Brazilian authorities are taking serious action on illegal deforestation in response to new satellite images showing an almost 30% spike in logging between August 2010 and April 2011, compared to the same period last year.
The reports have shocked the government, according to The Guardian, as they follow a period of achieving the lowest levels of Amazonian deforestation ever.
A crack team of hundreds of environmental ‘police’, supported by armed federal police, will be deployed throughout the Amazon region to enforce deforestation law and seize any illegal cattle or timber.