Amazon Deforestation Rates Double as Farmers Anticipate Pardons

Deforestation rates in the Amazon, the world’s biggest rain forest, more than doubled in May as Brazilian farmers become more confident they’ll be granted amnesty for illegal logging.

Almost 268 square kilometers (66,200 acres) of protected rain forest were cut down in May, up from 110 square kilometers a year ago, the National Institute for Space Research said in an e-mailed statement.

Brazil lawmakers are considering a bill that alters its forestry code and would forgive farmers who illegally cleared trees. The possibility that the government may ease these restrictions is encouraging more logging, said Marcio Astrini, coordinator of forest campaigns for Greenpeace International’s Brazil unit. That would hamper international efforts to fight global warming by protecting trees that absorb greenhouse gases.

“Brazil’s been reducing its deforestation for the last five years and this bill comes along and now it shoots up,” Astrini said yesterday by phone. “There is only one reason why deforestation is increasing: it’s called the forestry code,” which may be changing.

The bill was approved by Brazil’s lower house May 24 by a 410-63 vote. The Senate has not yet voted on it and President Dilma Rousseff has vowed to veto the legislation if it does pass.

If the bill is approved in its current form, farmers won’t have to replant trees that were illegally cut prior to July 2008, an estimated 30 million hectares (74 million acres), according to a study by government research agency Instituto de Pesquisa Economica Aplicada. That’s about the size of the Philippines. Under Brazil’s current forestry code, penalties for illegal logging include fines and a requirement to replant trees.

Illegal Logging Increasing

Some farmers are stepping up their illicit activities in the hope the government “will hand out further amnesties in the future,” or won’t be able to discern which trees were cut after the 2008 deadline, according to Fabio Alves, a specialist for Brasilia-based IPEA.

About 35 percent of forests cleared in May were in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s biggest soy-producing state, according to Sao Jose dos Campos-based National Institute for Space Research.

The world’s highest deforestation rates are in Togo, which lost 5.75 percent of its forests a year from 2005 through 2010, according to a report released in June by the International Tropical Timber Association. The rate in Brazil was 0.42 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephan Nielsen in Sao Paulo at snielsen8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net

A note from ForestIndustries.EU editor: Forest land clearing for soy productions is NOT ILLEGAL LOGGING! Read further here...