The little more than 500 years of Brazilian history were marked by economic cycles of occupation of the territory and advance on native vegetation, but a third (33%) of all deforestation ever recorded in the country occurred in just 37 years. From 1985 to 2021, the country lost 13.1% of its native vegetation.
This is what the latest analysis of the MapBiomas project reveals, released this Friday (26). The initiative, which brings together universities, NGOs and technology companies, monitors changes in land cover and use in Brazil through the analysis of satellite images dating from 1985.
The work, which is in its seventh collection, made it possible, for the first time, to separate the loss of vegetation cover in this period from what had occurred until then and to better understand how the deforestation process has accelerated in recent years in some regions of the country.
The loss of native vegetation was 84.7 million hectares between 1985 and 2021. This is slightly more than the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo combined. In addition, there was a reduction in the wetland, with the loss of 17.1% of the water surface in the country. In total, the study considers that the anthropized area, that is, altered by human action, grew by 87.5 million hectares in the period.
And most of this area was occupied by agriculture. While vegetation cover (which includes forests, savannas and other non-forest formations) fell from 76% to 66% of the national territory, agriculture and livestock cover rose from 21% to 31%. Agriculture areas had the biggest increase (228%) and now represent 7.4% of the country.
Despite the fact that most (72%) of this expansion of agriculture took place on areas that had already been altered, especially on pastures —which is considered a positive movement, as it does not encourage new deforestation—, it was still observed that 28% of the crops were cultivated in areas that had recently been deforested, indicating a direct conversion of native vegetation.
As other analyzes have already shown, the survey reinforces that the advance of agriculture and livestock has occurred especially in some areas and more pronounced in recent years: Matopiba (a region between Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauà and Bahia) accounted for 56.2% of all the loss of native vegetation observed in the Cerrado in the last 20 years.
Amacro (a region on the border between Acre, Amazonas and Rondônia) has been concentrating much of the deforestation in the Amazon in the last decade.
Forest loss in this area accounted for 22% of Amazon deforestation in the last ten years, compared to 11% between 2000 and 2010. Sheet showed in a report on the 14th, cities like Lábrea and ApuÃ, in the south of Amazonas, were the champions of deforestation in the last 12 months.
But the changes observed in the pampa, in Rio Grande do Sul, also draw attention in the study. It was the biome where, proportionally, there was the greatest reduction of native vegetation, from 61.3% to 46.3% in 37 years.
“What is happening there is a recent phenomenon. It started in 98, 99 and deepened in 20 years. The loss of vegetation was greater between 2010 and 2020 than in the ten years before. Something curious happens there. Livestock is a villain in the Amazon , but in the Pampa the southern grasslands are totally compatible with cattle ranching. While there was only cattle ranching in the region, the biome was stable. Then there were two booms: planted forests, mainly eucalyptus and pine, and soybean plantations, which exploded replacing native vegetation”, explains Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of MapBiomas.
“Matopiba, Amacro, the pampa, the Pantanal are undergoing rapid transformations. But, in general, we don’t have any large region in Brazil that has a change in the sense of having an increase in conservation. On the contrary. Even in the Atlantic Forest, which had started to stabilize, with a regeneration process greater than that of deforestation, in the last three years (2019, 2020 and 2021) it started to lose vegetation again. It’s crazy business. Think of a setback”, adds Azevedo.
The researcher also considers that the fact that 66% of the national territory still has native vegetation cover does not mean that these are fully conserved areas. At least 8% of this vegetation is secondary, that is, it was deforested at some point and ended up regenerating.
On the other hand, 33% of deforestation occurred over areas that had been regenerated. I mean, even the recoveries aren’t working. “We have a lot of challenges ahead. The first thing is to eliminate deforestation. The second is to recover native vegetation, but it is not enough to plant, you have to take care of this area. Then increase production without opening new areas.”
