Brazil auctions parts of Amazon for logging

Brazil has begun to auction parts of its rainforest to private companies for logging.

One million hectares are being made available as logging concessions this year, expected to rise to 11 million hectares within five years.

Eventually, up to 10 percent of Brazil's 280 million hectares of public forest could be managed by logging companies, with the land remaining publicly owned.

While this may sound like an environmentalist's worst nightmare, the Brazilian government claims it will reduce demand for illegal logging and make sure the forests are managed in a sustainable way.

So could the policy help save the Amazon rainforest, or does it simply legitimize its destruction?

CNN spoke to Marcus Alves, one of the directors of the Brazilian Forestry Service, and Daniel Nepstad, a leading environmental scientist who has studied the Amazon for 25 years and is director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute's international program, to get their views.