Amazon deforestation continued in 2003 Wednesday, April 7, 2004 Posted: 8:18 PM EDT

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Ranchers, soybean farmers and loggers burned and cut down a near-record area of the Amazon rainforest last year, but the government announced Wednesday that it had managed to slow the rate of destruction. Satellite photos and data showed that 9,170 square miles (23,750 square kilometers) of rainforest was cut down in the 12 months ending in August 2003, about twice the annual rate of the 1990s. The destruction is slightly higher than in the same period the year before, according to newly revised figures. But the government saw the results as a victory. "We don't want to be overconfident, but we managed to break the rhythm of growth (in destruction) and this is highly significant," said Environment Minister Marina da Silva, who announced the figures in Brasilia, the nation's capital. Last year, the government announced that 10,190 square miles (25,500 square kilometers) had vanished in the 2001-2002 period, but on Wednesday they said they had overestimated and the correct figure was 8,980 square miles (23,260 square kilometers). Environmentalists were shocked by the deforestation in 2002, an increase of almost 40 percent over the previous year. They were especially disturbed because past Amazon destruction had always followed an economic upturn, but in 2002 Brazil's economy shrank 0.2 percent. Brazil's rainforest is as big as western Europe, covering 60 percent of the country's national territory. Experts say as much as 20 percent of its 1.6 million square miles (4 million square kilometers) of rainforest has already been destroyed by development, logging and farming. While deforestation has increased in recent years, it's still below the peak of 1995, when the Amazon shrank a record 11,600 square miles (29,000 square kilometers). Robert Smeraldi, director of the environmental group Friends of the Earth Brazil, said he was more concerned with the overall average of destruction rather than the annual total. "In the 1990s, you had an average of around 12,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) disappearing every year. Now it is brushing up around 25,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles). In other words, it has almost doubled," said Smeraldi. "Never in history has the tropical rainforest disappeared at such a rapid rate." Last month, the government announced $140 million package to curtail destruction. Environmentalists gave the government high marks for its analysis of the problem but worry that it won't provide real solutions. "The plan announced by the government is very good, but it has to be implemented with urgency or it won't mean anything," said Rosa Lemos de Sa, superintendent for conservation with the World Wildlife Fund Brazil.