Amazon Destruction Reached Record In ‘95 Deforestation Leveled Off In ‘96, ‘97 Mostly Because Of Rainfall

Breaking years of silence, Brazil’s government conceded Monday that destruction of the Amazon rain forest reached record levels in 1995 before finally leveling off in the past two years.

The findings fueled environmentalists’ fears that destruction of the vital region will continue unabated.

Until Monday, damage to the rain forest remained shrouded in mystery: Satellite photos showing the devastation remained rolled up, gathering dust, while the government insisted it didn’t have the money to analyze them. The most recent figures were from 1994.

Silence suited the government, which maintained it could not say whether destruction was up or not until the official numbers were in.

The latest figures show deforestation nearly doubled between 1994 and 1995 - from 5,958 square miles to 11,621 square miles. The latter figure is larger than the state of Vermont.

Although the rate dropped in 1996 to 7,200 square miles, it was still 21 percent higher than 1994. In 1997 - with the numbers only 80 percent complete - the Amazon lost 5,200 square miles of forest.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the slowdown was largely due to abnormally heavy rainfall in the region rather than government policy.

“These numbers are no reason to celebrate,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Gustavo Krause said in presenting the study based on satellite images of the forest.

But he also credited enforcement of forest protection laws for some of the improvement, including a moratorium on new concessions for logging mahogany and virola wood enacted in 1996.

Between 1978 and 1996, more than 200,000 square miles - or 12.5 percent - of the Amazon’s rain forest were destroyed.

Eduardo Martins, president of Brazil’s Environmental Protection Agency, said the main cause of the destruction was the burning and logging of huge tracts of land to create grazing pastures for livestock.

In 1995 and 1996, deforestation of small plots measuring 37 to 124 acres accounted for about a quarter of the destruction, he said.