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The Amazon is not just a precious resource for Brazil but for the entire world, and the year ahead seems likely to produce important indications of what the future holds for this vast rainforest. In the past 40 years, close to 20% of the Amazon has been cut down.

Land cleared for cattle is the leading cause of deforestation, while the growth in soya bean production is becoming increasingly significant. Illegal logging is also a factor. Deforestation and forest fires are now responsible for nearly 75% of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions.

In the past three years the Brazilian government has celebrated a 59% cut in the rate of deforestation, but there are now signs of problems ahead.

In December, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said there had been a 10% increase in deforestation between August and November 2007 and announced a range of measures to try to stem this. The president signed a decree imposing fines for buying or trading goods such as beef or soya planted illegally on deforested properties.

Several hundred federal police are to be sent to the area to help combat environmental destruction, joining more than 1,600 inspectors already there.

In recent years the government says it has carried out numerous inspections, seized more than one million cubic metres of wood, cancelled thousands of land registrations and arrested hundreds of people, as well as creating large conservation areas. It will only become clear in the months ahead just how effective they will prove to be in the struggle to protect the Amazon.

Environmental groups, while welcoming the government's efforts, say the response is simply not good enough. Critics had already warned that recent falls in deforestation could be explained by a drop in market prices for products such as soya and meat, and that once these rose again land clearance would start to increase.

Andre Lima, a senior official at the environment ministry with responsibility for the Amazon says it will be difficult to keep deforestation in 2008 down to the level achieved in 2007, especially given the growing market pressures.

But he believes the presidential decree will force a wider range of people to address these concerns.

"What is important to do is to share out responsibility for illegal deforestation," he says.

"The responsibility is not only with the farmers involved at the forefront, but it is the chain of production that buys from them as well. The big soya companies, the meat storage plants that have set up there and know there is no authorisation for deforestation in the area. They have to assume a share of the responsibility."

Adapted from Source