Veteran Amazon pilots such as Fernando Galvao Bezerra are hard men to shock. During 20 years in aviation Bezerra (45) has ferried prostitutes and wildcat miners to remote, lawless goldmines. He has taxied wealthy loggers between ranches, and once survived when his plane plummeted out of the sky.
But as his 10-seater Cessna banked over a vast expanse of burning rainforest in the state of Mato Grosso, the pilot, who now works for the environmental group Greenpeace, was virtually speechless. “Holy shit,” he blurted over the PA system, as the plane swung sharply to the right towards an image of destruction that owed more to a scene from Apocalypse Now than the Amazon rainforest. “Just look at the size of what this guy is burning.”
It is burning season in Brazil, and across the Amazon region, where illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and a growing number of soy producers continue their advance into their world’s largest tropical forest, similar scenes are taking place. In August government satellites registered 16 592 fires across Brazil, the overwhelming majority in the Amazon.
For environmentalists the fires are one of the first indications that deforestation is on the rise. Over the past two years fears for the future of the Amazon have been tempered by news of a reduction in deforestation. In August the Brazilian state heralded a 30% drop in rainforest destruction — the result, it said, of a government deforestation plan launched in March 2004. The plan outlined the creation of conservation units and 19 anti-deforestation units in deforestation hotspots such as Novo Progresso and Apui.
Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, claimed the drop was a clear indication that the Action Plan for Amazon Deforestation Prevention and Control was working. “It is a great achievement for Brazilian society,” she said.
Many, however, believe the good news is about to run out.
Already there are signs that rainforest destruction is gathering speed. Deforestation in the states of Mato Grosso and Para is reportedly rising, with chainsaws and forest fires levelling thousands of hectares of pristine forest. Figures released last week by Brazil’s space agency, INPE, show that between May and July of this year there was a 200% rise in deforestation in Mato Grosso.
Further north, in the Amazon state of Para, ranchers and environmental activists claim a similar process is under way. Flying over the south-western corner of Para the tell-tale signs that logging continues at a staggering rate are everywhere: in the illegal dirt tracks that trail through the forest and the trucks that are dotted along them; in the charred trees that litter the landscape; and in the newly deforested areas, which have turned the landscape into a messy patchwork of dark green and dull brown.
“It [the level of deforestation] is definitely going to rise,” said Agamenon da Silva Menezes, the president of the Rural Workers Union in the Amazon town of Novo Progresso and one of the region’s most powerful farmers.
Menezes compared the illegal actions of the loggers to the American invasion of Iraq. If George W Bush could attack a country out of financial interest, why could the loggers not do the same to the rainforest, he wondered.
“If you were stood next to your house and there was a mahogany tree next to you which would be worth $5 000 if you chopped it down, and your son was there crying out with hunger, what would you do?”
Activists claim that the spike in deforestation is a sign that the government’s action plan has been largely ineffective. They argue that the recent reductions owe more to external economic factors such as the market price of soy and beef.
With ranchers now looking to cash in on rising prices, Marcelo Marquesini, a former inspector for Ibama (Brazilian ministry of the environment’s enforcement agency) who now works for Greenpeace, says the outlook for the rainforest is bleak. “Brazilian society has to celebrate the reduction of deforestation over these three years. It genuinely did fall,” said Marquesini, whose organisation will next month launch a report criticising the government’s failure to control this notoriously lawless region.
But, he added: “Everything now leads us to believe that deforestation is going to rise again.”
On the frontline of the government’s battle against deforestation are men such as Decio Luiz Motta, a fresh-faced environmental inspector.
Yet the challenges facing such inspectors are clear. Motta’s team has just three cars to police a huge area of rainforest, for example.
The collusion of residents with the loggers also made tackling deforestation more difficult. Motta claimed that after a recent seizure of illegal wood in the nearby town of Castelo dos Sonhos the petrol stations began to boycott the government inspectors, putting their vehicles temporarily out of action.
Three thousand feet over the burning forest Paulo Adario, the Amazon director of Greenpeace, let out a sigh of resignation.
“It is forbidden to sell cocaine, it’s illegal to deal marijuana and it’s illegal to molest little children,” Adario added with mix of frustration and irony. “And, as you can see, it is also illegal to destroy the Amazon rainforest.” — Â