Manaus, Amazon - On the eve of the release of shocking new data on Amazon deforestation rates, Greenpeace called on the Government of Brazil to reduce deforestation to zero by the year 2010.

The new information released by the Ministry of Environment shows that uncontrolled destruction of the Amazon forest continues at an alarming rate: within a year from August 1999, deforestation increased by 15 percent.

According to INPE, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which monitors deforestation via satellite, the total annual deforested area equalled 19,836 square kilometres, the equivalent of four million soccer fields, compared to 17,259 from August 1998 to August 1999.

"The new figures clearly show that efforts by the Brazilian Government have failed to stop, or even to slow, deforestation of the Amazon," said Paulo Adário, Greenpeace Amazon Campaigner. "This loss of forest cover in the Amazon is unacceptable and unsustainable. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that Amazon soil is not suitable for agriculture and cattle ranching. The biological richness of the region lives only in the standing forest. To continue unchecked deforestation means to condemn the Amazon to inevitable environmental and social crises."

An important footnote to this new data is that the satellite TM-Landsat, used by INPE, does not include deforestation of areas smaller than 6.4 hectares. This means that the impacts of hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers are not included.

The data also does not include the impacts of selective removal of commercially valuable species by the thousands of illegal loggers operating in the region. According to researcher Daniel Nepstad, cited in an article in Nature in 2000, selective logging impacted on 15,000 square kilometres in 1997 alone.

Instead of weakening the forest legislation though proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code that would increase the loss of forest coverage (1), Brazil must urgently adopt a meaningful and monitorable national program to fight deforestation. For that, Greenpeace calls on the Government of Brazil to implement national and international commitments made by Brazil during Eco-92 within the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) (2), and to embark on a series of domestic measures to curb deforestation:

• Appropriation of land held illegally, which according to the government totals approximately 100 million hectares or 20 percent of the Amazon region, for conversion to protected areas such as parks and reserves for sustainable use;
• Establishment of conservation units that have already been approved but have not yet been created;
• Redirection of landless people being relocated through the National Program of Agrarian Reform to already deforested areas;
• Strenghtening of the institutions charged with environmental protection such as IBAMA and State Secretaries of Environment;
• Adoption of systems and controls to deter production of timber from deforestation and benefit timber production from areas under sustainable forest management and FSC certification (3);
• Financial and institutional strengthening of community based forest management;
• Expansion of governmental programs to fight forest fires;
• Demarcation of all indigenous lands.

Only 22 percent of the earth's original forest coverage remains. Western Europe has lost 98 percent of its primary forests; Asia 94 percent; Africa 92 percent; Oceania 78 percent; North America 66 percent, and South America 54 percent.

Approximately 45 percent of the world's tropical forests, originally covering 1.4 billion hectares, have disappeared in the last few decades.

"In 1970, only one percent of the Brazilian Amazon had been deforested. By 2000 almost 15 percent has been destroyed. This means a forest area the size of France was lost in only 30 years. Stopping forest destruction has become a global priority. It must become a Brazilian priority before it is too late to act," concluded Adario.

Take action against Amazon deforestation
Send a letter to the President of Brazil and voice your opposition to further destruction.

Notes:

(1) Since 1999, the farmers' lobby group of the Brazilian National Congress, represented by Federal Deputy Moacir Micheletto (PMDB-PR) and by the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA), has been lobbying for a proposal to change Brazilian legislation on forest protection, the Forest Code. If successful, this would allow, among other things, deforestation of up to 50 percent of private properties in the Amazon region. Besides increasing deforestation, the proposal would reduce and, in some cases eliminate, Areas of Permanent Preservation.

(2) When Brazil hosted Eco-92 and participated in the drafting of texts that resulted in creation of the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD), the country assumed a responsibility to reduce deforestation rates and to implement measures for conservation and sustainable use of forest areas. Among these responsibilities are: to protect the forests, to establish mechanisms to fund sustainable activities in the forest sector, to conserve forest biodiversity, to guarantee that benefits from sustainable exploitation are reverted to local populations and to assure the survival of indigenous peoples. The next CBD meeting will take place in The Netherlands in April 2002.

(3) The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international organization based in Oaxaca, Mexico, whose membership is comprised of forest sector companies, and environmental and social entities. FSC is the only international body with a product labeling system that guarantees consumers that wood products have been harvested from sustainably managed forests.

For more information about Greenpeace's ancient forests campaign, email: guestforest@ams.greenpeace.org