The rate of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rose by 2,1% last year as farmers encroached on the world’s largest jungle, the government said on Wednesday. Figures from Brazil’s environment ministry showed deforestation in the Amazon jumped to 14 672 square kilometres in 2003, from 14 371 square kilometres in 2002. The 2002 data was recalculated, it said. The highest level of destruction was in 1995, when 17 966 square kilometres were destroyed.
Brazil last month unveiled plans to halt the destruction, amid criticism that the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had failed to move quickly enough.
Environmentalists fear the destruction of the Amazon, an area of continuous tropical forest larger than western Europe, since it is home to up to 30% of the planet’s species and is a source of medicines.
”The government needs to immediately create conservation programmes tripling the area protected,” said Denis Hamu, secretary general of the World Wildlife Foundation, in Brazil. – Guardian Unlimited Â