Amazon Deforestation Speeds Up - 11 Football Fields A Minute - Science

[hatrack]

MANAUS, Brazil, May 25, 2004 (ENS) - A new study by a team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists shows that the rate of forest destruction has accelerated in the Brazilian Amazon since 1990. "The recent deforestation numbers are just plain scary," said the study's lead author William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, who operates out of a research facility in Manaus. "During the last two years nearly 12 million acres of rainforest have been destroyed - that is equivalent to about 11 football fields a minute."

The team says the Amazonian deforestation will likely continue to increase unless the Brazilian government alters its aggressive plans for highway and infrastructure expansion. The study was published in the May 21 issue of the journal "Science," a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The researchers report deforestation has risen most sharply in the southern and eastern parts of the Amazon, where rainforests are more seasonal and thus more easily burned. The 2002-2003 deforestation rate reached 23,750 square kilometers (9,169 square miles), the second highest rate in Amazonia´s recorded history.

"Since 2002, forest loss has shot up by nearly 50 percent in the states of Pará, Rondônia, Mato Grosso, and Acre," said co-author Ana Albernaz of the Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil. "Plant and wildlife species indigenous to these areas are being severely threatened."

EDIT

http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=31975

[jay-3d]

1. tree huger

Why is "tree huger" seem like a bad word to people? "Dam tree huger"