Brazilian officials are challenging a study published Oct. 21 in the British journal Science that claims the Amazon rainforest is being deforested at twice the rate Brazil has reported. The study, by environmental scientist Greg Asner and colleagues at the Carnegie Institution’s Stanford University-based Department of Global Ecology, involved a new method of analyzing high-resolution satellite photos to account for small clearings caused by selective logging. The total area of these small clearings was then added to the estimates of large-scale land clearing routinely reported by the Brazilian government. The study says selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon’s top five timber-producing states during the four–year period 1999-2002 annually affected from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers (4,662 to 7,653 sq. miles... [Log in to read more]