Deforestation grows 238% in the cerrado in November – 12/08/2023 – Environment

Deforestation in the Cerrado in November reached 571.6 km², more than triple that recorded in the same period last year (168.8 km²). The percentage increase, of 238%, was the worst for a month since the beginning of the historical series of the Deter system, from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research).

In the Amazon, in turn, the area with deforestation alerts was 201.1 km², a drop of 68% compared to November 2022. The index is the best for the month since 2015, when records began.

Combined, the area lost in the two biomes was 772.7 km², which is equivalent to half of the city of São Paulo (1,521 km²).

Deter maps and issues deforestation alerts with the aim of guiding actions by Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) and other inspection bodies. The results represent an early warning, but they are not the complete picture of deforestation.

Last week, data for the biome from another Inpe program, Prodes, were released, which are annual and considered the official deforestation figures in the country.

According to Prodes, from August 2022 to July 2023, the cerrado lost 11,011.6 km² of native vegetation, an increase of 3% compared to the previous period. Despite the slight increase, the rate, which had been growing since 2019, slowed down.

When the results were released, on the eve of COP28, the UN (United Nations) climate conference, the federal government also launched the new PPCerrado (Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Cerrado).

The objective of the strategy is to eliminate deforestation by 2030, a crucial decade to stop global warming, in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

Deforestation is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil. According to Seeg (Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimation System), prepared by the Climate Observatory, the land use change sector (basically, deforestation) represented 48% of Brazilian gross emissions in 2022, or 1.12 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Of this total, 75% came from deforestation in the Amazon — which has larger devastated areas and releases more carbon due to the type of forest formation. Next comes the cerrado, with 14%.

It is worth noting that, after the dry period, which facilitates deforestation, the return of rain to both the Cerrado and the Amazon makes it difficult to capture Deter images, which are collected by satellite. In November, cloud coverage was around 22% in both biomes.

The state that led the deforestation in the cerrado last month was Tocantins, with 115.7 km² of vegetation lost, followed by Maranhão, with 113.8 km², and Minas Gerais, with 89.2 km².

Most of the deforestation (55%) in the biome during the period was concentrated in the region known as Matopiba, which includes, in addition to Maranhão and Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia. The area lost 315.7 km² in the period.

Matopiba has been standing out as a new frontier for agribusiness, at the same time as it concentrates the most conserved portion of the biome.

In the Amazon, almost half (48%) of deforestation in November occurred in Pará, which lost 96.5 km² of forest. Next comes Mato Grosso, with 29.7 km², and, once again, Maranhão, which also has a vast area made up of the biome, with 23.1 km².

Combating deforestation in the Amazon forest has been one of the priorities of the Lula (PT) government, which in June published the new PPCDAm (Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon) to guide actions in the region.

From January to November, according to Deter, deforestation in the Amazon fell by half: it went from 10,048.5 km² in 2022 to 4,976.7 km² this year. The index is the best for the period since 2018, when it was 4,884.2 km².

In the Cerrado, deforestation grew 41% in the last 11 months, going from 5,242.4 km² last year to 7,373.6 km² in 2023.

There is also a difference in the environmental policy of the two biomes. According to the Forest Code, in the Cerrado it is possible to deforest up to 80% of the area of ​​private properties (or up to 65% in some places, when they are in transition areas to the Amazon forest). In the Amazon, the limit is 20%.

The cerrado is the second largest Brazilian biome and accounts for almost a quarter of the entire national territory (23.3%). Most deforestation in the biome occurs on private properties.