Studies offer dire forecast for rain forest

SAO PAULO, Brazil – Two Brazilian research groups said the Amazon rain forest will shrink nearly 20 percent by 2030 as a result of farming, road construction and poor government surveillance, according to a study published Sunday.

As many as 260,000 square miles of forest may be destroyed in the next 22 years, according to the University of Minas Gerais and Amazon Institute of Environmental Research, whose findings were reported by Rio de Janeiro’s O Globo newspaper.

“The damage to the Amazon and to the planet will be irreparable,” said researcher Britaldo Silveira Soares, predicting reductions in biodiversity and rainfall, along with an increase in greenhouse gas emissions as trees are burned to clear land.

A government plan to boost highway construction in the Amazon region also will speed deforestation, while poor police surveillance allows illegal logging and other environmental crimes to continue, researchers warned.

In the short term, preliminary figures from Brazil’s Environmental Ministry show rain forest destruction accelerated between August and December, after three years of widely touted declines.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said research is under way to confirm those figures, and ordered extra federal police and environmental agents to monitor illegal forest clearing in 36 high-risk areas.

Officials vowed to block new logging permits and fine those who buy anything produced on illegally deforested land.

Environmentalists say increased demand for soy and beef products has prompted farmers to carve fields and pastures from the Amazon, and Sunday’s study cites illegal logging as a top cause of deforestation.