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Deforestation of Amazon Second Lowest Since Records Began

11/27/2014 - 09h19

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FROM BRASÍLIA

Deforestation of the Amazon has fallen this year, according to official figures published on Wednesday (26).

After having risen 29% from 2012 to 2013, deforestation from 2013 to 2014 fell 18%, according to the Prodes system, run by the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe).

The measurements are usually taken via satellite between August and July, the so-called "tax year" for deforestation.

In total, 4,848km2 of forest was destroyed.

The figure may undergo revisions until May, but the Ministry of the Environment says that even so, they will not change the fact that this is the second lowest figure since present records began in 1988.

Only the year 2011-2012 was better in this regard.

The state which had the worst overall result was again Pará, with 1,829km2 of forest destroyed.

However, just Roraima and Acre suffered increases in deforestation when compared to the previous year, of 37% and 41%, respectively.

According to the Minister of the Environment, Izabella Teixeira, the result is proof of the government's work in combatting deforestation.

"The Rousseff administration has had the four lowest rates for deforestation of the Amazon," she said.

Prodes is one of the government's deforestation monitoring systems. It has high resolution and is designed to calculate the pace of the surface destruction of the forest.

The other system, Deter, is designed more to guide the surveillance of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), and is of lower resolution.

Nonetheless, when Prodes data is unavailable, it is still used to identify trends.

Folha revealed on November 8 that Deter had identified deforestation of 1,626km2 during August and September, an increase of 122% on the same two months of 2013.

These months, however, fall outside the cutoff point for Prodes.

Likewise, data from Imazon, a Belém NGO, shows an increase in 467% in deforestation in October, compared to the same month in 2013.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

Read the article in the original language

Ayrton Vignola - 17mai.05/Folhapress
Deforestation of the Amazon has fallen this year, according to official figures published on Wednesday (26)
Deforestation of the Amazon has fallen this year, according to official figures published on Wednesday (26)

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