Rainforest report

Logging, clearing decline for now

Here is one positive result of a slow global economy: Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest slowed in the latter part of 2008.

Satellite images show that 245 square miles of forest disappeared in the last five months of 2008. That does not seem like such a good thing until it is compared with 2007, when 1,325 square miles vanished during the same period. That's a decrease of 82 percent.

Brazil Environment Minister Carlos Minc said that government policies slowed deforestation. Brazil has become more vigilant in protecting the rainforest and punitive in its policies. Farmers, ranchers and loggers who clear land illegally no longer are eligible for government loans, for instance.

But environmentalists point to another reason: the global financial crisis has reduced demand for wood, soy and cattle. Thus, there is less call to clear land.

Amazon trees cut by loggers or burned release 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Such impact on the global climate should concern all of us. Whether Brazil's government is actually slowing the assault on the rainforest should be apparent once business picks up.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090124/OPINION01/301249964