The main challenge that the Amazon region poses is what should be done to avoid that the region will follow the fate of other tropical regions: forest destruction and poverty. The fact that most of 80 percent of the region remains as forest leaves us the opportunity to build the way towards sustainable development. This is a time to resolve the antagonism between development and conservation, and to adopt a new model of sustainable development which could be able to embrace social and economic goals, along with conservation objectives. The critical issue is to ameliorate deforestation, mainly that portion of deforestation that does not bring benefits for the Brazilian society. The government has to intervene to achieve such objectives, but taking into account that the Amazon frontier embraces diverse realities. Only a joint effort between government and the civil society organization will be able to achieve success. This work is aimed at identifying the economic and social causes behind deforestation, and proposing some recommendations to build a more efficient system of monitoring.
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Publication year
2004
Authors
Alencar, A.; Nepstad, D.C.; McGrath, D.; Moutinho, P.; Pacheco, P.; Carmen Vera Diaz, M. del; Soares Filho, B.
Language
Portuguese
Keywords
deforestation, causes, economics, social impact, forest conservation, monitoring, government policy
Geographic
Brazil
