Brazil's logging at lowest for decades

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Deforestation hit peak in 2004 but has fallen thanks to government action and impact of global financial crisis

Tom Phillips in Manaus, Brazil
Wednesday December 1 2010 15.39 GMT

Brazil today hailed the lowest levels of Amazon rainforest deforestation in more than two decades, although the rate of destruction was higher than expected. Between August 2009 and July 2010 about 6,451 square kilometres of forest were razed in Brazil's Amazon, an area around four times the size of the southern metropolis of São Paulo.

Brazil's environment minister, Izabella Teixeira, described the numbers as "fantastic". "This is the lowest level of deforestation in the history of Amazonia," said Teixeira, who is tipped to keep her position under Brazil's incoming president Dilma Rousseff who takes office on 1 January.

While current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Rousseff, will not attend the UN climate change summit in Cancún, the timing of the announcement is a clear attempt to put Brazil's achievements in cutting destruction and carbon emissions high on the conference's agenda.

Brazil's government has been using satellites to track illegal loggers operating in the jungle since 1988. Deforestation hit a peak in 2004, when about 27,000 square kilometres of forest were destroyed but since then the numbers have fallen – the result of a variety of factors including increased government repression and the impact of the global financial crisis.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/01/brazil-logging-deforestation

[closeupready]

1. K&R - good news.

:)