Image: Pixabay
Data from the Deter system, released this Friday (6), by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) show that the month of July showed a reduction of 15% in deforestation in the Amazon compared to the same month last year. Until the 30th, 1,417 km2 were felled in 2021 compared to 1,659 km2 in 2020.
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As a result, the amount accumulated between August 2020 and July 2021, the Brazilian government's reference for calculating deforestation, showed a reduction of 5% in relation to the previous period. The trend should be confirmed by December, with the publication of the official number of annual deforestation by the Prodes system, also from Inpe. It is the first drop in three years.
According to the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the country has reached a new level of deforestation. When comparing the Deter accumulation of the last three years (2019, 2020 and 2021) with the accumulation of the previous three years (2016, 2017 and 2018), there was an increase of 70%.
“Despite the reduction from one year to the next of 5%, we continue to experience very high levels of deforestation in the Amazon”, says the executive director of IPAM, André Guimarães. “We are at a crucial moment for the planet’s climate balance, and maintaining forests is the main contribution that Brazil can make to this global challenge at this time.”
Another issue is the observed increase in deforestation in non-allocated public forests, a land category under the responsibility of the Union and the States. In the first half of 2021, 32% of the clearing recorded by Deter took place in these areas, while 25% was recorded in rural properties and 19% in settlements. “It is a clear indication of the advancement of land grabbing and illegality”, explains IPAM senior researcher, Paulo Moutinho. “Public forests need to receive energetic actions from the government, to curb the advance on areas that should be protected by law. If not, the reduction will not be maintained.”
In the Cerrado, the trend is opposite. In July, deforestation in this biome increased by 84% from one year to the next: it went from 360 km2 in 2020 to 661 km2 in 2021. Between August 2020 and July 2021, Inpe's reference year, the rate was an accumulated 5,102 km2, 23% more than the previous period, when Deter saw an accumulated 4,137 km2.
The numbers confirm the increasing trend already observed by MapBiomas, a multi-institutional initiative of which IPAM is part. In 2020, deforestation in the Cerrado rose 9%, according to a report released this year, with signs of illegality in 99% of cases. The increase was driven by Matopiba, a region that covers parts of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, and which concentrated 77% of the felled area.
By: Eliza Maliszewski | agrolink