Feature Article - Patrícia Ferreira

Deforestation in Amazonia

Amazonia is the biggest tropical forest in the world, covering 49% of the brazilian territory. The deforestation is destroying this biome, affecting the local population and the global climatic balance. This problem brings serious consequences and it must be taken seriously, before this huge forest disappears.

Just between August of 2011 and June of 2012, 4.656 km² of the forest (equivalent to more than three times the size of the city of São Paulo) were degraded. All this devastation may lower the biodiversity, influence the rainfall pattern of Brazil and Latin America, and other serious consequences.

On the other hand, the forest areas that gave way to the economic activities has allowed Brazil to become the third biggest exporter of agricultural products. This is one of the facts that supports the theory of people like the researcher and former director of Ipea (Economic Applied Research Institute), Eustáquio Reis, told, in 2009, that “The deforestation hasn't only costs. It has benefits”.

The economic development and sustainability are always in conflict. A solution to the deforestation is monitor it, what the Brazilian government is trying to do, so that economic activities can be responsibly and consciously performed.

Bibliography:

◦     http://g1.globo.com/natureza/noticia/2012/11/desmatamento-na-amazonia-legal-e-o-menor-ja-registrado-diz-governo.html

◦     http://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/pt/O-que-fazemos/Amazonia

◦     http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u584023.shtml