Deforestation has new drop in August

Even with the long drought, which resulted in 28 thousand fire spots around the country in August, the System for Deforestation Detection in Real Time (Deter) recorded a 47% drop in Amazon deforestation rates in relation to the same period of 2009.

According to the Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, the successive reduction of deforestation over the past two years, "is the result of coordinated actions between the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), Ibama, the Federal Police and various government agencies." The cleared area in August 2010 was 265 sq km, against 498 sq km in the same month in 2009.

"The rates have been maintaining a downward trend," said the minister. The Deter System, with Inpe, detects deforestation in real time and guides the government's actions to slow deforestation before the affected area would suffer an irreparable environmental damage. Izabella Teixeira expects that, in November, with the consolidation of data from Prodes, a system that records clearing in areas up to 6.25 hectares, the Ministry of the Environment can confirm the yearly drop as projected by Deter, which detects areas larger than 25 hectares.

Defrauders - The minister also informed that, in addition to the repression in the field - in places where there is felling of forest cover -, the government is crossing information with data from tax evasion. "The environmental criminals are also tax evaders," says Izabella Teixeira. This has improved the capacity of environmental agencies to identify and punish deforesters more effectively.

The minister also announced that a new monitoring system, the Indicar - Imaging and Radar Deforestation Indicator, is almost ready to assess deforestation under the clouds. The major challenge for the monitoring work carried out by Inpe since 2004 was to detect small cleared areas under a cloudy sky, since the observation made by satellites Landsat and CBRs is visual. With data from the Japanese Space Agency - captured by the satellite Alos, which operates with radar and without weather restrictions - the identification of areas in the process of deforestation - or already deforested - will be much more precise. Indicar will have the ability to identify areas above 10 hectares. The new system will come into operation in 2010, said Izabella.

Wildfires - Even with the onset of the rainy season, the fight against wildfires continues in some regions of the country. A new survey released this Friday (08) records 108 thousand fire spots this year. Of the 304 conservation units managed by ICMBio, 90 were affected by wildfires. According to the coordinator for integrated control to combat wildfires, 32 of them are still active, 14 are under control and 42 were extinguished.

There are still active wildfire spots in six conservation units: Nascentes do Parnaíba National Park, Urucuíuna Ecological Station, and Serra das Confusões National Park, in Piauí, Serra Geral Ecological Station, in Tocantins, Serra do Cachimbo Extractive Reserve, in Pará, and Chapada Diamantina, in Bahia. The minister said that the wildfires are expected to be controlled over the next days.

Although elevated, the number of wildfires in the first nine months of 2010, which amounted to 108 thousand, was only the fifth largest in the last ten years. The years 2005 (143 thousand), 2004 (142 thousand), 2003 (128 thousand) and 2007 (114 thousand) had more elevated figures during the same period. Over 70% of the wildfire spots occurred in the Center-Western region, in the Cerrado Biome. The region had not been suffering from wildfires in such a proportion since two years ago.

RF