Amazon deforestation slows: Brazil
A view of a deforested area on the border of Xingu river in the Amazon rainforest, northern Brazil in 2005. Brazil lost 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of Amazon jungle in September, but deforestation slowed by a third compared with the same month last year, according to official data released Wednesday.(AFP/File/Antonio Scorza)
BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazil lost 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of Amazon jungle in September, but deforestation slowed by a third compared with the same month last year, according to official data released Wednesday.
Environment Minister Carlos Minc said the speed at which the vast Amazon rain forest was being stripped was down 32 percent, based on satellite imagery from the government's National Space Research Institute.
Brazil's government has made the fight against Amazon deforestation a priorities. Much of the fragile woodland is burnt down by ranchers and farmers, releasing into the atmosphere massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Brazil is expected to present the results of its efforts at a major UN climate change meeting in Denmark next month, which will try to come up with a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
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