Brazil’s Amazon deforestation surges to worst in 15 years

The Prodes project carries out satellite monitoring of clear-cut deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Credit: AP/Press Association Images

The area deforested in Brazil’s Amazon has reached a 15-year high after a 22% jump from the prior year, according to official data.

The Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometres of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021, the National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system has shown.

That is the most since 2006.

The 15-year high flies in the face of the Brazilian government’s recent attempts to shore up its environmental credibility, having made overtures to the administration of US President Joe Biden and moved forward its commitment to end illegal deforestation at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow this month.

The agency’s report, released on Thursday, is dated October 27 – before talks in Glasgow began.

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The Brazilian Amazon had not recorded a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometres of deforestation in over a decade before Jair Bolsonaro’s term started in January 2019.

Between 2009 and 2018, the average was 6,500 square kilometres.

Since then, the annual average leapt to 11,405 square kilometres.

“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental non-profit groups, said.

"We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy."

Mr Bolsonaro took office with promises to develop the Amazon, and dismissing global outcry about its destruction.

His administration has defanged environmental authorities and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers.

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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro Credit: Eraldo Peres/AP

This week at a conference in the United Arab Emirates to attract investment, he told the crowd that attacks on Brazil for deforestation are unfair and that most of the Amazon remains pristine.

Brazil’s environment ministry did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment on the Prodes data showing higher deforestation.

The state of Para accounted for 40% of deforestation from August 2020 to July 2021, according to the data, the most of any of nine states in the Amazon region.

But its year-on-year increase was slight compared with Mato Grosso and Amazonas states, which together accounted for 34% of the region’s destruction.

The two states suffered 27% and 55% more deforestation, respectively.

A section of Amazon rainforest stands next to soy fields in Belterra, Para state, Brazil Credit: Leo Correa/AP

And early data for the 2021-2022 reference period signals further deterioration.

The agency’s monthly monitoring system, Deter, detected higher deforestation year-on-year during both September and October.

Deter is less reliable than Prodes, but widely seen as a leading indicator.

“This is the real Brazil that the Bolsonaro government tries to hide with fantastical speeches and actions of greenwashing abroad,” Mauricio Voivodic, international environmental group WWF’s executive director for Brazil, said in a statement after release of the Prodes data.

“The reality shows that the Bolsonaro government accelerated the path of Amazon destruction.”