Deforestation Drying Up Some Amazon Tributaries - AP

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BRASILIA, Brazil — "Deforestation has provoked drastic changes along many Amazon tributaries and scientists warned it was only a matter of time before it affects the main trunk of the river. A four-year study on the effects of deforestation found many of the Amazon's 7,000 tributaries were drying up, while fertilizers and pesticides have profoundly altered their ecosystems.

"So far this hasn't affected the Amazon river ... and we don't want to get to that point," Alex Krutsche, a biologist at the University of Sao Paulo who was involved in the study, said Thursday.

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To keep the river from drying up, Brazilian law requires that farmers not disrupt the forest within 50 meters (165 feet) of any river bank. Another law limits clear cutting to only 20 percent of the forest property — though the remaining 80 percent can be logged selectively with a government-approved forestry management plan.

But these and other tough environmental laws are routinely flouted in the massive Amazon region that covers an area larger than Europe. The government has few environmental inspectors in the rain forest. The results were presented at the final day of the third conference on the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia."

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-07-30/s_26321.asp