Food for thought (updated) - Brazil's Deforestation

Deforestation in Brazil is increasing and that means a decline in the Rainforest. Environmentalists blame farming, mining, and infrastructure projects that are consistent with the Brazilian government's (lack of) environmental policies. 2, 776 square kilometres of the rainforest has been cleared in the last year, a thirty-five per cent increase over the previous year. The city of Los Angeles could fit twice into the cleared areas. One third of all plant and animal species on earth I found in the Amazon rainforest. It's only too obvious what the government's policy is – bring in the profits and to hell with the environment and that is tantamount to saying to hell with the future of the planet. Capitalism must be stopped! John Ayers.

UPDATE

Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July. Environmentalists say the controversial reform of the forest protection law in 2012 is to blame for the upwards trend. The changes reduced protected areas in farms and declared an amnesty for areas destroyed before 2008. The reform, a long-standing demand of the country's farmers' lobby, known as the ruralists, was passed after several vetoes by President Dilma Rousseff. "If you sleep with the ruralist lobby, you wake up with deforestation," Amazon expert Paulo Adario from Greenpeace wrote