Deforestation in the Atlantic forest fell 59% by August – 11/29/2023 – Environment

Deforestation in the Atlantic forest fell 59% from January to August this year compared to the same period in 2022, reports the new bulletin from SAD (Deforestation Alert System), a partnership between Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, Arcplan and MapBiomas .

Consolidated on the MapBiomas Alerta platform, the data shows that the deforested area from January to August was 9,216 hectares, compared to 22,240 hectares recorded in the same period last year.

According to SOS Mata Atlântica, the survey reinforces the trend of significant reduction in deforestation in the biome already observed since the beginning of the year. A previous bulletin, released in July, showed that the reduction was 42% by May, when the deforested area was 7,088 hectares, compared to 12,166 hectares recorded in the same period of the previous year.

“In the last years of the Bolsonaro government, deforestation increased. Now we have a reversal of trend, because deforestation in the biome was on the rise and now, with these partial data, it is down, at 59%. There is a significant reduction, a surprising number, very good”, says the executive director of the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto.

He highlights that states that tend to be leaders in deforestation, such as Paraná and Santa Catarina, had a significant drop, around 60%. Elements that help explain the data are the increase in inspection and embargoes and the fact that producers are left without access to credit because they have deforested.

“This really is a change resulting from a strengthening of environmental policy, of inspection, of ending that expectation of impunity. We practically had an invitation to deforestation in the last government,” he said.

The compiled data includes the biome limits established by IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), excluding deforestation that occurred in fragments of Atlantic forest located in the cerrado and caatinga territories.

The so-called enclaves in these two biomes correspond to around 5% of the country’s total Atlantic forest. Contrary to the drop in deforestation within the limits stipulated by IBGE, forest enclaves are regions that showed an increase.

Guedes Pinto highlights that the enclaves are also protected by the Atlantic Forest Law. The disparity in defining biome limits occurs because IBGE only considers continuous geographic limits, while the law aims to preserve all the vegetation characteristic of the biome and associated ecosystems, including enclaves.

Between January and May 2023, clearings in the Cerrado and Caatinga enclaves increased by 13% and 123%, respectively. For Guedes Pinto, this scenario demands decisive action from public authorities.

When all deforested areas of the Atlantic forest are added together — both within the IBGE limits, between January and August, and in the enclaves, from January to May — the drop in deforestation was only 26%. The percentage was pulled down precisely by the increase in deforestation of the barriers.

“We are worried in this transition region of the Atlantic forest with the cerrado and catinga. There we still have a problem. We know that deforestation in the cerrado is on the rise”, adds Guedes Pinto.

Despite this year’s change in trend, he says that any deforestation in the Atlantic forest is very bad and that the expectation is to reach zero in the biome. To combat deforestation in enclaves, where there is progress, Guedes Pinto assesses that the main mechanism is the application of the Atlantic Forest Law in these regions very rigorously by local environmental agencies.

According to him, there is still a legal dispute over the scope of the law in enclave areas. “[A Lei da Mata Atlântica] is very clear. There is a map with these enclaves, and it is very clear that all forest formations within this map are protected by the Atlantic Forest Law. There’s no doubt about that.”

“There is a dispute between producers and land owners, but we also have a problem with state and municipal environmental agencies that do not apply the Atlantic Forest Law properly”, concludes the executive director of Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica.