Deforestation in the Amazon falls 42% in the first quarter – 04/05/2024 – Environment
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Deforestation alerts in the Amazon, which have been falling for months, were reduced by 41.7% in the first quarter of 2024, with a loss of 491.8 km² of native vegetation, compared to 2023, when the rate was 844.6 km².
In the cerrado, the index grew 2% in the same period and reached the highest level in the historical series, started in 2016, for the first three months of the year: it went from 1,416.9 km² to 1,445.6 km². The area lost in the cerrado this year so far is equivalent to that of the city of São Paulo (1,521 km²).
The data comes from the Deter system, from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), and was released this Friday (5). Registrations run until March 28th for the Amazon and the 29th for the Cerrado.
Considering just the last month, the rate fell 59% in the Amazon, going from 356.1 km² in 2023 to 146.6 km² this year, and increased 17% in the cerrado, varying from 423.2 km² to 494.1 km² in the same period.
At the beginning of the year, when the rainy season occurs in both biomes, deforestation numbers tend to be better than in the rest of the year, as the weather makes activity difficult.
The cloudy sky also makes it difficult for the satellites that feed Deter to capture images. In March, the cloud cover recorded by Inpe in the Amazon was 30% and, in the Cerrado, 23%.
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.
The official numbers are from another Inpe system, Prodes, which is more accurate and released annually.
In November, data from Prodes showed that, from August 2022 to July 2023, 9,001 km² of Amazon forest were lost, a reduction of 22.3% compared to the previous period. In the same period, the cerrado lost 11,011.6 km² of native vegetation, representing an increase of 3%.
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