Brazilian Environmental Law & The Destruction Of Bom Futuro National Forest - WP

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Brazil is considered a world leader in conserving its environmental bounty. The federal government late last year set ambitious goals to reduce deforestation by 70 percent over the next decade. It has demarcated more than 300,000 square miles as federally protected areas, a territory more than twice the size of the U.S. national park system. But as the case of Bom Futuro National Forest shows, such designations do not always prevent, or even slow, the destruction of the rain forest. Here, across 700,000 acres of Amazon rain forest in the western Brazilian state of Rondonia, poverty pushes settlers in search of new lands, and any attempt by the government to interrupt their destiny has met with resentment and an adamant refusal to leave.

Across the Amazon, such development pressures are challenging Brazil's aspirations to halt the destruction of the world's largest rain forest. The stakes are particularly high not only because of the rich biological diversity and immense freshwater resources found here, but also because the rain forest plays an important role in removing gases from the atmosphere that contribute to global warming. Scientists say about one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from cutting down rain forests, and much of that from the Amazon. Brazil is one of the world's top four emitters of greenhouse gases. More than 4,600 square miles of the Amazon was deforested last year.

In Bom Futuro, settlers and prospectors have carved out a hard living by cutting trees, despite environmental rules that declare their very presence illegal. And a combination of pressures -- farming, logging, cattle ranching, road-building, hunting -- and the speed of the forest's disappearance have brought Bom Futuro to the top of the government's environmental agenda.

Through last May, Bom Futuro had lost nearly 170,000 acres of forest, roughly a quarter of the park. At the current rate of deforestation, environmental officials estimate, half the forest will be pasture in five more years. By 2021, it will be all gone.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020503199.html