Thursday, August 08, 2024

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is down to lowest level since 2016, government says


Environment Ministry Executive Secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco presents Amazon and Cerrado deforestation data at the ministry headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024.
(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Aug. 7, 2024

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest slowed by nearly half compared to the year before, according to government satellite data released Wednesday. It’s the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement.

In the past 12 months, the Amazon rainforest lost 4,300 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. That’s a nearly 46% decrease compared to the previous period. Brazil’s deforestation surveillance year runs from August 1 to July 30.

Still, much remains to be done to end the destruction and the month of July showed a 33% increase in tree cutting over July 2023. A strike by officials at federal environmental agencies contributed to this surge, said João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary for the Environment Ministry, during a press conference in Brasília.


 Smoke rises from a forest fire in the Transamazonica highway region, in the municipality of Labrea, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

The figures are preliminary and come from the Deter satellite system, managed by the National Institute for Space Research and used by environmental law enforcement agencies to detect deforestation in real-time. The most accurate deforestation calculations are usually released in November.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged “deforestation zero” by 2030. His current term ends in January 2027. Amazon deforestation has steeply declined since the end of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s rule in 2022. Under that government, forest loss reached a 15-year high.

About two-thirds of the Amazon lies within Brazil. It remains the world’s largest rainforest, covering an area twice the size of India. The Amazon absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide, preventing the climate from warming even faster than it would otherwise. It also holds about 20% of the world’s fresh water, and biodiversity that scientists have not yet come close to understanding, including at least 16,000 tree species.

During this same period, deforestation in Brazil´s vast savannah, known as the Cerrado, increased by 9%. The native vegetation loss reached 7,015 square kilometers (2,708 square miles) – an area 63% larger than the destruction in the Amazon.

The Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse savannah, but less of it enjoys protected status than the rainforest to its north. Brazil´s boom in soybeans, the country’s second-largest export, have largely come from privately-owned areas in the Cerrado.

“The Cerrado has become a ‘sacrificed biome.’ Its topography lends itself to mechanized, large-scale commodity production,” Isabel Figueiredo, a spokesperson with the nonprofit Society, Population and Nature Institute told The Associated Press. Both Brazilians and the international community are more concerned about forests than savanna and open landscapes, she said, even though these ecosystems are also extremely biodiverse and essential for climate balance.

Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva gives a press conference to present Amazon and Cerrado deforestation data at her ministry headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

To control deforestation in the long term, monitoring, such as with satellites, and law enforcement are not enough, said Paulo Barreto via email, a researcher with the nonprofit Amazon Institute of People and the Environment. New protected areas are needed, both within and outside Indigenous territory, as well as more transparency so that slaughterhouses track where their cattle are coming from. Cattle ranching is the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Degraded pasture lands also need to be replanted as forest, Barreto said, and there must be stricter rules for the financial sector to prevent the funding of deforestation.


Brazil to allow miles of selective logging in effort to preserve the Amazon


Forest lines the Combu creek, on Combu Island on the banks of the Guama River, near the city of Belem, Para state, Brazil, Aug. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Timber from a woodmill sits next to the jungle near Vila Nova Samuel, Brazil, Aug. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)

BY FABIANO MAISONNAVE
 July 23, 2024

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — To combat ongoing destruction in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil announced a plan Tuesday to dramatically expand selective logging to an area the size of Costa Rica over the next two years.

In Brazil, vast forest lands are designated as public yet have no special protection or enforcement and are vulnerable to land grabbing and illegal deforestation. Criminals frequently take over land and clear it, hoping the government will eventually recognize them as owners, which usually happens.

“The main goal of forest concessions is the conservation of these areas,” said Renato Rosenberg, director of forest concessions for the Brazilian Forest Service, during an online press conference. “They also create jobs and income in parts of the Amazon that would otherwise have little economic activity.”

Companies that get timber concessions have to follow strict rules. They can log up to six trees per hectare (2.5 acres) over a 30-year period. Protected species, such as Brazil nut, and older, seed-producing trees are off limits.
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The idea is that granting permission to timber companies to take a limited number of trees gives them a stake in overseeing the forest, something the Brazilian government cannot afford to do. Several studies show that illegal deforestation in concession areas is significantly lower than outside them.

Eventually, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva plans to treat as much as 310,000 square kilometers (112,000 square miles) of public undesignated Amazon rainforest this way — an area the size of Italy.

A working group is assessing which areas should be designated as conservation areas, Indigenous territories or forest concessions.

Currently, there are 22 such timber lease areas in the Amazon, covering more than 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles). Since the country initiated its first timber concessions, only two companies have declined to renew their leases, which shows the model works, according to Rosenfeld. Still, the program is much smaller than first envisioned when Brazilian legislation established it in 2006.

Brazil’s Forest Service is part of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. It was created that same year to promote sustainable activities in public forests by private organizations.

The government plan is a partnership with two private institutions — Imaflora and Systemiq — that will help do research and design community forest management, according to an official statement.

Funding comes from Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions, the primary program of the United Kingdom´s International Climate Finance to address climate change.

The announcement was met with skepticism by the National Forum of Forest-Based Activities, representing some 3,500 companies with interests in the timber industry.

“Forest management is the best way to halt environmental crime, from land-grabbing to illegal logging,” Frank Almeida, president of the National Forum, told the AP. “But there is no use in creating a project that won´t become a reality,” he said, referencing recent government actions related to exports that have generated business uncertainty.

The main one is that two of Brazil´s leading timber products — ipe wood and tonka beans — were listed with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora for species requiring export permits. Unless Brazil meets a November deadline for submitting a so-called non-detriment finding, Almeida said exports of these species will be halted.

In a press statement, Brazil’s environmental law-enforcement agency, known as Ibama, said it will address this issue before the November deadline.

Maisa Isabela Rodrigues, a forest engineering professor at Brasilia National University, said the plan is the right approach, but needs some adjustment. Forest management is the best way to reconcile forest preservation and logging, she told the AP. But research indicates the 30-year period between timber harvests is not long enough for the recovery of some of the most valuable species. She said the program probably won’t work in remote areas, because sky-high transportation costs could make them economically unattractive.
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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