Words were floating on the breeze...

end!

According to Imazon, an independent institute that inspect the deforestation in Amazon, a total of 345 Km2 of the legal forest in Brazil were degradated just in September of this year.

This area is not in an unique place, but in many areas of the brazilian forest, and though it can not be percept in the whole forest, it's worrying because this can cause more fires and empty areas.

"We know that about 18% of the whole Amazon was deforested. But nobody knows what was already degradated", says Beto Veríssimo, coordinator of the project.

From the whole area, the most part was in the state of Mato Grosso (43%), followed by the state of Pará (40%) and Rondônia (14%). In the state of Amazonas and Acre, the tax was lower than 1%.

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In the last 20th of this month, in the scientific conference "Amazon in Perspective", in Manaus, an afirmation that the Amazon will end when the deforestation becomes to a tax of 50% was given.

"The number now is consolidated. If 50% of the whole Amazon was deforested, a new stage of balance will exist in the bioma", says Gilvan Sampaio, from Inpe (National Institute of Spacial Researches). Nowadays, almost 20% of the whole Amazon Forest, that has more than 8 million Km2, was gone. In Brazil, this number is about 17, 18%.

And can become to 50% untill the middle of this century. A research of the Federal University from the State of Minas Gerais says that, if the rhythm of the deforestation continues, almost half of the forest that we have today won't last untill 2050.

According to the research, the most sensible area is the East part of the Amazon. As the weather depends of the vegetation, vice versa, the lost of trees in the Easthern Amazon will reduce the rain untill 40% in the region. "People have the idea that the forest always can regenerate itself, but in this new stage of balance it won't be like that, at least in the Easthern Amazon."

The West Amazon, however, where are the States of Amazon and Roraima, would still have forests, even with the new climatic reality. "The umidity would continue to be bring from the Atlantic by the wind".

The brazilian challenge to stop that the forest enter in a new evolutive stage seems easy to be solved - at least in paper. From the 5 million hect that are in Brazil, 46% are protected by law. But in the real life, the preservation of these areas don't exist.

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In this week, the brazilian government admitted failures in his planning project to protect the Amazon Forest.
A report prepared by the federal government says that the own plan to control the deforestation was badly introduced. Worse, most of the actions that were introduced had an 'indeterminated' efficiency in the deforestation numbers.

This document is an evaluation of the first 4 years of the Plan of Prevention and Deforestation Control of the Amazon (from 2004 - 2007) and this would be shown in the beggining of 2008.

Ambientalists say that this evaluation is being hidden, because shows its failures. The Environmental Ministery say that the document isn't ready yet.

"The government don't want to show the report", say Marcelo Marquesini, from Greenpeace, " because it shows how the plan didn't work".

According to this report, from the 32 proposed actions, only 3, about inspection and repression of the illegal activities had an efficient implementation and were effective in the reduction of deforestation.

Some of the difficulties written in the report are "serious problems of administration, with allegations of corruption".

The brazilian minister for Environmental, Carlos Minc said yesterday that "the ONGs have sure to complain" about the plan - but only under some aspects. For him, the actions that had an effective implementation have more importance in the final result of deforestation. He says that the number from 2007/2008, will be revealed tomorrow, show that the deforestation tax is about 'milimeters' above in comparison to the last year.

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well... I'm shocked.