BBC journalist Sue Branford talks about revisting the Amazon, which the Brazilian government has said has shrunk by 20 per cent due to relentless deforestation.
An excerpt:
So what do I make of it all?
By destroying it [the rainforest], we are accelerating global warming and disrupting the world's climate
This extraordinary transformation of the region? I have mixed feelings.
I sympathise with many of the Brazilians who are only seeking a better life.
But I also feel anger and despair.
Each year we learn more about the importance of the Amazon rain forest.
We know that, by destroying it, we are accelerating global warming and disrupting the world's climate.
Yet we, in the developed world, go on eating more and more meat.
And this in turn encourages Brazil, which is burdened with a heavy foreign debt, to export more beef and more soybeans.
It makes no sense at all to let market forces destroy a precious ecosystem that we all need for our survival and yet somehow we are letting it happen.
