Recent data on deforestation in the Amazon announced by the Brazilian government indicate that about 8% of the forest has already been cut. In spite of the controversy about methods used to reach this figure, the indisputable fact is that between 8% and 10% of the rainforest has been destroyed. Online proofreading assistance for busy college students who want to buy expert proofreading assistance for free! Alternatives to halt deforestation range from supervision and control of the migration process, to cutting of fiscal incentives, to taxation of agricultural activities and reforestation. The Brazilian government is expected to take stricter measures especially in the future because they are interested in presenting a positive image of their environmental administration to the rest of the world at a time when a major global environmental conference will be held in Brazil. As the control of deforestation is the responsibility of the Brazilian government, the question to be asked now is, what should be the strategy for maintaining the remaining forest? The most elaborate technical responses point to the sustainable management of timber because of the higher profitability of timber extraction and because reserves of valuable hardwoods are concentrated in areas belonging to the economically most powerful Brazilian and foreign groups. Therefore, it can be predicted that even with a decrease of deforestation for cattle ranching, the uncontrolled harvesting of wood will continue until the proposals for sustainable management become government policy. If the point is the discussion of sustainable development — and by this I mean the sustainability of use of resources and distribution of social wealth — we are facing a total lack of available solutions. All current proposals — extractive reserves, biological agriculture, aggregation of value to forest products — are limited to a regional scope and their efficiency has not yet been satisfactorily proved. This situation results from the fact that those alternatives were suggested as some sort of "resistance" to the status quo, and as a form of concentrating the fight against deforestation. They are partial solutions for only certain sectors of the Amazonian regional society. The discussion of the relation between extractive reserves and regional development must be twofold. Limits must be considered first. The analysis of technical and political possibilities and requirements for new prospects of incorporation of common use resources to local policies should follow.
