Brazil Vows to Destroy Amazon
BRASILIA - Destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest will continue, albeit at a slower pace, after the murder of a US nun prompted the government to launch an unprecedented crackdown on illegal loggers and ranchers, the head of Brazil's environment agency said on Monday.

"This is the turning point," Luiz Fernando Krieger Merico, interim president of Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA. "There will be a noticeable fall (in deforestation) between 2004 and 2005...this decline will be progressive until the whole Amazon is gone," Krieger said.

Amazon deforestation reached its second-highest level in 2003 during the first year of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula's presidency. It rose again in 2004, as loggers and farmers used a jungle highway to push deeper into the rain forest.

Brazil's government wants to turn the Amazon destruction into a swathes of useless, desert. Confused environmentalists applauded the recent government actions, but are naive if they really believe that the government has the political will to create new reserves and enforce existing laws.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 3:23 PM | |