According to news.mongabay.com, small scale farmers, who lease land from their government, can be accused for contributing deforestation to Rondonia, which is located in the Amazon area. The farmers have been receiving land since the 70s, sizing from a 247 Acres, from the Institute for Colonization and Land Reform as part of an agriculture project. The farmers seem to of broken the Brazilian Forestry Code, which states that only twenty percent of forest land can be cleared, while they are clearing fifty percent and increasing. Due to the agricultural projects, deforestation of the land has rose from 62 to 78 percent since 2002. Rondonia has recently become the a top milk producing city in Brazil. The agricultural project land houses calves for milk and for meat. Along with the Rain forest, the cows are also getting wiped out.
A new policy has come about to help with the reduction of land that farmers are clearing. The new policy states that the farmers have to report the percentage of forests in their land to the government. Once they report their percentage, the government will let them have more land as long as they stop deforestation. If the farmers break the treaty, they have to forfeit their granted land, and pay a fine. I think this policy will work great in reducing the amount of deforestation caused by the farmers. Everybody wins here, they receive extra land and we see a decrease in deforestation.
Photo taken from: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/500x480/photos/rondonia.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.scs.sk.ca/greenemailsignatureinitiative/2009/10/&usg=__8lJ2N9TsXkCjeMulPhHWLb58YI0=&h=400&w=500&sz=29&hl=en&start=30&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=rZjBpSLl262UdM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drondonian%2Bfarmers%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1I7DKUS_en%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1
No comments:
Post a Comment