Amazon lost area equivalent to seven capital cities during Bolsonaro’s administration; deforestation in 2022 was the worst in 15 years

Iury Lima – Cenarium Magazine

VILHENA (RO) – The Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon (Imazon) has finished mapping the size of the damage that spread throughout the biome in 2022. The result is alarming: in the last four years alone, during the administration of the former president of the Republic Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the forest lost more than 35 thousand square kilometers, an area larger than the sum of seven of the nine capitals of the region. It is as if Belém, Boa Vista, Rio Branco, Cuiabá, Palmas, Macapá and São Luís had been removed from the map.

Equally serious was the deforestation accumulated during the past year. With almost 11 thousand square kilometers cut down, Imazon found that the loss of forest estimated at around 3 thousand soccer fields per day between January and November was maintained until the last day of the year.

It was the fifth consecutive annual record in deforestation and the worst in 15 years, since the institute started monitoring the Amazon with satellite images, in 2008.

Last December alone, the forest lost 287 square kilometers of forest, according to Imazon’s Deforestation Alert System (SAD). The equivalent to 105% more than in December 2021, when 140 square kilometers were devastated.

In the evaluation of the Institute’s research coordinator, Mr. Carlos Souza Jr., the reason for the new record was quite evident: “An unbridled race to deforest the Amazon while the gate was open for the cattle, for land speculation, illegal mining and deforestation inside Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units”.

“This shows the size of the challenge for the new government, which needs to act quickly to reduce the process of destruction of the Amazon that has accelerated over the last four years”, points out Souza Jr.

Read also: Deforestation: Amazon area four times the size of Belem under alert in the last five months of 2022

‘It’s all free’

Devastation increased 150% in the four years that Jair Bolsonaro was in power, reflecting the lack of coordinated actions to curb deforestation and the dismantling of federal agencies that should act to prevent increased destruction in the biome.

Between 2015 and 2018, the previous quadrennium, deforestation was a little over 14 thousand square kilometers.

To get an idea of the neglect, a study by MapBiomas, released last year, pointed out that the Bolsonaro government monitored only 2% of the almost 200,000 deforestation alerts issued since the beginning of the former president’s term.

“The numbers registered in the last few years show how we have not been able to act efficiently to protect our forest heritage”, emphasizes Imazon researcher, Mrs. Bianca Santos.

“In the last year alone, we lost more than 3,000 soccer fields per day of forest in the Amazon. We lost areas to land grabbers, illegal mining, loggers and many others. These are the most difficult areas to recover, which represent not only biomass and carbon stocks lost, but also indigenous and traditional communities’ territory, environmental preservation areas, riparian forest, biodiversity and the possibility of stimulating the bio-economy in these areas”, Mrs. Santos laments.

Overwhelming 2022

When the cut is made by state, Pará, Amazonas and Mato Grosso continue leading the deforestation rates in the Amazon, with almost 80% of the destruction registered in 2022, which had the worst December since 2008. Together, the states concentrated 8,053 square kilometers felled, maintaining the trend that began in 2019.

Amazonas and Mato Grosso were the only ones that had an increase in destruction compared to 2021, according to Imazon. The most serious case is Amazonas, where devastation grew 24%. In the state, the deforestation has been advancing mainly on the border with Acre and Rondônia, in the region known as “Amacro”, points out the Institute, where the municipality with the highest deforestation rate in 2022 is located: Apuí, with 586 square kilometers.

“If nothing is done, the scenario for 2023 will be of a tendency to increase deforestation based on PrevisIA data”, warns Carlos Souza Jr., citing the 80% assertiveness of Imazon’s artificial intelligence platform, which estimates a destruction of more than 11,800 square kilometers by the end of this year, if deforestation continues at the current pace: an area ten times the size of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

“The PrevisIA data can be used to prioritize critical areas and avoid new deforestation. It is also possible to use this information about critical areas with high deforestation risk to create new protected areas, thus avoiding future deforestation and the appropriation of undesignated public lands”, says the research coordinator. “It is cheaper to prevent than to remedy with command and control actions”, adds the specialist.

According to researcher Mrs. Bianca Santos, the expectation of Imazon’s team of specialists is that the current record of deforestation has been the last reported by the institute, “since the new government has promised to give priority to protection in the Amazon”.

“But for this to actually happen”, Mrs. Santos ponders, “it is necessary that the administration seeks maximum effectiveness in the measures to combat devastation that have already been announced, such as the return of the demarcation of Indigenous Lands, the restructuring of inspection bodies and incentives to generate income from standing forest. For this, it is a priority to establish an integrated plan with the state governments and other partner institutions to combat deforestation”, concludes the researcher.

Read also: Approximately 80% of deforestation in the Amazon occurred in Brazilian territory