Environment minister Marina Silva said the farming of soy crops and cattle rearing were the main culprits.

Silva, presenting the findings of a study carried out using satellite images, said the huge loss of forests, equivalent to 653,000 square kilometers (a quarter of a million square miles) was "intolerable."

Between August 2002 and August 2003, 23,750 square kilometers (more than 9,000 square miles) -- covering an area of forest the size of Sardinia -- was destroyed.

That figure, said Silva, was two percent more than in the prior 12 months.

Ministry and environmentalists' forecasts, however, had been even gloomier.

"Deforestation is still high, but it is stabilizing," Greenpeace representative Nilo D'avila told AFP Thursday, warning:"We can't continue to lose 20,000 square kilometers of forests a year."

"Even though the rate of deforestation has slowed, it is still high and intolerable," admitted Silva, who worked formerly as a rubber farmer from Acre state on the border with Peru.

The main causes of deforestation are livestock farming and crops, mainly soya, as well as uncontrolled tree felling, road building and other infrastructure works.

The Greenpeace coordinator for the campaign to defend the Amazon said he was "optimistic" over the national plan to control deforestation put in place in March by the government of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Federal police are opening 26 stations in regions where deforestation is at its worst, with coordination between several ministries to help boost controls.

In 25 percent of deforestation cases, forced labor is used, according to D'avila.

But now, "the ministry of labor will be able to send inspectors," he said.

One of the big problems has been the lack of staff at the Brazilian Environment Institute (Ibama) to watch Amazonia's four million square kilometers (1.5 million square miles) -- equivalent to half of Brazil's vast size, D'avila said.

Satellite images spot deforestation over areas above four hectares, while half of family plantations in the Amazon are of two hectares. "The worst culprit is livestock rearing. The steak we eat today contributes to the devastation," he said.

Half a million hectares (1.2 million acres) cleared in Maranhao, Tocantins, Para, Mato Grosso and Rondonia states have today been abandoned, said D'avila. "These are public lands and should be recovered by adequate policies, avoiding new deforestation."

The most ferocious deforestation last year occurred in the states of Mato Grosso (10,416 sq km), Para (7,293 sq km), Rondonia (3,463 sq km) and Amazonas (797 sq km), said Silva.

Responding to criticism from industry that the new Amazonian protection policy will harm economic development, Silva said: "Development does not conflict with the protection of the environment. It can be done at the same time as protecting the environment."

TERRA.WIRE