Deforestation is a record in September in the cerrado – 10/06/2023 – Environment

Last month had the highest deforestation rate for the month of September ever recorded in the cerrado. 516.7 km² were lost (an area equivalent to that of Maceió, 509 km²), surpassing the previous mark of 451.5 km² from 2018. In relation to September 2022, growth was 89%.

In the Amazon, however, forest destruction was 590.3 km², falling 59% compared to the same period last year. In 2022, during the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the highest number for September was reached, with 1,454.7 km².

The data comes from Deter, an Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) system that gathers information to combat deforestation almost in real time, released this Friday (6). The system’s recent historical series begins in 2015 for the Amazon and 2018 for the Cerrado.

The states where deforestation advanced the most in the cerrado were Maranhão (155.6 km²), Bahia (90.5 km²), Tocantins (83.6 km²) and Piauí (47.8 km²). The region, known as Matopiba, is where the most preserved portion of the biome is located — at the same time, it is considered an agribusiness frontier and in recent years has been the focus of most of the deforestation in the Cerrado.

Unlike the Amazon, in the Cerrado deforestation is mainly concentrated on private properties. One of the reasons for this is that in the biome it is possible to deforest up to 80% of the area of ​​this type of property (or up to 65% in places of transition to the Amazon forest), while 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%).

In the Amazon region, numbers continue to fall even with the beginning of the dry season, when the worst rates of the year are normally recorded. Since April, President Lula’s (PT) government has highlighted the increase in inspection actions — such as embargoes, fines, seizures and destruction of equipment used in deforestation — in response to environmental crime.

The worst deforestation rates in the biome were recorded in Pará (282.2 km²), Mato Grosso (116.5 km²) and Amazonas (94.6 km²).

Deter maps and issues deforestation alerts with the aim of guiding actions by Ibama 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 (Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Legal Amazon by Satellite), and are released twice a year.