BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil has something to tout at global climate change talks that began this week in Doha: destruction of the world’s largest rainforest is still slowing at a record pace.
Data released yesterday suggests destruction of Amazon woodlands has slowed to the lowest rate since monitoring began in 1988. The figures, based on Brazilian government data gathered by satellite imagery, mark the fourth straight year the overall deforestation levels have slowed.
But the data, scientists warn, must still be fleshed out by follow-up research to confirm whether the reality on the ground matches what seems to be the case from the sky, especially as loggers and farmers clear smaller but more numerous patches of woodland in efforts to evade detection.
Three of the nine Amazonian states measured in the recent data actually showed increases in deforestation. Meanwhile, scientists and environmentalists warn that changes to Brazil’s environmental policies in recent years could soon begin reversing the progress.
Still, the data disclosed yesterday runs counter to arguments by conservationists who fear that rising commodities prices are fueling greater destruction.
Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon region totaled 4,656 square kilometers (1,798 square miles) between August 2011 and July 2012, a 27 percent drop compared to the same period a year earlier, the Environment Ministry said.
Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira held up the fourth year of slowing deforestation as proof that Brazil is doing its global duty in policing the Amazon basin and curbing illegal loggers and ranchers who clear the forest with fire.
“This is the only good environmental news in the world just as the climate negotiations begin in Doha,” Teixeira told reporters.
Brazil has almost met its target of reducing Amazon deforestation 80 percent by 2020 over 2005 levels, which would help the South American country reach its voluntary goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 36 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2020.
Deforestation accounts for about 60 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions because forests are usually cleared by fires that release large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Almost 200 nations are meeting in Doha, Qatar to try to negotiate an extension to the expiring Kyoto climate treaty and work on a new agreement to curb the greenhouse gas emissions scientists say are warming the planet, raising sea levels and disrupting weather patterns.
Brazil wants rich developed nations to pledge more ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions – ideally by 25-40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 – because they have a greater historic responsibility for climate change.
