Word: brazile
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...concerns have not deterred the Brazilian government from its decision to pave over those 435 miles, the last unfinished portion of a highway called BR-163. That will create a 1,080-mile chain of asphalt going past the Tapajos National Forest and linking the Amazon River with southern Brazil. As has happened throughout the Amazon basin, the completion of the highway will open the forest to settlers, and they will undoubtedly set fires to clear land near the road. This area, however is regularly hit by drought and is perhaps the most vulnerable part of the forest. Fires here...
...world has known for more than a decade, of course, that huge swaths of the South American rain forest are burning. I saw the devastation firsthand when I went to Brazil to report TIME's 1989 cover story "Torching the Amazon." But most of the scientists and environmentalists I talked to comforted themselves with the belief that the Amazon was simply too vast for the folly of one generation to destroy it. Now, it seems, the Brazilian government may have stumbled upon a way to do just that...
...fire year, more than 15,000 sq. mi. of Brazil's rain forest went up in flames. Ecologists say the paving of BR-163 will put at risk 580,000 sq. mi.--one-third of the dense forest remaining in the Amazon region. To get an idea of the scale of the potential catastrophe, imagine all of Alaska as scorched earth...
That's why scientists are so worried about the paving of BR-163. In the Brazilian Amazon, roughly 75% of deforestation has occurred within 30 miles of a paved road. Despite laws prohibiting settlement in virgin lands, politicians, who see settlers as voters, have encouraged Brazil's 10 million landless poor to migrate into the interior, torching forest as they go. But the rain forest is not good agricultural land, and many of the farmers sell out to cattle ranchers. The only reason enormous stretches of the forest did not burn down in 1998 was that paved roads...
...Laura Wilkinson came from nowhere to win the platform diving on a broken foot. Chinese veteran Xiong Ni nailed his last dive to become the only man besides Greg Louganis to win back-to-back titles off the springboard. American volleyballers Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana kicked sand in Brazil's face at Bondi Beach. The softball and baseball tournaments were more competitive than ever. The U.S. batswomen lost thrice before storming back to win the gold, while the batsmen did the unprecedented, beating Cuba 4-0 for the title. Finally, there was that track meet, with the performance that...