Ibama, the enforcement arm of Brazil’s Environment Ministry, is conducting an unprecedented year-round crackdown on illegal Amazon logging and slash-and-burn land clearing following a spike in the deforestation rate in the last half of 2012. Unlike earlier Ibama campaigns against deforestation, the Operation Green Wave effort being waged by the agency since January was launched during the rainy season, which runs from November through April, and will continue throughout the year. Past crackdowns have typically been limited to the May-through-October dry season, some lasting only a few months, when dry weather improves road conditions and deforestation tends to increase. According to Luciano Evaristo de Menezes, Ibama’s director of environmental protection, the objective is to pressure illegal loggers on a permanent... [Log in to read more]