Pará is a synthesis of challenges and problems in the Amazon

An area in Brazil can be considered a synthesis of the main problems and challenges that affect the Amazon: explosion of deforestation and fires, in addition to invasion and degradation of indigenous lands and conservation units. It’s Pará.

Since 2006, Pará has led the list of deforestation in the Amazon, according to data from Prodes, a program run by Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) that annually points out the size of the new vegetation hole that has emerged in the world’s largest tropical forest.

The state also holds the largest share of fires in the biome annually, which has ranged from 30% to even more than 50% (in 2009).

The situation of felling trees has exploded since the beginning of the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL), leaving the house of 2,000 km² deforested to more than 5,000 km².

Inpe data also show that indigenous lands in Pará, in general, are the ones that suffer the most from deforestation. The leader is Cachoeira Seca, near the municipality of Altamira. The second place is Apyterewa, on the banks of the Xingu River, close to São Félix do Xingu.

Deforestation and livestock in Pará — the link between deforestation in the Amazon and cattle ranching is common — lead to very high emissions of greenhouse gases, a sensitive point in a reality where the world is trying to contain the climate crisis. The two leading cities in the ranking of emissions in Brazil are precisely in the state, the aforementioned Altamira and São Félix do Xingu. Two other cities in Pará (Pacajá and Novo Progresso) are also in the top 10.

The numbers point to some areas of Pará as the most critical in the entire Legal Amazon. These locations are the banks of the BR-163, the Transamazônica and Terra do Meio (near Altamira, São Félix do Xingu and Novo Progresso), according to a technical note from Ipam (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) in February this year. .

Paulo Barreto, co-founder of Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia) and an associate researcher for the Amazon 2030 project, highlights the pressure that will be exerted on western Pará with the conclusion of the BR-163 —the same fears of researchers in the case of BR-319, whose reconstruction project between Manaus and Porto Velho could become a vector of deforestation.

In addition to the highway, Barreto also points out the considerable environmental impacts associated with plans to build hydroelectric plants in the Tapajós basin.

Added to these specific risks are the characteristics of deforestation in the state. The biggest problem faced in recent years is deforestation on unallocated public lands. The 2020/2021 data from Prodes, for example, point to about 1,800 km² of deforestation in these places, according to an analysis by Ipam.

Unallocated forests are public areas that belong to the Union or states, but which are not used. In the Amazon, as a whole, they are often the target of squatters.

In the case of Pará, according to Gabriela Savian, deputy director of public policies at Ipam, more than half of the deforestation on public lands in the state occurs in federal public forests. “You have a context of chaos in land planning and governance,” she says.

According to the specialist, however, Pará has a more structured state process of land tenure regularization, but at the federal level, the situation is complicated, hence the higher numbers in these areas.

Regarding invasions of public lands, Barreto also points out the need for deintrusion, that is, to remove squatters and invaders from irregularly occupied areas.

Unallocated land, however, alone does not concentrate deforestation in Pará. The local situation is also complicated in the case of rural settlements, such as the Terra Nossa and Divinópolis Sustainable Development Projects. According to Ipam, they need control actions.

Deforestation in the state has also recently been highly concentrated in protected areas. Prodes data for 2020/2021 indicate that 72% of forest clearing in protected areas occurred in Pará.

“Pará has a much more complex reality than other states. There we have a context that mixes illegality and criminality”, says Savian.

Therefore, reinforces Barreto, it is necessary to go beyond environmental fines and associate various crimes in police operations.

“The land grabbing is a speculative thing. The guy is betting that it will work. If there are land grabbers starting to be arrested, they abandon these areas”, says Barreto.

Land grabbing, however, he recalls, is also stimulated by measures that facilitate the possession of invaded areas. The government of Pará itself has taken actions that facilitate the regularization of illegally occupied land, according to research entities and the Federal Public Ministry.

In one of them, the government of Helder Barbalho (MDB) —a reelection candidate who, according to Datafolha, could be elected in the first round— gave a discount of around 99% for the regularization of invaders of public land, according to a study by Imazon .

In addition, state decree 1,684 of 2021 led to a subsidy worth R$6.7 billion for the privatization of invaded state public lands.

Despite this, there are positive points on the horizon of Pará, according to the experts heard.

In recent years, the government of Pará has put into action, in partnership with the UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), a platform called Selo Verde, which allows greater traceability of the livestock production chain.

Savian, in turn, highlights the Amazônia Agora State Plan, instituted in 2020 by the government of Pará. The plan centralizes actions against climate change and places it as one of the objectives for the state to achieve neutrality of greenhouse gas emissions related to the change in land use and forests (deforestation) as of 2036.

THE Sheet contacted the Pará State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability to comment on the actions, but there was no response.

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