Brazil's deforestation shrinks to record low

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Deforestation in Brazil"s Amazon rainforest has reached a record low since 2004, local research institutes and officials said here Tuesday.

Brazil"s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announced Tuesday that deforestation in the country"s Amazon rainforest region totaled 2,295.87 square km in the August 2009 to July 2010 period, down 47.5 percent from the August 2008 to July 2009 period.

In July, the deforested area in the region was 485.1 square km, down 42 percent from the same month in 2009, but up 96 percent compared with the previous month.

According to the INPE, the actual deforestation may have been higher, since clouds prevented the institute"s system from being able to monitor a total of 29 percent of the Amazon rainforest region.

Brazil"s northern state of Para registered the highest deforested area at 237.9 square km in July this year, followed by the midwestern state of Mato Grosso at 102.2 square km, and Rondonia state, also in the northern region, at 70 square km.

The deforestation rate in Brazil"s Amazon region has decreased 48 percent between August 2009 and July 2010, compared with the period from August 2008 to July 2009. This represents the lowest rate registered by the Real-time Deforestation Detection System (Deter) since 2004.

"In July, deforestation fell 42 percent compared to the previous month, according to Deter, which is controlled by Brazil"s National Institute for Space Research," Brazil"s Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said at a press conference Tuesday.

According to the Environment Ministry, these figures are very close to reality, since the regions with the largest deforestation spots were not disturbed by a cloud cover during the period that the satellite was collecting images.

Teixeira expects the data registered by Deter will be confirmed in November by another system from INPE, the Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Amazon (Prodes), which calculates the annual consolidated rate.

Prodes is more accurate because it allows to evaluate smaller areas. But despite the different methodology, the evaluation of Deter usually anticipates the results of Prodes.