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A resurgence of deforestation ∈ the Brazilian Amazon
The Brazilian Amazon is the size of Western Europe, and ∈ the 41 years I have lived ∈ the region and worked on problems of deforestation, an area larger than France has been cleared. Over the decades, I have watched as economic cycles, swings ∈ commodity prices, and land speculation have led to peaks and valleys ∈ the clearing of the Amazon, with 1995 setting a record for destruction: 11,200 square miles — an area the size of Belgium — fell to loggers, cattle ranchers, and farmers.
When the annual deforestation rate ∈Brazil’s Amazon plunged from nearly 11,000 square miles ∈2004 to 1,700 square miles ∈2012 — an 84 percent decline — I was of course relieved. But I had witnessed too much destruction ∈ the Amazon to celebrate. Unfortunately, these widely publicized declines led not only to the impression among the international conservation community that Amazon deforestation was finally ebbing. It also led to a dangerous illusion taking hold ∈ the capital of Brasília — the belief that deforestation was thoroughly under control, and thus the government could build roads, dams, and other infrastructure at will ∈Amazonia, without consequences for the world’s largest rain forest.
Clearly, that turned out not to be the case. Deforestation has trended upwards since 2012, with a sharp 29 percent increase ∈ the rate of clearing ∈2016.
(Philip Fearnside. https://daily.jstor.org, 22.04.2017. Adaptado.)
O trecho do segundo parágrafo “the belief that deforestation was thoroughly under control, and thus the government could build roads, dams, and other infrastructure at will ∈Amazonia, without consequences for the world’s largest rain forest” é uma explicação de
