[Newsbot]

Title: Brazil: Deforestation sees biggest drop in 20 years
Category: Environmental
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2009-11-14 08:22:10

[GreenTiger]

Good news, next thing needed to to reforest the area. I'm not picking on Brazil as we have the same problem in the States and the rest of the world.

[KorbenDeck]

Canada and the USA need to stop importing beef from these countries. We are more than able to supply ourselves.

[N_Fiddledog]

Wasn't a big cause of the deforestation something that's not mentioned in the article?

Here's an old article from 2006.

$1:

Brazil's biofuel plan is unsustainable

22 March 2006

Deforestation is the cause of 80 per cent of Brazil's CO2 emissions.

The Brazilian government is promoting the use of biodiesel produced from soya beans to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.

But, says Giulio Volpi in this article, clearing large areas of Amazonian rainforest to grow soybeans is too high an environmental price for this policy to be sustainable.

He says the deforestation caused by soybean farming in Brazil means the biodiesel has "virtually no advantage" over fossil fuels, in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by each form of fuel.

Deforestation is responsible for 80 per cent of Brazil's carbon dioxide emissions.

Volpi's article responds to another, by Brazil's president Luiz Inácio 'Lula' da Silva, promoting the country's efforts to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.

Volpi argues policymakers should only promote biofuels whose overall environmental effect is positive.

To achieve this, he calls for a certification scheme to assess each biofuel according to environmental and social criteria.

http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/brazi ... nable.html

The same thing was happening in Indonesia. They damn near drove the Orangutans to extinction because of it. I think they're starting to smarten up a little too though. Kyoto was the big villain there.