Amazon deforestation is slowing, says Brazil

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

Brazil said on Friday that the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest was slowing, but environmental groups suggested much of the reduction was due to a slump in farming instead of government action.

Using data obtained by satellite, the government estimated that 9 106km2 were razed in the world's largest tropical forest between August 2004 and July 2005, down sharply from 18 724km2 in the same period a year earlier.

Officials attributed the drop to a government action plan launched last year aimed at curbing illegal logging in the Amazon, home to an estimated 30 percent of the world's animal and plant species.

(...)

The announcement came less than three months after the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who came to power in 2003 with the backing of environmentalists, released official data showing that the Amazon rainforest was destroyed at a near-record pace in 2003-2004.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1125129061450B251

[WMliberal]

1. downgraded from rampant to reckless.

[belle]

2. Finally, some good(ish) news.

Maybe Lula can slow it down further.

[PaulaFarrell]

4. unlikely

he's one of the main people responsible

[hatrack]

3. Yeah, whatever . . . .

I'll believe that this means something when they stop building roads into the Amazon basin.

Until such time, don't insult my intelligence by happy-talk about how the rate of destruction is slowing.

[VegasWolf]

5. Don't worry, Bush is exporting his "Leave No Tree Standing" policy!

[SlowDownFast]

6. Running out of trees, that's why.

The lungs of the earth are nearly cut out of her.

[sweetheart]

7. Perhaps its all the books

that are flowing out of the amazon wood reserves. :-)

Maybe economics are curtailing the number of printed books, and
saving the amazon.com from too much growth, that, like a giant
redwood, it become a crashing sound in sequoia.