In Brazil, since Lula’s return to power, deforestation has declined in the Amazon, but it continues strongly in other regions of the country, which are also ecologically important. This is particularly the case in the Pantanal, a vast area of wet grasslands and savannahs, the birthplace of the jaguar. The NGO Mighty Earth, which tracks deforestation by satellite and highlights the associated agricultural sectors, points out in a new report the use of a new technique to destroy the forest and install livestock there: chemical deforestation.
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Last April, a major agricultural producer was fined a record Brazilin the state of Mato Grosso: 500 million dollars. The police have shown that in a few years, this owner of eleven farms sprayed, by plane, about twenty different chemical products to destroy more than 80,000 hectares of forest in the Pantanal.
In Brazil, deforestation This is usually done by cutting down trees. But satellites detect this method easily because green and wooded areas suddenly turn black when seen from the sky.
” This is criminal »
Chemical deforestation, on the other hand, is intended to be more discreet in an attempt to deceive the authorities. When we use chemical deforestation, the trees will die gradually. Little by little, the leaves will fall, the trees will become weaker and eventually die. So, it will give the impression that it is a natural degradation of the forest, but it is not. It is criminal. », Explains Mariana Ganeiro, of the NGO Mighty Earth.
And the harmful effects of pesticides extend far beyond the spray zone. It flies with the winds. It will kill not only the trees, but all the local biodiversity, all the local vegetation, the animals… It will also have an impact on the health of the communities that are nearby, and above all, it will impact the quality of the water. ” adds Mariana Ganeiro. A particularly devastating pollution in the Pantanal, a humid region where rivers play a central role.
Also readBrazil: Slaughterhouses and ranchers condemned for deforestation of a protected reserve