Benedito Mendonça
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The acting president of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), Valmir Ortega, said on Friday (3) that the expansion of monitoring activities by the institute in the Pantanal constitutes an effort to diminish the pressure to which the region has been subjected by deforestation.

He pointed out that three steel mills in the region were fined US$ 9 million in January for illegal charcoal utilization. This week the IBAMA levied a US$ 2.7 million fine on individuals responsible for smuggling wood on the Bolivian border.

On Friday Ortega participated in a meeting with technical personnel from the Ministry of Environment and the non-governmental organization, Conservation International, to discuss the creation of a work group to put in charge of monitoring and refining instruments and techniques for the control of annual losses in the Pantanal's native vegetation.

According to Ortega, the meeting served to examine a set of studies and to compare the methods adopted by each of these institutions to combat deforestation. "In this manner we have a more precise evaluation of the data to guide our decisions with regard to expanding inspection and control of deforestation in the area," he stated.

According to Ortega, the flood plain terrain that characterizes the region, composed of scrub and native pasture, makes it harder to determine the degree of deforestation.

Translation: David Silberstein