Authorities will monitor the areas in an attempt to prevent anyone from trying to plant crops or raise cattle there.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFdeforestation 88(photo credit: )
Brazil will combat rising deforestation in the Amazon by sending extra federal police and environmental agents to areas where illegal clearing of the rain forest jumped dramatically last year, officials said Thursday.
Authorities will monitor the areas in an attempt to prevent anyone from trying to plant crops or raise cattle there, Environment Minister Marina Silva said.
The new measures were announced after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called an emergency meeting of Cabinet ministers because new data showed an apparent reversal of a three-year slowdown in the Amazon deforestation rate.
The clearing of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped in the final months of 2007, spurred by high prices for corn, soy and cattle.
Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes said Latin America's largest nation has plenty of available land for farming and cattle that has already been deforested. Environmentalists fear sugarcane, used here to produce ethanol, could spread through the rain forest, but most ethanol operations are in southern Brazil far from the Amazon.
"It's not necessary to cut a single tree to produce soy or raise cattle," Stephanes said. "There's plenty of land outside of the Amazon to increase the production of soy and beef."
The government says its new push to stop deforestation is different than previous efforts because farmers will now be targeted as well as loggers.
The government will target 36 areas that registered the highest rates of deforestation, environmental officials said. Officials will try to fine people or businesses who buy anything produced on illegally deforested land, the environment minister said.
The plan means a 25 percent increase in the police force assigned to the region, though Justice Minister Tarso Genro did not say how many officers will take part.
Farmers working deforested land in the targeted area will also be forced to reregister holdings with government officials to prove their holdings were not illegally cleared, and there will be no new permits for logging.
On Wednesday, the environment ministry announced that up to 2,700 square miles of rain forest was cleared from August through December.
That puts Brazil on course to lose 5,791 square miles for the year ending in August - a 34 percent increase from the previous 12-month period.
Although preliminary calculations can only prove that 1,287 square miles of rain forest were cleared from August through December, ministry executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco said officials are working under the assumption that the higher amount of jungle was cleared as they continue analyzing satellite data.
Environmentalists say an immediate crackdown could be well timed.
Paulo Adario, coordinator of Greenpeace's Amazon campaign, said it's important for the government to act now because slash-and-burn deforestation typically ramps up this time of year at the start of the rainy season.
Jungle is typically cleared in the Amazon to provide pasture for cattle, then soy farmers move in later and cultivate their crops. Brazil also has a booming beef export industry, and cattle ranchers have been expanding operations in the Amazon.
