Environmental defenders and the opposition accuse Jair Bolsonaro of encouraging deforestation by defending the exploitation of the Amazon and weakening environmental control organizations.
Le Monde with AFP
In 2021, the Amazon lost an average of eighteen trees per second. According to an independent study, made public Monday, July 18, deforestation in all ecosystems in Brazil increased last year by 20.1 %.
“Brazil lost 16,557 square kilometers of original vegetation cover in all its ecosystems last year”, after 13,789 square kilometers in 2020, reports the collaborative Mapbiomas platform, which compiles data from various Satellite mapping systems.
Most of this deforestation (59 %) took place in the Amazon. Next come Cerrado, the Brazilian savannah (30.2 %), Caatingu, semi-arid zone of Nordeste (7 %), then the Atlantic forest or “Mata Atlantica” (1.8 %) and the Pantanal (1, 7 %). “In the only Amazon, 111.6 hectares were deforested each hour, or 1.9 hectare per minute, which is equivalent to almost 18 trees per second,” said Mapbiomas, which brings together NGOs, universities and businesses technological.
Jair Bolsonaro accused of encouraging deforestation
Agriculture and breeding remain the main “pressure vectors” of deforestation, for which they are 97 %responsible. In the state of the para (North), clandestine mines also exert a strong pressure, according to the study.
Since 2019, the date of the coming to power of the far -right president Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation in all ecosystems has reached 42,000 square kilometers, “almost the surface of the State of Rio de Janeiro”, according to The same source. The environmental defenders and the opposition accuse the Bolsonaro government of encouraging deforestation by defending the exploitation of the Amazon and by weakening environmental control organizations.
According to official data from the National Institute for Spatial Research (INPE), between January and June 2022, the Brazilian part of the Amazon (60 %) lost 3,988 square kilometers of wooded surface, a record for a First half since 2016, date of the first statements of the detection system of deforestation in real time (Deter).
Official figures also show that since the coming to power of President Bolsonaro, average annual deforestation in Amazon has increased by 75 % compared to the previous decade.