Burning and logging destroyed more rainforest in Brazil in 1995 than in any
previous year, according to figures released last week by the country’s National
Space Research Institute.
The area lost, 29 059 square kilometres, was almost twice the area deforested
in 1994. High rainfall reduced the damage in 1996 to 18 161 square kilometres,
and the Brazilian government says it expects the 1997 figure to be lower still,
at around 13 000 square kilometres. But observers are sceptical of the claim
because of the large number of fires spotted in the Brazilian Amazon by the US’s
NOAA-12 satellite earlier this year
(This Week, 11 October 1997, p 10).
