Amazon deforestation: Brazil to expand selective logging [Video]

BRASILIA, Brazil –

To combat ongoing destruction in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil announced a plan Tuesday to dramatically expand selective logging to an area the size of Costa Rica over the next two years.

In Brazil, vast forest lands are designated as public yet have no special protection or enforcement and are vulnerable to land grabbing and illegal deforestation. Criminals frequently take over land and clear it, hoping the government will eventually recognize them as owners, which usually happens.

“The main goal of forest concessions is the conservation of these areas,” said Renato Rosenberg, director of forest concessions for the Brazilian Forest Service, during an online press conference. “They also create jobs and income in parts of the Amazon that would otherwise have little economic activity.”

Companies that get timber concessions have to follow strict rules. They can log up to six trees per hectare (2.5 acres) over a 30-year period. Protected species, …