Tierra-i real time satellite imaging reveals rapid deforestation throughout Latin America, and estimates that nearly 250,000 hectares of forest are lost in Argentina alone every year. Deforestation is particularly a problem in the northern provinces, home to the Argentine part of the Gran Chaco forest. As farmers have found soy to be more lucrative than cattle, traditional crops are traded for the profitable bean.

The Argentina Independent hits the streets to find out what the locals think about deforestation. Do you think that deforestation is a significant concern? Why is a problem in Argentina in particular?

Photos: Agus Carini

Susana, 41, Administrative Assistant, San Martín

Yes, it is important. More than anything because of everything that it has to do with oxygen itself, and when we consider how it has contributed throughout the years to the destruction of the ozone layer…One can sense that the climate has changed, and now winters are no longer the same winters, and summers are not the same summers, either…I speak from my own understanding, because sometimes there are things that one does not fully understand, but one can perceive…

Maybe the reason that deforestation is a big problem in Argentina would have to do with the regulations, that the regulations are not well formed or that there is no legislation that covers the area well at this moment…. For me it must have to do with this, that the legislation is not managing to cover everything that has to do with natural reserves… there could be other undercurrents that one doesn’t know about.

Pablo, 20, Mechanic, Palermo

Yes, it’s important, because to cut down trees in an effort to get more lands is crazy, I don’t know the percentage of lands that they have taken in order to make furniture, things like that, but yes, it should be.

It’s such a big problem in Argentina because we have a lot of land. There are other countries where it’s not as big of a problem because they have less area. But for example, they also take lands from tribes.

The forests allow us to breath; without them, we couldn’t breathe. It’s important to have them, definitely for this reason, but also because I like green spaces. When I go to the country, I tell you – I love Buenos Aires, but when I go to Juaní, it’s completely different….it’s beautiful.

Alberto, 48, Stone Mason, Berazategui

Yes, I think that deforestation is certainly a problem. The climate has changed, there are days that are so cold in the middle of summer that we have to bundle up. It’s the same in the winter; this past week, there was a polar wind and then it rose to 24 degrees.

It may be that the problem is that the politicians have only recently taken note of the issue, not much importance is given to protecting the forests. We cut down twenty trees, and not one is planted to replace the twenty. They only remember to plant again when the fields are bare.

That’s why today many people are against the planting of soy, [which] is at once a step forward and a step backwards, because it ruins the soil. Where you plant soy, you can’t then go plant other grains. Because there has to be a process to make the earth fertile again, in order to plant grains such as wheat and barley.

Camila, 20, Promoter, San Fernando

Yes, it seems to me that it is a concern…it seems to me that they should inform people a little more, because I, obviously, am not well informed, but I know that deforestation is a problem. Or, better put, that they inform people a little more, so that people can be aware and can realise that it is really bad.

Deforestation is a problem here because here are many cities, there are many buildings, and the little green now isn’t anything more than the plazas, and the few green spaces we have, we can’t take advantage of them often.

These green spaces are important so that people can take advantage of the free time they have, to at least spend some time in a green area, now that we have so much city, streets, cars, noise; when one wants pass a little time in peace, to study, share mate with friends, play the guitar.

Agustín, 23, Unemployed, Pilar

Yes, deforestation is definitely a topic of concern, because trees are extremely important in the equilibrium of the environment, the ecosystem. We’re outside of nature’s harmony. This disconnection causes various problems.

I am not very familiar, but I know – because of Greenpeace’s campaigns more than anything, perhaps – that there is a lot of deforestation in the north, in Missiones, in Entre Ríos, in Formosa… It’s not good to lose even one hectare of forest a day; a hectare is a lot, and a lot more than that is being lost.

One time, I was traveling in the mountains in the south. It was a lovely trip, I was alone, with the birds and the trees. And after climbing for three hours I came upon a logging field. It was rather sad; I had travelled looking at all of the nature, all of the force of nature, and the harmony, and it was all dead there, murdered.

Latin America’s vast forests are rapidly disappearing. They have come to represent yet another quickly diminishing artery of the continent’s many ‘open veins’. Their fertile land is being converted at an increasingly alarming rate for the purposes of large-scale agribusiness, namely, soy.

Images of deforestation in the wild Chaco. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Louis Reymondin is the man behind a new satellite imagery and ground processing system, Terra-i, mapping deforestation across South America.

Reymondin, a Swiss native, is a third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at King’s College of London and has been working as a visiting researcher at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), whose headquarters are based near Cali in southwest Colombia, for the last five years. During this time he developed Terra-I from scratch.

The complex system detects land-cover changes resulting from human activities in near real-time, producing updates every 16 days. It currently runs for the whole of South America.

“So far the system has shown that deforestation has increased in Caquetá, Colombia by 340% since 2004, and the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay, the second most forested area in South America, has lost over a million hectares of forest.”

Deforestation in Argentina

According to Reymondin, “In Argentina, Terra-i has performed habitat status monitoring every 16 days from the 1st January 2004. During the past eight years, it has detected a cumulative habitat loss of 1,955,419 hectares, equivalent to an annual national loss rate of 244,525 ha/year.” To give an idea of scale, that is roughly an area the size of Luxembourg lost each year.

Deforestation is centred in the north of the country where its largest forest, and the continent’s second largest, following only the massive Amazon, lies.

“The provinces of Santiago del Estero and Salta were the most heavily impacted, having 590,094 hectares and 516,069 hectares converted respectively between 2004 and 2011.”

Map of habitat loss in Argentina, Terra-i detection.

The Gran Chaco spreads over three countries: Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. As defined by data provided by the Organization of American States (OAS), the “Gran Chaco Americano” biome covers approximately 1,000,000 km² of South America and encompasses the central-north region of Argentina (53% of the total area of the Gran Chaco and 22% of the country’s surface area).

According to Reymondin, the South American Gran Chaco is a mosaic of habitats. It is a hotspot of biodiversity on the continent and one that is becoming increasingly threatened.

The data coming from Terra-i is especially pertinent as it attempts to isolate the deforestation resulting from human activity.

“The Terra-i outputs are of course not noise [error] free and we cannot guarantee that every single pixel that has been detected is the result of human activity, nor is Terra-i detecting all the events of deforestation that occurred since 2004.”

That said, Reymondin has included many special equations to ensure it is the best data available: “… we have implemented a range of methodologies to reduce the effect of noise, such as cloud cover, and to filter land cover changes that are not human-caused, or at least not directly, such as floods and drought. We can therefore say that the majority of the detections that we observe can be attributed to human activity.”

Why is the Chaco Disappearing? 

Perhaps the most obvious driver of change is the blanket of soy that has been rapidly spreading over the continent since the 1990’s.

Changes in global markets have expedited this process in the new millennium, especially in Argentina. A country with a huge farming component, the rolling pampas of grazing cattle typically associated with the Argentine countryside are being replaced by industrial farms growing soy, now a much more lucrative crop for any farmer.

The romantic vision of ranch life remains important in Argentine culture, but the economic equations involved in the agriculture business have changed in recent years. The expansion of soy farming is driven by US ethanol production and a global interest in biofuels; prices for soy continue to break records.

Soybean farming has been rapidly spreading over the continent for the last ten years. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Some agricultural analysts say that Argentine soybean farming is now several times more profitable than cattle ranching.

It is these profitable equations which are threatening the Chaco. Large-scale agribusinesses are encroaching on protected Chaco regions both themselves, and by pushing cattle ranchers into the area after evicting them from lands they traditionally used.

Now the third largest soy producer in the world, Argentina’s aggressive land conversions will soon change this status. Widespread drought in the US, formerly the top soy producer, combined with a larger than usual yield predicted for the 2012-2013 harvest, will put the Southern Cone soy producers in the top spot for production.

Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil combined are producing well over half of the soy on the international market. All countries in the Southern cone are rapidly converting all arable land to soy at breakneck speed.

Lessons of Paraguay 

Perhaps nowhere is the power of soy, and the threat to the Chaco in the face of this, more apparent than in the case of Paraguay.

Recently, Paraguay made headlines worldwide by the all-too-quick impeachment of left-leaning president Fernando Lugo, prompting international sanctions and public condemnation.

Paraguay is currently the fourth-largest exporter of soy. Loose regulations and relative poverty make it an easy target for multi-national soy giants to take hold there. Terra-i created a video -which can be viewed here– illustrating the massive changes in land taking place in the neighbouring country.

Around 77% of Paraguay’s arable land is owned by just 2% of the population. In the past ten years, deals have been struck for 203 million hectares of land — nearly six times the size of Germany — at a pace and scale that outstripped the ability of governance structures to respond, a situation which Lugo sought to reverse with a reform that never quite came to fruition.

Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, writes in a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, “The Paraguay soy boom — made in China and Europe and grown upon the lands of the political elite — is controlled by the boardrooms of Big Business. As much as 70% of Paraguay’s soy is exported each year and of that the multinational grain giants Cargill, ADM, and Bunge account for about 70% [of all soy exported].”

Los Angeles based KPFK’s Sojourner Truth radio show recently featured a segment on the impeachment of Fernando Lugo. The show hosted Miguel Lovera, the former national secretary for plant safety under Lugo, who spoke of the impeachment as being a coup orchestrated by a ‘Genetically Modified Soy Mafia.’

Lovera was outspoken on the show in claiming Lugo’s removal as being intrinsically related to his moves to protect Paraguay’s Gran Chaco from encroachment by multi-national soy companies and his desire to redistribute their land to smaller-scale farmers.

“The main comparative advantage of Paraguay as a soy growing territory has actually been the lack of regulations in the past. Since Lugo’s government took over that condition changed, and we actually started regulating … venturing into sensitive territory and they weren’t ready to adapt.”

Lovera hints that the original struggle in the northern region resulting in the deaths of peasants and police officers was not only orchestrated by the soy mafia, but actually committed by those in their employment.

At the very least, there is a dangerous concentration of power in terms of Paraguayan soy -an industry controlled by only a handful of very powerful multinationals which account for an undeniably influential lobby.

Lovera states that the Chaco, after small-scale peasants, is becoming the most visible victim, “[The Chaco] is also the area that is allocating all this displacement, the cattle ranching displacement in the areas that are good for soy growing, they are encroaching into this wilderness.”

To Bear Witness

The power of something like Terra-i in the face of the great changes taking place in South America is perhaps that it is an indisputable witness to what is occurring here. An omniscient eye-in-the-sky silently watching and detailing every change taking place, no matter how remote the location in which it is occurring.

“Habitat conversion is contributing to widespread loss of biodiversity and other critical ecosystem services, yet in many parts of the world the scale and pattern of habitat loss still goes unmonitored,” says Reymondin.

“Decision makers at multiple scales (local to national to regional) need information on land-cover change, as accurate and recent as possible, in order to prioritise interventions and act upon new land-cover change patterns in a timely manner. Terra-i aims to provide information about habitat loss at a temporal and spatial resolution that is relevant for decision makers.”

The data and real-time images coming from Terra-i provide interest groups, interventionists, and really anyone with an interest, solid data to point to. It is free, accessible, and irrefutable.

Infographic of the deforestation in Chaco showing the locations and damage done. (courtesy of Greenpeace)

Reymondin and his team aim to expand Terra-i. South America, while a significant achievement to monitor an entire continent, is but one of many hotspots in terms of biodiversity loss and deforestation due to human activity.

“We will keep updating the detection of deforestation in Latin America as data comes in from the MODIS satellite sensors. We plan to extend Terra-i to cover the whole tropics which will be a new challenge as this increases considerably the amount of data to process.”

Terra-I also plans to broaden its lens to encompass other resources, including the multifarious effects deforestation has on water resources.

Quite simply, Terra-I is the fly on the wall (or better, bird in the sky) bearing witness to the changes taking place. Increasing awareness and solid, publicly available information are key to social action. Given this, perhaps tools like Terra-i could help to prevent future stories such as Lugo’s in South America.

How aware are Argentines of the deforestation problem? Click here to find out.

Collection of plastic bottles event from December 2011 (Courtesy of Banco del Bosques)

“One bottle = one square metre” the green-capped Villavicencio water bottle reads. Emiliano Ezcurra is the director of an Argentine NGO that is helping people use their plastic bottles to save the country’s forests. “We buy the forests and then comes the revolution,” he announces.

We hear so many statistics about deforestation, most of us have become numb to them. Every minute an area the size of three football pitches is cleared in the Amazon; in the ‘Gran Chaco Americano’, a vast forest that binds Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, tens of thousands of hectares are chopped down every month. The figures are staggering but few people believe they can do anything about it. Some, fortunately, do.

A dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist, Ezcurra spent his working life since he was 16 at Greenpeace, before launching ‘Banco de Bosques’ in 2010. He speaks with a passion and authority that is fitting of his experience; his enthusiasm, it would seem, has not dwindled.

Put simply, the NGO – The Forest Bank, in English – is working to save Argentina’s forests. Its focal point is ‘La Fidelidad’ a 250,000-hectare chunk of land in the Chaco forest that they are in the process of buying to turn into a National Park. People who want to contribute to the project use their website – available in four languages – to donate money to save parts of the forest. They scan the website’s satellite images, find a bit they like and “buy” it. Land in the forest is surprisingly cheap but you can only purchase it in large quantities, that’s why the NGO’s role is essential.

But ‘Banco de Bosques’ isn’t just about collecting money. Their innovative fundraising scheme has been getting people to use something they normally throw away, for good. If people don’t want to donate money, they can donate plastic bottles instead. The company then sells the bottles to recycling plants and uses the money to buy the land.

“The idea of collecting plastic bottles came about when [social activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee] Juan Carr proposed that instead of people paying for a concert [we were organising] with money, they could bring plastic bottles.” Ezcurra explains. “Around two bottles – less in fact – buys you a square metre of forest… When they give bottles, they feel involved in the campaign.”

The project teamed up with Villavicencio, the country’s biggest drinking water company, to encourage people to get involved. Ezcurra hopes that in three years, they will have bought all 250,000-hectares which they will give to the state to make a National Park.

When you zoom out from ‘La Fidelidad’ on the website’s satellite imagery, it can be a little disheartening. What appeared to be an enormous mass of land is gobbled up by the huge swathes of forests surrounding it that are still potentially threatened by deforestation. But ‘La Fidelidad’ is just the tip of the iceberg for Ezcurra and his team, they are onto something much bigger “Banco de Bosques isn’t just about protecting forests, it’s about managing forests.”

Deforestation map on Banco de Bosques website

What they want to do is show that forests aren’t just beautiful trees loved by botanists; they can also be the source of profit making enterprises. “If we can make forests profitable, they don’t need to be destroyed,” he says.

Forests are full of small-scale profit turning opportunities, Ezcurra says, like, among others, ecotourism, organic honey production and fruit picking. They can make money and that, he believes, is the key to their survival.

A person chaining himself to a tree isn’t a viable type of activism anymore – to secure forests’ safety in today’s market-driven society, you have to make them attractive where it counts – financially. “With 1000 hectares of forest in the Chaco, you can make a profit. It doesn’t matter if it’s less or more than what you could do with soy, what matters is that it’s profitable.”

Can you really convince somebody who wants to plant highly profitable soy fields to stick with the forest and invest in ethical products instead? Ezcurra thinks so. “If people want to cut down the forest to plant soy we can say ‘No, what you’re doing has a negative effect on society – you can make money off this forest.’” It’s all about plain talking and being realistic. “’Maybe you won’t be able to buy a Ferrari, but you’ll be able to buy a [Volkswagen] Bora – it’s a good car.’”

Forests are in danger and Banco del Bosques are working to save them.

Emiliano Ezcurra calls himself a financial activist these days – he wants to take investment funds’ money away from destructive practices to channel them into positive projects and he’s confident there is a market for it. “There are a lot of investors who don’t want to work with forest-destroying projects anymore.”

In a few years he wants to have founded ‘Banco de Bosques Investments’, a green organisation that can compete with other investment companies and use its capital for good, supporting small enterprises that work with forests.

It’s all part of a bigger vision for society that goes at a healthier more sustainable pace. “We need a more intelligent economy, one that is adapted to nature,” he says. “You don’t adapt the forest to suit production; you adapt production to suit the forest.” Why? “Because nature doesn’t forgive,” and he sees us facing difficulties if we don’t act soon.

So much of the country’s forests have already been chopped down and deforestation is still going on at an alarming rate but Ezcurra is confident that his team can still win. “It’s like we’re losing three nil and there are 15 minutes left but we’re on the pitch and we can turn the result around.” A wry smile. “It takes balls and we’ve got plenty.”

A firm handshake, a swift goodbye and he’s off. There’s a German group interested in the project and he needs to go to Iguazu to meet them. The previous week he met with people from HSBC and they loved it. Maybe he’s on to something with this financial activism. 15 minutes left? Plenty of time.

Greenpeace revealed new photographic evidence today of severe deforestation in the north-eastern province of Chaco. The images show environmental damage in the protected area of El Impenetrable.

The environmental organisation is calling on the Argentine government to stop the illegal activities that violate the Forest Act.

“The images are compelling. They show bulldozers in the process of clearing, and it’s severe impact on native forests in areas where national law prohibits it,” said Greenpeace representative Hernán Giardini.

On May 14^th the provincial government suspended silvopastoral harvesting in native forests for 60 days. This order came out of a meeting between Governor Jorge Capitanich and Greenpeace representatives.

“We hope [Jorge] Capitancih meets the Forest Act and stop the fever of the bulldozers,” said Giardini. “We will continue to monitor the region and enforce the Forest Act.”

The Land Demarcation of Native Forests classifies El Impenetrable, which covers around 4 million hectares of native forest mainly situated in the Chaco region, as Category I and Category II forests, prohibiting clearing.

It is home to critically endangered and protected animals, such as the jaguar, the giant armadillo and anteater. Around 60,000 people live in El Impenetrable, mainly members of indigenous communities, who have over the years suffered human rights abuses by government and deforesters.

A new law to revise the Forest Code in Brazil has come under fire from environmental groups, drawing claims that amnesty to landowners responsible for deforestation and eased environmental restrictions will only open up the door to further natural exploitation.

The law will pardon environmental crimes committed through 2008, forgiving a debt equivalent to US $5.680 million. Additionally, it will no longer be required for landowners to reforest a 30m margin from river basins, reducing the distance for Permanent Preservation Areas (APP) to 15m.

For rivers wider than 10m, each Brazilian state will determine the size of the protected areas at its own discretion.

The mandatory reforestation areas, established as the APP in 1989, were designed to halt deforestation of the country’s most vulnerable environments. The revised law remains subject to the sanction of President Dilma Roussef.

While proponents of the law argue that the previous APP restrictions harmed thousands of small farmers subsisting on the banks of the rivers, environmental groups warn that thousands of square km along the Brazilian Amazon will now be left exposed to construction projects and logging.

Experts and specialists appear so far to be echoing the doubts of environmentalists, pointing out that the pardoning of landowners could open Brazil up to trade retaliation affecting the local agricultural industry.

“Brazil is taking a shot in the foot by creating unnecessary geopolitical vulnerability, said Virgilio Viana, general superintendent of the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation.

Yesterday Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia, launched a new environmental policy, declaring that the government will “no longer allow [the] environmental massacres” that the country has seen over the last 20 years, in which 10% of its forests have been destroyed.

The president called for an end to the deforestation of Colombia, an act that is ruining their “great treasure”. He stated that the total area of decimated forests equates roughly to the size of the entire Atlantico department. A proposed US$55 million investment will come from the government, aimed at a programme of reforestation.

The new environmental policy aims not only to restore the forests, but also to act as the country’s “great protector against future harsh winters” like the one Colombia has just experienced, which was plagued by 190 landslides between September and December, in which 185 people were killed and more than 900,000 were affected.

Santos blamed the extreme deforestation for the landslides, which occurred as often as three times a day in different areas of the country. He stated: “Deforestation holds a lot of the responsibility, because without trees, erosion occurs, and this erosion leads to fragile lands collapsing.”

Finally, Santos also launched a crusade against illegal logging and wood trafficking, which according to the World Bank, accounts for 42% of Colombia’s deforestation. He stated that his government aims to ensure that all wood extracted, commercialised and used comes from legal sources.

Deforestation is clearing the world’s forests rapidly and on a massive scale. As well as altering productive eco-systems and increasing the risk of flooding, it is a major contributor to climate change. Around 30% of the carbon added to the atmosphere over the past 150 years is thought to come from deforestation.

As of now, forests still cover about 30% of the world’s land area, but at the current rate of deforestation they could completely vanish in only a hundred years. In Brazil, home of the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, the Senate is due to discuss amendments to the national Forest Code, which could leave an area greater than the size of England vulnerable to deforestation by farmers.

The Argentina Independent hit the streets of Buenos Aires to find out if locals perceive deforestation as an important issue in Argentina, where only around a third of the country’s original forests remain. What would the people like to see their government do to help protect the environment? And what would they like to see their neighbours, friends, and family do to preserve the world’s forests?

Santiago, Mechanic, Colombia

I am from Colombia, but I am living here. To be honest, I never heard anyone discussing the protection of rainforests here. It is definitely not a very present topic in Argentina. In fact, I have not heard of environmental protection at all while being in Argentina, and from what I saw the Argentine population does not perceive it as important. For years now we have cared about the environment in Colombia; we protect our parks, our water, our trees, and in general all of our natural resources. The Argentine government should start to focus on environmental protection and invest in awareness campaigns. Just as Colombia has a special flower that cannot be found in any other country, I imagine that Argentina has similar natural resources and these need to be protected. And what’s more, everyone needs to understand that the environment is what provides us with everything we need. Everyone should start to bring about a change in their own home and recycle, for example. We need to start somewhere.

Magdalena, Social Worker, Córdoba

The protection of forests should be a very important topic in Argentina. Newspapers do not publish articles dealing with the issue at all though. Recently I was in Brazil and was made aware of the deforestation problem. People in our capital do not talk much about this problem, but I am from Córdoba and in my hometown we do care about environmental protection. The government should actively control deforestation in order to initiate a change. If someone cuts a tree, he or she should have to plant a new one. People have to become aware of the problem, inform themselves, and pass on the information to others in order to make them aware of the significance of environmental protection. I always talk to my children about these issues and it would be a great thing to discuss them in schools, too.

Adriano, Employee, Buenos Aires Province

To tell you the truth, the protection of the forests is not a particularly important issue in Argentina. There is little information to be found in the media. The government should protect our natural resources and our forests, but currently they are not very active. To be honest, I cannot think of a solution to this problem, but I do think it is important to raise awareness among society. We have to start taking care of nature and our planet. I like the idea of having every person planting a tree to initiate a change. In fact, when I think about it, everyone should be planting at least two trees.

Carolina, Student, Recoleta

The protection of forests is extremely important in Argentina, as forests are our primary resource. Unfortunately deforestation and environmental protection are not very present in the Argentine media. Our capital is highly polluted because we do not care for the environment here. We lack awareness. We need to recycle and stop dropping trash on the streets. In my school for example we did an environmental project. Each student and their family planted a tree each. It would be nice if everyone would participate in those initiatives.

Carmen, University Employee, Recoleta

Deforestation is a big problem. Environmental pollution and reckless behavior causes climate change here and all around the world. No one talks about environmental protection in Argentina. Political interests come first and that is why politicians avoid the subject. To initiate a change, the government has to stop considering the effect that environmental protection has on our country’s economy. For our politicians, the economic activity is more important than the glaciers that have started to melt in the South. These days, Argentina has a sub-tropical climate – before it was absolutely stable, with clearly differentiated seasons. This change occurred because we did not care about our trees and our environment. We need to change as soon as possible.

Human rights organisation Survival International has released satellite images showing illegal deforestation of a land home to uncontacted Indian tribes in Paraguay.

Brazilian ranching companies BBC S.A and River Plate were destroying up to 4000 hectares of the Gran Chaco forest. Also known as the Chaco plain, the forest is nested in the Rio de la Plata Basin bordering Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina.

The Chaco plain is home to the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode tribe, South America’s last uncontacted indigenous community outside of the Amazon. Deforestation has catastrophic consequences for this tribe as they rely entirely on the forest for their survival.

Whilst deforestation by ranching companies has already considerably affected the survival of Indian tribes, it seems that technology is now playing in their favour.

Following the release of their satellite images, Survival International’s Director, Stephen Corry, said ‘This is fantastic news and a great testament to the powers of new technology. The global public is more aware of the Ayoreo’s struggle than ever before and the tables are turning. Soon these companies will be the ones with nowhere to hide.’

Today the parliament of Brazil approved a new forest law. The Forest Code allows greater deforestation.

The approval was considered a great loss to farmers and environmentalists. More than 200 organisations signed manifests against the new law. Additionally 44 other international organisations rejected the project.

Powerful landowners welcomed the decision, considered the first defeat of President Dilma Rousseff in the Parliament. In total there were 410 votes in favour and 63 against the law, with one abstention.

Brazilian’s Forest Law provides amnesty to loggers across the country. The results of this policy can already be seen in the increasing levels of deforestation in the Amazon.

Between March and April this year, the deforestation in Mato Grosso state has increased with more than 500%. The state is known for the large estates of soybeans and cattle.

According to Maureen Santos, a specialist in international relations of the NGO ‘Fase’, the reversions in the legislation will harm the international image of Brazil.

The country was attempting to create a progressive image at the summits on climate change, with ambitious goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Maureen recalled that the main way to do this was by reducing the deforestation.

At the moment the law will need the Senate’s approval and ultimately the President may veto parts of the law.

Maureen Santos emphasised the fact that it is essential for society to force the Government to show that setbacks like this are unacceptable.

Story courtesy of Agencia Púlsar, the news agency of AMARC-ALC.

Yesterday Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) announced a sharp rise in deforestation in March and April relative to the same period last year.

New data revealed that deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has increased almost sixfold, as was stated by BBC News today.

Brazil’s space research institute presented satellite images which shows that deforestation increased from 103 square kilometres in March and April 2010 to 593 square kilometres in the same period of 2011.

Around 80% of the recent clearing occurred in Mato Grosso, the southernmost state in the Brazilian Amazon. The state is the centre of soya farming in Brazil,which produces more than a quarter of Brazil’s soybean harvest since 1988.

This new data came shortly before a vote on new forest protection rules.

According to Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira the figures were “alarming” and announced the setting up of a “crisis cabinet” in response to the news.

“Our objective is to reduce deforestation by July,” the minister told during a news conference.

Analysts stated that the Brazilian government was surprised by the new data, since a government report of last December revealed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen to its lowest rate for 22 years.

In fact, the latest data show a 27% increase in deforestation from August 2010 to April 2011.

According to some environmentalists, the rising demand for soya and cattle is prompting farmers to clear more of their land.

Others perceive a direct link between the increase in deforestation and the months of debate over easing an existing law on forest protection.

Marcio Astrini from Greenpeace told Reuters that: “The only relevant factor is the Forest Code.” The Forest Code, enacted in 1934, sets out how much of his land a farmer can deforest.

The Chamber of Deputies has delayed voting on the Forest Code amid at times acrimonious argument but could consider the issue again next week.

Regulations currently require that 80% of a landholding in the Amazon remain forest, 20% in other areas.

Proponents of change say the law impedes economic development and contend that Brazil must open more land for agriculture.