Last month 329 km2 of Brazilian Amazon disappeared
(sustainabilityenvironment.com) – First good news for the Brazilian Amazon since Lula returned to power last January, making the fight against deforestation his flag. In April, deforestation in the largest tropical forest on the planet fell by 67.9% compared to the same month of the previous year. 329 km2 of forest, an area large enough to accommodate 48,000 football fields, compared to 1,026 in 2022. This figure is also lower than the historical average for that month, which stands at 455 km2.
Slows deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
A very consistent downturn that returns the minus sign to all 2023. The first four months of the year, in fact, have cumulatively recorded -41% compared to the first quarter of last year, with a total of 1,173 km2 of Brazilian Amazon deforested. This is indicated by data from INPE, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, which monitors by satellite the evolution of deforestation in the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal.
read also Lula fails to reverse Amazon deforestation: in March +14%
Figures that confirm the preliminary data of the DETER program, but still insufficient to establish with certainty that there has been a reversal of the trend compared to the Bolsonaro era. “The April data was welcomed as a positive sign, but unfortunately we can not yet declare a trend to decrease deforestation in the Amazon. The numbers are very high and the dry season, favorable to deforestation, has not yet begun“, explains Mariana Napolitano, responsible for the conservation of WWF Brazil.
Record negative for Cerrado
Instead, bad news comes from Cerrado, the largest tropical savannah in the world. Only in the first 4 months of the year was degraded 17% of territory more than in 2022, an area equal to 2,133 km2. The figure is also very significant in absolute terms: it is 48% higher than the historical average. The boom also occurred in April – in contrast, therefore, with the data on the Amazon – when 709 km2 of ecosystem disappeared compared to 541 in April 2022. Three times as much as the deforestation that occurred simultaneously in the Brazilian Amazon.