Brazil has doubled forest loss since the Paris Agreement – 06/27/2023 – Environment

Since 2015, when leaders from around the world signed the historic Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb the climate crisis, forest loss in Brazil has more than doubled: it went from 8,288 km² in that year to 17,726 km² in 2022, a jump of 113.8%. Deforestation is the main source of Brazilian emissions.

Brazilian indices have also come to represent a larger share of the loss of tropical forests around the world. In 2015, the country accounted for 28% of the total coverage lost that year, a rate that reached 43% in 2022, at the end of the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

The data were released this Tuesday (27) by GFW (Global Forest Watch), a tool of the non-governmental organization WRI (World Resources Institute) in partnership with the University of Maryland, in the United States. The researchers monitor the state of the planet’s forests through the analysis of satellite images.

WRI Brasil data science coordinator Jefferson Ferreira-Ferreira says that the environmental destruction recorded since 2015 has not only been high, but also sustained. “This shows that the policies that took place during this period allowed tree cover losses to remain at high levels”, he says.

Repeating a historic trend, Brazil was the country that contributed the most to forest loss in 2022. It also recorded the highest level of destruction not related to forest fires since 2005, a 20% increase over the previous year.

As in previous years, the second worst ranked country was the Democratic Republic of Congo, which lost 5,126 km² of tropical forests. Also noteworthy were Ghana, with a 71% growth in forest loss in 2022, compared to the previous year, and Bolivia, which had a record in the index in 2022, an increase of 32% compared to the previous year, reaching to 3,855 km².

Worldwide, forest cover decreased by 9.7% in the first year after 145 countries signed an agreement to curb deforestation by 2030, recognizing the role of forests in combating climate change and biodiversity loss. But instead of falling, deforestation has been rising.

According to GFW, in Brazil, the loss of almost 18,000 km² of forest (equivalent to more than 11 times the area of ​​the city of São Paulo, 1,521 km²) in 2022 threw 1.2 gigatonnes of CO into the atmosphere_two —the same as 2.5 times Brazil’s annual emissions from fossil fuels.

From 2021 to 2022, forest loss grew by 14.4% in the country. The GFW monitors forest formations in the Amazon, Cerrado, Pantanal and Atlantic Forest.

GFW director Mikaela Weisse explains that the loss of primary forest is accelerating mainly in western Amazonia and the Amazon, where recorded deforestation has doubled in the last three years.

“The loss in the western Amazon is concentrated around road networks and consists mainly of larger clearings for cattle grazing. We’ve also seen a series of incursions into indigenous territories for mining and land grabbing,” he says.

Frances Seymour, senior specialist in sustainable development and forests at WRI, adds that the state of Amazonas — historically a state with little deforestation, but which has seen this rate increase — shows how it is necessary to think about financing strategies for this type of situation.

Currently, one of the main mechanisms used is the so-called REDD+, which rewards with funds those who show results of reduction in high rates of forest destruction. This is the methodological basis of the Amazon Fund, for example.

“What we’re seeing in the Amazon is evidence that just because forests have been protected in the past doesn’t mean conditions can’t change quickly and lead to a rapid increase in deforestation. And so we need to increase the provision of preventive incentives, as a way of encouraging countries to avoid deforestation”, says the researcher.

Another recent study by WRI Brasil —this one in partnership with the New Climate Economy commission—shows that the country can stop deforestation in the Amazon and, simultaneously, have economic growth in all major sectors, from agribusiness to clean energy.

For this, a large-scale transformation would need to be carried out: with the use of sustainable agriculture and livestock techniques in existing productive areas; the restoration of degraded regions; investments in bioeconomy; and the promotion of low-carbon technologies.

Thus, according to the analysis, the GDP of the Brazilian Amazon region could grow by more than R$40 billion per year by 2050, compared to maintaining the current production system. The increase would mainly come from improved efficiency in land use and energy and agricultural production and from a larger and stronger bioeconomy.

During this period, 312,000 new jobs would also be created in the Legal Amazon alone, benefiting local communities.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}