Brazil to open up 860,000 acres of protected アマゾン rainforest to logging, mining and farming 

The annual rate of Amazonian deforestation rose by nearly a third last year Getty

The Brazilian environment ministry is proposing the release of 860,000 acres in the National Forest of

The government’s order was a compromise measure after protests from local residents and ecologists who claim that the bill could lead to further deforestation in the Pará area.

If approved, the legislation will create a new protection area (APA) close to Novo Progresso. Around 27 percent of the national forest would be converted into an APA, the ministry said.

Carlos Xavier, president of a lobbying group in Pará to decrease the size of the

 forest, said the APA would bring economic progress to the region.

Amazon faces death spiral of drought and deforestation, experts warn

Project to prevent deforestation by turning women into entrepreneurs

According to the ministry, the bill includes stipulations to reduce conflicts over land, prevent

The measures were criticised by environmental groups. "The bill is seen as an amnesty for illegal occupation of the conservancy unit," said Observatório do Clima on its website, claiming that the government "yielded to pressure" from the rural lobby.

Carlos Xavier, president of a lobbying group in Para to decrease the size of the Jamanxim forest, said the APA would bring economic progress to the region.

In 2016, deforestation of the Amazon rose by 29 per cent over the previous year, according to the government\'s satellite monitoring, the biggest jump since 2008.

Mongabay, an environmental science and conservation website, reports that experts using satellite images have identified illegal logging activities to the east of the BR-163 highway, in Pará state.

The BR-163 protests involved stopping trucks from unloading grains at the riverside location of Miritituba, where barges carrying crops are transported en route to the export markets.

ATP, the Brazilian private ports association, calculated that the highway protests would result in losses of $47m (£36m), according to Reuters.

Stunning images of the Amazon rainforest from award-winning photographer

According to Juan Doblas, from the geoprocessing laboratory of the Brazilian NGO Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), “while deforestation [for cattle ranching] ended, the plundering of the forest by loggers gained momentum.”

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has added her voice against the proposed legislation, tweeting President Temer to “protect mother earth”.

Global Witness reported that the number of environmental activists killed is rising, with two people on average dying every week. Jair Shmitt, the general coordinator of environmental monitoring at Ibama, described national forest of Jamanxim as “one of the most violent conservation units in Amazonia”. He told eco website that the region had “professional assassins involved in illegal felling and in the theft of public land”.

We use cookies to enhance your visit to our site and to bring you advertisements that might interest you. Read our Privacy and Cookie Policies to find out more.

Advertising helps fund our journalism and keep it truly independent. It helps to build our international editorial team, from war correspondents to investigative reporters, commentators to critics.

Click here to view instructions on how to disable your ad blocker, and help us to keep providing you with free-thinking journalism - for free.

Click the Adblock/Adblock Plus icon, which is to the right of your address bar.

On Adblock click "Don\'t run on pages on this domain".

On Adblock Plus click "Enabled on this site" to disable ad blocking for the current website you are on. If you are in Firefox click "disable on independent.co.uk".

If you are Private Browsing in Firefox, "Tracking Protection" may cause the adblock notice to show. It can be temporarily disabled by clicking the "shield" icon in the address bar.

In version 6.0 click "trust site" or add independent.co.uk to your Trusted Site list.

In versions before 6.0 you will see the message "Site is whitelisted".

Then click the big power button to whitelist the current web site, and its state will be remembered next time you visit the web site.