BRAZIL:In a world of climate change and general environmental degradation, it was one ecological disaster that had apparently been averted.
After decades of steady obliteration, the tide appeared to have turned against the illegal deforestation that has disfigured the world's largest tropical rainforest. Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, went on the radio in August to trumpet the breakthrough.
Yesterday, however, the good news came to a halt when ministers admitted that after three years on the wane, deforestation had once again risen sharply.
Government satellite images show that at least 3,235sq km of rainforest were lost between August and December last year, mainly because of soy planting and cattle ranching.
Environment ministry officials believe the true figure could be double that.
"Never before have we detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year," said Gilberto Camara, the head of the institute responsible for monitoring the Amazon region. "We had never seen this before in Amazonia." The Brazilian Amazon has been decimated by a combination of loggers, farmers and ranchers over the last 40 years.
Environmentalists say as much as 20 per cent of the rainforest has already been destroyed. A further 40 per cent could be lost by 2050 if that trend is not reversed, they estimate.
Yesterday, after Mr Lula called an emergency cabinet meeting, officials announced a crackdown on loggers and farmers. Joao Paulo Capobianco, the executive secretary of the environment ministry, said the figures were "extremely worrying".
They show that the state with the highest level of deforestation is Mato Grosso, an agricultural frontier that produces the bulk of Brazil's soy exports.
Paulo Adario, the Amazon director of Greenpeace in Brazil, said government measures had brought some success, but that "what the government does not control is the economic reality. It is the economy that controls deforestation. Each time the prices of meat and soy rise, so does deforestation."
In September, this correspondent flew over the north of Mato Grosso and the south of Para with a group of Greenpeace activists. In both regions signs of increasing deforestation were easy to spot. In Mato Grosso vast tracts of land smouldered, clearing the way for soy plantations. The landscape was littered with fallen, scorched trees scattered like matchsticks.
Marina Silva, the environment minister, yesterday announced a new anti-deforestation drive focusing on 36 areas. One of these is Sao Felix do Xingu, a cattle ranching town in the state of Para, where the mayor recently banned the use of motorcycle helmets because gunmen employed by powerful ranchers had used them to disguise their identities when carrying out killings.