Brazil Busts Illegal Logging Ring - Shame About That Deforestation Rate .

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BRASILIA - Brazilian police on Wednesday arrested a gang that was forging thousands of logging permits in the Amazon, in the latest government effort to slow destruction of the world's largest rain forest. Over 400 federal police agents staged dawn raids across four Amazon states and arrested 35 people who produced and sold illegal permits to transport millions of dollars worth of hardwood timber.

Brazil's government says its crackdown on illegal logging and tighter law enforcement have this year slowed deforestation of Brazil's Amazon by half after it reached its second-highest level ever the year before. "We've cut the backbones of these gangs," Environment Minister Marina Silva, flanked by federal police chiefs, told a press conference.

Environmental groups say much of the reduction in Amazon deforestation is due to a slump in farming rather than government action. They fear Brazil's agriculture frontier will speed its advance on the rain forest once commodity prices improve. Wednesday's large-scale police operation was the fifth launched against illegal Amazon logging since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva entered office in 2003 with strong backing from environmentalists.

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A recent study by the Carnegie Institution of Washington suggests damage to the rain forest may be twice as large as previously thought due to undetected selective logging, where individual trees are picked out of the forest. The government contests research suggesting selective logging drastically increases rain-forest damage and says it is preferable to clear cutting where all trees are felled.

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33185/story.htm