The World Bank’s efforts to reduce poverty and foster development are as diverse as the people and landscapes of more than 100 countries in which the Bank is present. 

Today, Development News looks at a project in the Amazon Rainforests of Brazil. This eight-part series is culled from stories of development collected in The World Bank in Action, a booklet published in September 2002 for the Annual Meetings. To read additional stories featured in the booklet, click here.

December 26, 2002—What started as an effort to contain damage within one area of the Brazilian Amazon is now emerging as a blueprint for the protection of the Amazon itself.

In 1999, 40 percent of the deforestation within the Amazon region took place in Brazil’s Mato Grasso agricultural state, which spans almost 91 million hectares and is home to 2.5 million people. It is one of nine states that comprises the Brazilian side of the Amazon.
 
In response, the Brazilian government and the World Bank created the Rain Forest Pilot Program, which has helped reduce deforestation by one-third in Mato Grosso since 1998. The number of fires has been reduced by 38 percent in the year 2000 alone.

Due to the successful results of Mato Grosso, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment decided to expand the program to include the entire Amazon.  The licensing of rural properties will begin in 43 municipalities in the states of Mato Grosso, Pará, and Rondônia, all of which accounted for 60 percent of total deforestation in the Amazon between 1997 and 1999.

In September 2002, the World Bank joined with the World Wildlife Fund and the Brazilian government to launch the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program, a 10-year initiative that will triple the amount of Amazonian rainforest under protection to an area twice the size of the United Kingdom.