In Tocantins, ‘Brazil’s water tank’, deforestation threatens rivers

Tocantins has seen illegal deforestation advance over its territory. Last year, eight out of ten landowners who deforested in the state did not have authorization — even so, they removed vegetation from an area equivalent to 30,000 football fields, according to a recent report by the Public Ministry.

As part of the country’s main new agricultural frontier, the Matopiba (also made up of Maranhão, Piauí and Bahia), the state needs to strengthen enforcement and advance in the allocation of part of its territory to curb deforestation, argue researchers.

At the current rate, the problem of deforestation is already threatening the headwaters of the country’s main hydrographic basins, since Tocantins is known as the “Brazilian water tank”, as it is a cradle of important sources, including for agribusiness.

With about 91% of the territory occupied by the Cerrado and 9% by the Amazon, Tocantins suffers mainly from deforestation resulting from land grabbing and the advance of agriculture.

“From 2020 to 2021, what we saw was an increase in the deforested area within the state”, says Bianca Santos, a researcher at Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia). Tocantins is in fourth place among the nine states in the Legal Amazon that increased deforestation the most in the period.

The researcher points out that when deforestation occurs close to springs, it worsens the water crisis. One of the biggest concerns is the high level of degradation of the Tocantins-Araguaia basin, resulting from human activity in the last 20 years.

Almost half of it has been deforested, and the tributaries of the Araguaia River have suffered from the withdrawal of water for irrigated agriculture.

The Government of Tocantins told the Sheet which has been reinforcing inspections to combat deforestation. Since March, according to management, the state has had a system of deforestation and fire alerts with daily satellite images, for weekly monitoring.

on the front of the problem, traditional peoples who feel the effects of deforestation and the advance of criminals through their territory point out that more action is needed both at the federal and state levels.

“The environmental issue is getting worse and putting the biome and our quilombola and indigenous communities at risk. We are not able to use all of our territory. The soil and waters are being poisoned with pesticides”, says Evandro Moura Dias, from the Coordination of Quilombola Communities. from Tocantins.

For him, it is necessary that the next rulers legally recognize traditional communities to protect them from conflicts over land.

As is repeated throughout the country, the most protected environmental areas in Tocantins are usually in conservation units, indigenous lands and traditional communities. In the state, 13.25% of the area is demarcated as a conservation unit or indigenous lands.

The state already has a significant part of the territory in private properties, but there is still land that is not intended for use. According to Imazon, 90% of these undisclosed areas are under state responsibility.

And most of them are not even registered at a notary’s office, the first step in the regularization process — whether for private owners or to transform them into conservation units.

The action, according to researchers, is essential to preserve the native vegetation. This is because, without the destination of these lands, there is no legislation to protect them from invasions.

Another point is that the land legislation in Tocantins does not prevent the regularization of recently deforested areas. The report “Laws and Practices of Land Regularization in the State of Tocantins”, by Imazon, points out that invaders of public lands can regularize the areas by paying negligible amounts.

A hectare (10,000 m²) costs an average of R$ 3.50, but there are cases in which, with R$ 1, the squatter can have definitive possession of the invaded and deforested area.

The Government of Tocantins says that it has adopted measures to combat land grabbing, with land regularization under the terms of the legislation. The government also claims that it created the Police Station for Repression and Agrarian Conflicts and carries out actions in quilombola territories.

For decades, the Tocantins Amazon has been transformed for agricultural use. In recent years, however, this process has grown with the cultivation of grains and forestry, explains Renato Torres, a doctor in ecology and professor at the Federal University of Tocantins.

“This is currently the most degraded part. We have around 20% of vegetation cover remaining in this part of the Tocantins Amazon”, he points out.

The cerrado area, he says, was also initially occupied with livestock and, more recently, with grain production.

“This process of land transformation is favored by public policies. We also have an issue related to legislation. Only a third of the Cerrado areas must be conserved by private owners, while in the Amazon it is 80%”, recalls Torres.

In these elections, the voting intentions for governor in Tocantins are concentrated in two candidacies, according to the polls.

Candidate for reelection and leader in research, Governor Wanderlei Barbosa (Republicans) proposes to promote economic development through agriculture, respecting the environment and preservation policies.

In terms of the government, it cites as main actions the reduction of fires and deforestation, the expansion of the State Environment Council and the updating of environmental standards.

In second place in the polls, candidate Ronaldo Dimas (PL) wants to make environmental licensing processes less bureaucratic and modernize environmental inspection.

His government plan talks about “supporting technically and financially the recovery of degraded areas to increase agricultural productivity” and strengthening participatory management in councils and collegiate bodies.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}