Brazil Police Seize Amazon Lumber

Officials seized 10,000 cubic meters (353,107 cubic feet) of "all sorts of fine woods" in the eastern Amazon town of Tailandia, Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency president Bazileu Alves said by telephone.

The amount of illegal lumber captured is expected rise to 21,000 cubic meters (740,000 cubic feet) by next week, he said.

The lumber will be transported in 50 trucks to the Para state capital of Belem where it will be auctioned to raise money to fight deforestation.

Official data showing an unexpected surge in Amazon deforestation late last year prompted President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to send more federal police to the region and require 80,000 property owners to reregister their land.

The crackdown on illegal logging began Monday and involves eight of Brazil's 26 states. It targets clandestine sawmills and river ports that ship illegal lumber through the Amazon and the country's northeast, as well as markets for the lumber in the industrialized south. The government did not say how many police were involved in the crackdown.

The environment ministry said as much as 2,700 square miles of Brazil's rain forest was cleared from August through December, reversing a three-year decline in the pace of deforestation. That would put Brazil on course to lose 5,790 square miles for the year ending in August a 34 percent increase from the previous 12-month period.

Studies by two Brazilian research groups predicted the rain forest will shrink nearly 20 percent by 2030 as farming, new roads and poor government surveillance speeds deforestation.