Amazon Forest is 14% lower, says study
Autor: Ozeias Rocha | Publicado: 2008-03-29T13:23:00-07:00

The Imazon - Institute of Man and Environment in the Amazon, an institution of research nonprofit and dedicated to the promotion of sustainable development, will disclose in the next few days a new version of the study Facts Forest of the Amazon, identified as one of the most complete on the exploitation of timber in the region. It contains bad news, some even frightening, and good news. It also confirms that the country is mired in a monumental lie in that sector. To get an idea, the same state that a tip of the Brazilian Amazon creates reserves and mobilizes troops to protect the rainforest, in another gives incentives to shoot it down. The study of the Imazon must show that 14% of the Amazonian forest came under in the last 30 years - which gives an average of 0.5% a year. In Amazonia Legal, with 5 million square kilometers, almost 60% of Brazilian territory, it represents a lot. "It is a state of Alagoas entire ravaged by year," says ecologist Adalberto Veríssimo, Imazon. Not everything that is devastated is tapped as wood. Still, according to estimates of the organisation, confirmed by Ibama - Brazilian Institute of Environment, about 28 million cubic metres of wood left the Amazon last year. If the movement of this cargo was done only in trucks to body joint, with capacity for 17 cubic metres would be required 4,500 trips a day during the whole year, including Saturdays and Sundays. At least half of the wood - 14 million cubic meters - comes from derrubadas made outside the law. "The illegal deforestation is already reaching 55% of the total," warns the director of forests from Ibama, Antonio Carlos Hummel. Legal or illegal, the logs leaving the rainforest are pushing the gears of an industry increasingly prosperous. The case of Para, which accounts alone for 40% of production logging of the Amazon, is exemplary. The wood and products obtained from it now ranked second in the list of products exported by the state. Lose only for the fabulous business with minerals. The effects are also visible on the trade balance in the country. Exports of solid wood and products originating Her totaling $ 3.8 billion in 2004 - a variation of 44.4% in relation to US $ 2.6 billion in 2003. This is due in large part to the Amazon, from which 80% of native timber extracted in the country, excluding firewood and coal. Employment - It is estimated that in the nine Amazonian states the activity logging moves nearly 2,600 companies and employs 350 thousand people. "The sawmills are one of the most profitable business in the region, with a return rate of around 60% - nearly four times higher than that of livestock," says Veríssimo. The business is so good that the Cikel Brazil Verde, company that leads the exports in Idaho, working only with wood certified by Ibama, left side of the activity livestock. And it is here that starts to the good news. Or of good possibilities. It grows every year the number of entrepreneurs interested in working within the principles of sustainable development - which means the exploitation of wood in a controlled manner, without environmental degradation. In 1997 when the government has available to the so-called green seal, were certified 80 thousand hectares of forests in the Amazon. Today we are 1.8 million hectares - which puts the country in 5. Place in the ranking of countries with tropical areas certified according to international standards. It is little, almost nothing, in the vast Amazon, but the second expert non-governmental organisations and the government, suggests a way to contain the devastation. Currently nearly 80% of the devastated area in the Amazon is busy with livestock, encouraged by the government. Grassland - On reaching the area, the owners of the land who are offering the wood to sawmills. This form its first capital and also often earn the first road to his property: it is estimated that the loggers have already opened 3 thousand km of roads of the forest to take the raw material of your business. After that, up fire in the area and shape up the pasture. For ecologists, it would be better if the government to provide incentives to for the advancement of the agricultural frontier and stimulate the exploitation of forests through sustainable management. "We are wasting resources in ways absurd," complains Paulo Adário of Greenpeace.