Amazon Rainforest logging operation shut down

In the Amazon rainforest town of Novo Aripuana the Norte Wood logging company was operating without a license. The town is located 1,600 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Their operations were shut down yesterday, and dozens of tropical hardwood trees were taken from them. About 500 cubic meters was taken, making it the largest seizure this year.

The logging was discovered by an overhead flight, in an area where a new species of monkeys was just discovered.

"During the past three years, loggers from the neighboring state of Para have been moving to Novo Aripuana after having largely deforested the southern edge of their home state.

"It's one of the biggest problems, people from Para coming and cutting down everything. They are buying up land from the locals who live along the river and cutting down the most valuable trees," Alencar said by phone from the Amazonas state capital Manaus.

Brazil's environmental regulations require landowners to maintain 80 percent of Amazon's forested areas. Logging is permitted in the forest reserve, but companies must file management plans to show their logging is carried out in a sustainable manner, with minimal damage to the forest.

Alencar said the company had submitted a management plan, but it had not been approved by the state.

Rubens Pereira, manager of the federal environmental authority in Amazonas state, said many of the companies that have cut down the forest in southern Para were now coming to his state in hopes of avoiding stiff enforcement of environmental regulations.

"Three years ago there was only one sawmill in Nova Aripuna. Now you have around a dozen," said Pereira.

Scientists say the deforestation reduces the area's rich biodiversity and contributes to global warming. Burning in the Brazilian Amazon releases about 370 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year, about 5.4 percent of the world total."

From CNN.com

The destruction of the rainforest has ongoing for years. Scientists believe as much as 20 percent of the amazon rainforest has been desroyed so far. While controlled logging should prevent a disaster, it is too soon to tell what the long term affects will be on the forest.

Tags: amazon rainforest, logging, brazil, monkeys, deforestation