10 março 2023

By WWF-Brasil

The Legal Amazon had 322 km² deforested in February 2023, according to data released this Friday (10) by the DETER System, by INPE (National Institute for Space Research). The number represents a 62% increase compared to February 2022 – when a deforested area of 199 km² was recorded in the biome.
This increase in February followed a drop in January, when 167 km² of deforestation alerts were recorded - a reduction of 61% compared to January 2022. The accumulated result for the first two months of the year is 22% lower than last year.

Both the reduction in January and the increase in February may be related to greater cloud cover at this time of year, which corresponds to the rainy season in the Amazon. The DETER system uses satellite images with optical sensors that can be affected by the occurrence of clouds.

"It is still too early to confirm any trend related to deforestation, as January and February are periods of many clouds and rain, with historically lower values of destruction. What we can clearly state is that climate events are affecting Brazil more recurrently, and that controlling deforestation is essential to mitigate losses. The actions announced by the current Government are welcome, but it is necessary that all of society take part in this process of environmental reconstruction", says Mariana Napolitano, Head of Conservation at WWF-Brazil.

This is the second monthly data from DETER after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took a series of measures in January aiming to resume the environmental protection agenda at the federal level, such as the announcement of the creation of a national plan for control of deforestation in Brazilian biomes.

“It is difficult to reverse the damage of an anti-environmental policy in such a short time, as the numbers for the first two months of 2023 do not reveal a clear trend. We believe that the reduction of deforestation will only occur when there is a consistent reversal of the weakening of the institutions in charge of inspection, and when the new government's speech gains more materiality", explains Frederico Machado, specialist in conservation and leader of the WWF-Brazil's Zero Conversion Strategy.

“The important thing at this moment is the resumption of command and control actions, strengthening of the organs that have been scrapped in recent years, valuing the people of the forest and their knowledge and the implementation of a sustainable economy, an area in which Brazil has great potential and can take on a leading role,” says Machado.

According to DETER, the states with the most records of deforestation in the biome were Mato Grosso (162 km²), Pará (46 km²), Amazonas (46 km²) and Roraima (31 km²).

Cerrado

In the Cerrado, deforestation reached 558 km² in February, an increase of 98% compared to the same month in 2022, when 282 km² were destroyed in the biome, according to DETER.

The area destroyed in February 2023 was comparable to the previous month, when deforestation alerts were recorded for 442 km². Although the numbers for January represent a 10% drop compared to January 2022, all data indicate that the devastation of the biome remains at a very high level, higher than deforestation in the Amazon, and with a tendency to grow.

The accumulated area deforested since the beginning of the year has already reached 1,000 km², 26% higher than in the same period last year. It is the highest accumulated area at the beginning of the year in DETER's historical series, and almost double the average of the last four years.

In February, Bahia concentrated 48% of the destruction of the Cerrado, with 268 km² deforested. The other deforestation champions in February were Tocantins (68 km²), Piauí (63 km²) and Maranhão (52 km²).
The four states that deforested the most in February 2023 make up MATOPIBA (Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia), a region that is considered the main frontier of agricultural expansion in Brazil and one of the main fronts of destruction of ecosystems in the world. Together, the four states contributed more than 80% of the area deforested in the Cerrado in February.