainforest, according to data released by the
Brazilian government.
The new data — covering the
period from 1 August 2005 to 1 August 2006 — estimates
an 11 per cent reduction in deforestation rates.
According to WWF-Brazil, a number
of factors may explain the decrease, including
a reduction in the price of soy, Brazil’s most
important agricultural commodity, which may have
reduced the incentive to cut down the Amazon to
make way for new plantations.
“The decline is encouraging,
but we are not out of the woods yet,” said WWF-Brazil's
CEO Denise Hamú.
“More concerted action is required
to integrate the government’s environmental and
development policies in order to really crack
down on illegal activities that are having an
adverse effect on the forest. Encouraging policies
that foster a sustainable forestry-based regional
economy should be pursued.”
Carried out in the right way,
sustainable forestry activities can generate income,
ensure a plentiful supply of timber in the long
term, and ensure that forests continue to be ecologically
functional. That is why many of WWF’s activities
are designed to improve forestry practices, in
addition to seeking more protection.
WWF-Brazil is part of the Amazon
Region Protected Areas (ARPA) initiative — a partnership
between the Brazilian government, the World Bank,
Global Environment Facility, German Development
Bank and the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund — which
has helped create some 20 million hectares of
protected areas in the Amazon.
A considerable number of the
world’s plants and animals live in the Amazon,
most of which remain undiscovered by scientists.
To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 427 mammals,
1,294 birds, 378 reptiles, 427 amphibians, and
some 3,000 fish species have been scientifically
classified in the region.
"Through ARPA we are creating
parks and reserves in areas that risk being rapidly
deforested," explained Cláudio Maretti,
head of WWF-Brazil’s protected areas programme,
which supports the ARPA initiative.
"We are not only ensuring
biodiversity conservation in perpetuity in these
areas, but we are also bringing order to the land
tenure chaos that leads to uncontrolled deforestation.”
According to experts, around
17 per cent of the natural vegetation in the Brazilian
Amazon has already been devastated by development,
logging and farming.
"Improved land tenure in
the agricultural sector has been a key element
in the reduction of deforestation rates,"
Maretti added. "The setting aside of indigenous
reserves and protected areas under ARPA are two
fundamental tools enabling the government to assert
its ownership over public lands in the Brazilian
Amazon against land grabbers and speculators."
Mariana Ramos
