Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Maranhão were the states that most burned the Cerrado in 2022

Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Integrating the Legal Amazon region, the States of Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Maranhão were the ones that most burned the Cerrado biome between January and November this year, according to the Mapbiomas Fire Monitor. As a result of the consultation made this Friday, 16, 2.4 million hectares were lost only in the savannah vegetation.

The state that lost the most vegetation cover to fire was Maranhão, with 919 thousand hectares burnt, an increase of 108% compared to the same period last year. Tocantins burned 894 thousand hectares, an increase of 86%, and Mato Grosso lost 604 thousand hectares, an increase of 14%.

In the whole biome, 7.3 million hectares were burned in the 11 months of the year, an increase of 18% compared to the same period of the previous year, placing the ecosystem in second place for fires, second only to the Amazon. Almost half of the burnt area (3.5 million hectares), in this period, occurred in savannah formation.

The Cerrado covers about 25% of the national territory and makes up an area between 1.8 and 2 million square kilometres, in the States of Goiás, Tocantins, Mato Grosso do Sul, South of Mato Grosso, West of Minas Gerais, Federal District, West of Bahia, South of Maranhão, West of Piauí and portions of São Paulo State.

Also read: Data show that Cerrado deforestation increases by 25% this year

Amazon

The Amazon alone registered almost half of the fires in the whole period (48%, equivalent to 7.7 million hectares). Next is the Cerrado, and the Pantanal presented the smallest burnt area in the last four years, with an 86% reduction from 2022 to 2021, in relation to the area burnt from January to November.

The area burned between January and November 2022 in the biome is already 49% greater than the area burned in 2021. The three municipalities that burned the most in Brazil, in that period, are in the Amazon: São Félix do Xingu (PA), Altamira (PA) and Porto Velho (RO).

Read also: Deforestation: Cerrado and Amazon region lost area the size of six São Paulo cities between January and July

In Brazil

Data from the Fire Monitor showed that the area burned in November in the whole national territory – 775 thousand hectares – was 89% higher than that recorded in the same month of 2021. Of this total, 81% (627 thousand hectares) were burned in the Amazon last month.

Most of it (58%) was in native vegetation, and more than a third (35%) reached forest formations. Among the types of agricultural and livestock land use affected, pastures stood out, representing 38% of the burned area in November. The leading states in area destroyed by fire were Pará, Mato Grosso were Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Amazonas.

“Right after the second round of elections there was an increase in the burned area in a month that normally we would not have much fire because of the rains. This is clearly a reaction to the expectation of more effective policies to combat deforestation and fires on the part of the new government”, analysed Ane Alencar, coordinator of Mapbiomas Fogo and science director of the Institute for Environmental Research of the Amazon (Ipam).