Brazil's Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira adjusts her glasses as she speaks during a news conference in Brasilia November 27, 2012. Officials announced on Tuesday the lowest rate of deforestation in the Amazon since Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) began its monitoring in 1988. A system known as Prodes (Project Monitoring Deforestation in the Amazon) recorded 4,656 square km (1,797 square miles) of Amazonian rainforest lost between August 2011 and July 2012, 27 percent less than the amount lost in the previous year. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino (BRAZIL - Tags: POLITICS ENVIRONMENT)