Deforestation under Bolsonaro: 72% have signs of illegality – 04/11/2023 – Environment

Almost three quarters (72.5%) of the area covered by deforestation alerts issued under the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) —which is equivalent to more than 41,600 km² of destruction of native vegetation— show signs of illegality.

The data are from the Deforestation Inspection Monitor, from MapBiomas, which analyzed more than 254 thousand notices referring to the period between 2019 and 2022 in ten states: Acre, Amazonas, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Pará, Rondônia and São Paulo.

In total, more than 57,500 km² were deforested in these regions, but only a quarter of this area had authorization to be cut or was the target of inspection actions. According to the platform, almost 234,000 alerts have indications of illegality and were not the subject of any action by the inspection entities.

The Bolsonaro government promoted a dismantling of environmental enforcement, weakening regulations and reducing the budget dedicated to combating crimes such as illegal logging and mining on indigenous lands.

One of the measures was the freezing of the main strategy to combat environmental crime in the Amazon, the PPCDAm (Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon). Created in 2004, the plan was reinstituted in January of this year by a decree by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Marina Silva. The new strategy went into public consultation on Monday night (10).

Over the four years analyzed by MapBiomas, 20.4% of the area with alerts had inspection actions, 6.5% were authorized deforestation and 0.7% had both authorization and inspection.

In the methodology used by the researchers, areas with deforestation alerts are crossed with those where there are records of authorizations for the removal of vegetation, assessments and embargoes issued by federal and state environmental agencies. If no public authorization, embargo or assessment information coincides with an alert, it is indicated that this area has indications of illegality.

As only data provided by governments are used, on official websites, for example, the results also serve as a diagnosis of transparency in public administration in the environmental area.

“It is important that the body, in addition to carrying out the inspection action itself, makes this data available in the greatest detail and in the most appropriate format possible”, argues Ana Paula Valdiones, one of those responsible for the platform and coordinator of the ICV (Instituto Centro de Vida), which is part of the MapBiomas network.

She points out that transparency is not only important to provide civil society with information, but is also used in other strategies to combat deforestation. “If the State has embargoed an area for illegal deforestation, for example, having this data public will allow it to be used by other bodies in other chains.”

This would make it possible, among other things, not to grant credit for production in areas that are embargoed.

In addition, publicizing inspection and repression actions against environmental crime can work as a tool to curb this type of action. “Transparency and media disclosure collaborate with the dissuasion effect. This helps to reduce the feeling of impunity that we have today for deforestation”, opines the specialist.

Only ten states were included in the sample because they were the only ones that made the data publicly available at the end of last year, when they were collected for analysis.

Among the places analyzed, the states that least inspected deforestation were Acre, Ceará and Rondônia.

In Rondônia, only 3.4% of the deforestation alert area crosses with the authorizations and inspection actions released by the state secretary for the environment. This number drops to 2.7% in Ceará and 1.2% in Acre.

The best numbers are from Espírito Santo, where 62.6% of the alert area coincides with authorizations and inspection actions; Mato Grosso, with a similar number, 62%; and Minas Gerais, where the percentage is slightly below half (48%).

In Goiás and São Paulo, the index is less than a third of the total: 30.5% and 27.6%, respectively. In Pará, it drops to 17.4% and, in Amazonas, to 12.4%.

“We see a scenario in which it is necessary to reinforce the inspection of deforestation with some indication of illegality. This point is important for this resumption of environmental actions, both by the federal government and by the states”, analyzes Valdiones. “Fighting environmental crime is more complex and for that we will need the action of different actors.”

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