Michael Duffy interviewed James Smith from the BBC, on ABC radio earlier this week, about his documentary ‘Battle for the Amazon’, which will be will be screen on SBS TV tomorrow, Sunday 23 April at 8.30pm.
Duffy remarks at his website:
“In the 1970s and 1980s, environmental campaigners sounded the alarm about deforestation in the Amazon and the impact it would have on the planet’s ecoystem and climate. We were told an area of the rainforest the size of Belgium was being destroyed every year. By now you might expect there’d be no trees left.
But the documentary … reveals that 87 percent of the rainforest remains untouched. Deforested areas have not turned to desert, but productive farm land. So, has the scale of environmental threat caused by the logging of the rainforest been overstated?”
I’ll be watching the documentary tomorrow night.
You can hear the interview by clicking here.
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Update Monday. The doucumentary referred to 83 percent, not 87 percent, of the rainforest being intact.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.