Amazon Deforestation plummets 46% in year...

Via TRP -

Deforestation in the Amazon region is the main source of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions. According to the first National Inventory of Greenhouse Gases, up to 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from deforestation and land use change.

For this reason, tackling deforestation is at the center of Brazil's strategy to combat global warming. Launched in December 2008, the National Plan on Climate Change sets targets to cut deforestation rates by 80 percent by 2020, which would avoid 4.8 billion tons in CO2 emissions during this period.

Photo Alberto Cesar, Greenpeace

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon plummeted 46 percent between August 2008 to July 2009, according to a government press release. That is the lowest rate in 20 years, since the government started collecting data 1988.

.. . Brazil's Ministry of Environment claims that deforestation has slowed so rapidly due to the Action Plan for Deforestation Control and Prevention in the Amazon launched in 2004, which strengthened anti-deforestation monitoring and enforcement, demarcated conservation areas and encouraged sustainable livelihood options in the Amazon.

Please read full press release here