Amazonia: “111 hectares deforested every hour” in 2021!

“Brazil lost 16,557 km2 of original vegetation cover in all its ecosystems last year”after 13,789 km2 in 2020, indicates the Mapbiomas collaborative platform, which compiles data from various satellite mapping systems.

Most of this deforestation (59%) took place in Amazon. Next come the Cerrado, the Brazilian savannah (30.2%), the Caatinga, a semi-arid zone in the northeast (7%), then the Atlantic forest or “Mata atlantica” (1.8%) and the Pantanal ( 1.7%).

“In the Amazon alone, 111.6 hectares were deforested every hour, or 1.9 hectares per minute, which is equivalent to nearly 18 trees per second »says Mapbiomas, which brings together NGOs, universities and technology companies.

Agriculture and animal husbandry remain the main “vectors of pressure » deforestation, for which they are 97% responsible. In the state of Para (north), clandestine mines also exert a strong pressure, according to the study.

Brazil’s president impeached

Since 2019, when far-right President Jair Bolsonaro came to power, the deforestation in all ecosystems has reached 42,000 km2, “almost the surface of the state of Rio de Janeiro”according to the same source.

Environmental advocates and the opposition accuse the Bolsonaro government of encouraging deforestation by defending the exploitation of the Amazon and weakening environmental watchdogs.

According to official data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), between January and June 2022, the Brazilian part of theAmazon (60%) has already lost 3,988 km2 of forested area, a record for the first half since 2016, the date of the first surveys of the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (Deter).

Official figures also show that since President Bolsonaro came to power, the average annual deforestation in the Amazon has increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.

Meanwhile, deforestation in the Amazon is accelerating

Futura article with Relaxnews published on May 11, 2020

While everyone agrees that the Covid-19 had at least the merit of making it clear how the crisis of the biodiversity could bring out a health crisis global, this environmental awareness has not slowed the slaughter of the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil, tragedies are piling up: deforestation and Covid-19 are, alas, moving forward together.

The whole world is focused on pandemic of coronavirus. Meanwhile, deforestation of the Amazon jungle has accelerated this year, sparking fears that the record devastation of Last year.

In fact, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by theNational Institute for Space Research of Brazil (INPE), which uses images satellite to follow the destruction: approximately 1,300 square kilometers of forest disappeared from the beginning of January to the end of April 2020, the equivalent of 1,800 soccer fields.

This represents a 55% increase over the same period last year, the highest since these monthly observations began, in August 2015. These figures raise new questions about how Brazil is protecting its share of the world’s largest rainforest under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate-skeptic notorious who advocates the opening of land protected from mining and agriculture.

” Unfortunately, it looks like what we can expect this year is record fires and deforestation. said Greenpeace activist Romulo Batista in a communicated.

A cautery on a wooden leg

In 2019, for Jair Bolsonaro’s first year in office, deforestation rose by 85% in the Brazilian Amazon, with the destruction of 10,123 square kilometers of greenery. This devastation, roughly the size of Lebanon, had created a worldwide stir over the future of the jungle, considered vital in the fight against the climate change.

The destruction was caused by forest fires record that ravaged the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging and mining, and agricultural practices on protected land.

” The beginning of the year is not the time when deforestation normally occurs, because it rains a lotobserves Erika Berenguer, an environmentalist at the universities of Oxford and Lancaster. In the past, when we saw deforestation increase from the beginning of the year, it indicated that, when the season deforestation will begin (end of May), there will also be an increase. »

Jair Bolsonaro this week authorized the army to deploy to the Amazon to fight against fires and deforestation from May 11. He had already done so last year after having suffered scathing criticism from the international community for having minimized these fires.

Environmentalists, for their part, believe that it would be better to support more environmental protection programs. Under the Bolsonaro presidency, the environmental agency Ibama has had to deal with staff and budget cuts. And last month the government sacked the top official in charge of theapplication environmental laws of the agency which had, shortly before, authorized a police raid on illegal mines, in front of the television cameras.

The government’s military strategy gate only on fires, without taking into account the fact that they are often caused by illegal farmers and ranchers who cut down trees and then burn them, laments Erika Berenguer: “ It’s like taking paracetamol when you have a toothache: it will reduce the painbut if it’s a cavity, it’s not going to cure it “, she told AFP.

When the tragedies pile up

L’epidemic of coronavirus in the country, which officially killed nearly 10,000 people among some 150,000 infected people, further complicates matters. The state of Amazonas, largely covered by nature, is one of the most affected. With only one intensive care unit, he was overwhelmed by the outbreak. Fears also relate to indigenous communities, historically very vulnerable to diseases from elsewhere. And environmentalists also fear that the protection of the forest will be neglected because of the fight against Covid-19.

The mayor of the Amazonas capital, Manaus, linked the two tragedies this week, in a plea for help. ” We need medical personnel, respirators, protective equipment, everything that can save the lives of those who protect the forest “, launched Arthur Virgilio.

Amazon: record deforestation in January in Brazil

Futura article with AFP-Relaxnews, published on February 10, 2020

More than 280 km² deforested in the Brazilian Amazon. This is the figure that more than doubled in January compared to the same month of 2019, according to data from the Institute for Space Research (INPE), a Brazilian body that measures deforestation.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon more than doubled in January compared to the same month last year (+108%), with more than 280 km² deforested, a record, according to preliminary official data released on Friday. This is the largest deforested area for the month of January since the commissioning in 2015 of the DETER system, based on alerts from deforestation identified by satellite, from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). For comparison, it was 136 km² in January 2019, 183 km² in 2018 and 58 km² in 2017.

A record deforested area in the Brazilian Amazon

In mid-January, INPE data showed an 85% increase in deforestation in 2019 (9,166 km²), the first year in office of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, compared to the previous year (4,946 km²).

President Bolsonaro made headlines in August by trying to minimize the upsurge in forest fires that had shocked the whole world. On August 2, the former president of INPE, Ricardo Galvao, was sacked by the Bolsonaro government after being accused of exaggerating the extent of deforestation. In December, Mr. Galvao was chosen among the 10 most important scientists of the year by the leading British journal Nature.

A very controversial bill

On Wednesday, Jair Bolsonaro gave his approval to a controversial bill which notably plans to authorize mining exploration on lands native, which would have the effect of stimulating deforestation, according to many NGOs. This bill, which must still be approved in Parliament, has been described as a “dream” by the head of state, but a “nightmare” by leaders native and environmental activists.