Scotsman.com News – Latest News – Brazil Announces Five New Nature Reserves for Amazonia.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced the creation of five new nature reserves in the Amazon region during a ceremony today to commemorate International Biodiversity Day.

The new reserves cover 261,252 hectares (645,554 acres). Four of the reserves are in coastal areas of the Amazon state of Para and the other is deep in the rainforest in the same state.

Brazil has several types of nature reserves, ranging from national parks, which allow tourism, to biological reserves that are only open to scientists for research. The new reserves will seek to protect the forest, but allow local populations access to harvest fruits and nuts and to tap rubber.

The reserves along the coasts are intended to protect the small fishing communities in the area.

Silva’s announcement comes two days after the Brazilian government announced that in the Amazon suffered the second worst rate of deforestation ever last year, with an area the size of six football fields disappearing every minute.

The environment ministry also announced the government had surpassed its goal of protecting over 9 million hectares (22.24 million acres) of Amazon rainforest this year.

The ministry said that goal was surpassed with the declaration of the 3.8 million hectare (9.39 million acre) Terra do Meio reserve and the 445,000 hectare (1,099,595 acre) Serra do Pardo national park, bringing the total to just over 9 million hectares (22.24 million acres).

The two reserves were hastily declared in February following the killing of American nun and rainforest defender Dorothy Stang, in Para state.

Since 2002, the government has placed 16 million hectares (39.54 million acres) of Amazon rainforest under protection in parks, reserves and Indian reservations, the ministry said.

While environmentalists applauded the creation of the protected areas, many worry that they will not be enforced because the government agency charged with protecting them is seriously underfunded and understaffed.

Brazil’s rainforest is as big as western Europe and covers 60% of the country’s territory. Experts say as much as 20% of its 1.6 million square miles (4.1 million square kilometres has already been destroyed by development, logging and farming.