Candidate to host COP30, Pará is the biggest deforester in the Amazon

On the last 11th, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and the Governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho (MDB), announced that Belém was launched as a candidate to host the 2025 edition of the UN climate conference (Organization of Nations Nations), COP30. The intention is to bring the world’s largest forum on climate change to the Amazon, but the state chosen as a possible host is the largest historical deforester in the biome.

Data from Prodes (Program for Monitoring Deforestation by Satellite), from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), show that, since the beginning of the historical series, in 1988, approximately 167,000 km² of forest in the state have already been devastated. This is equivalent to almost 35% of the total lost in the biome during this period.

Second place, Mato Grosso, recorded a loss of 152,000 km² —almost 15,000 km² less.

For 16 consecutive years, Pará is the annual champion in devastation. Between August 2021 and July 2022 alone, more than 4,141 km² of the biome in the state were deforested. The nearly 21% drop from the previous year’s peak (5,238,000 km², the highest number since 2008) isn’t all that surprising, researchers say, as even for deforesters it’s expensive to maintain such high levels of destruction.

“The previous year was disastrous, the highest rate of deforestation in decades, so it’s normal to have a fall afterwards”, points out Stela Herschmann, specialist in climate policy at the Observatório do Clima, a network of socio-environmental organizations. In 2021, the deforestation rate in all states of the Legal Amazon reached 13,000 km², the highest since 2007.

Another possible explanation for the 2022 numbers is that it rained more than normal in the region. “This made it reduce the possibilities of deforestation and fires”, says Eugênio Pantoja, director of Public Policies and Territorial Development at Ipam (Amazon Environmental Research Institute).

There are several factors for the dynamics of deforestation in Pará. According to the researcher, already during the occupation of the state, in the 1960s and 1970s, aptitude for deforestation was a criterion that defined where migrants, encouraged by the development policy of the military dictatorship, settled.

Then, the vectors of forest destruction become major infrastructure works. “[O desmate] is boosted especially by the construction of large highways —such as the Transamazônica, Belém-Brasília (BR-010) and BR-163— and also works such as the Belo Monte and Tucuruí hydroelectric plants”, explains Pantoja.

In addition, the illegal occupation of land that has not yet been designated (by the state or the federal government), which are vulnerable to land grabbing, and the invasion of conservation units and indigenous lands, especially for mining, also come into play.

“A large part of the deforestation in Pará occurs within federal public areas”, says the researcher, noting that around 70% of the state’s area is under the control of the Union.

At the local level, Pantoja considers that there have been advances in policies in recent years, which have helped to reduce devastation —such as the creation of the State Force to Combat Deforestation and the Amazônia Agora program, aimed at sustainable development in the region.

For him, however, continuing to reduce rates will be a challenge for Pará. “There is still a culture of illegal occupation with deforestation in the region, especially in the most critical regions, such as Novo Progresso and Jacareacanga.”

The government of Pará and the Ministry of the Environment were approached to comment on actions against deforestation in the state, but did not respond until the publication of the report.

Last week, Ibama carried out in Pará, in addition to Acre and Roraima, the first operations against deforestation in the Amazon under the new Lula government. The Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Land was the target of actions in the municipality of Uruará (PA).

environmental diplomacy

Lula announced his intention to host the COP30 in an Amazon city while visiting COP27, in Egypt, in November 2022, on his first international trip as president-elect. At the event, in his first speech to the world after winning the second round, the PT said that the climate agenda would be central to the government.

Herschmann assesses that it was a very symbolic move. “It was the first time that a president who had not been sworn in was invited to participate in a COP”, he says. “Recalling that we had made an offer to host the event [em 2019]which was withdrawn by [ex-presidente] Jair Bolsonaro. And the new government comes and says that not only are we back, but we want to assume this role”, he completes.

By rule, each year the conference takes place on a different continent. Brazil was a candidate to host the last Latin COP, in 2019, but, when Bolsonaro withdrew from the candidacy, the presidency went to Chile. Due to the protests that occupied the streets of Santiago that year, however, the event took place in Spain.

COP28, in 2023, will be held in the United Arab Emirates, a country with an economy centered on oil, which has generated distrust among environmentalists as to the results that the host will be willing to deliver in the presidency of the event. Leading the negotiations will be the responsibility of Sultan al-Jaber, head of state oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil and also Minister of Industry and Technology and the nation’s climate envoy.

COPs 29 and 30 do not yet have a defined location.

If confirmed by the UN, the choice of the Amazon as the host city will also be particularly emblematic because Brazil is the country that most destroys forests in the world. In addition, deforestation is largely responsible for Brazilian emissions: around 49% of them in 2021 were associated with changes in land and forest use, according to SEEG (System for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Climate Observatory).

“It is symbolic that Lula wants to take this climate discussion into the Amazon, so that there is no distance between the discussions and where that impact is happening. It is beautiful, but it is not enough”, ponders the specialist. “We also need to deliver results. We need to reverse deforestation.”

Pantoja points out that bringing a global-level discussion to the Amazon will impose an even greater responsibility on Brazil and the state of Pará. “This presents the opportunity for the country and the Amazonian states to assume commitments for this process of development and reduction of deforestation in the region.”

competitor city

At COP27, Lula also said that he was considering Manaus as a candidate to host COP30. Amazonas is headed by re-elected governor Wilson Lima (União Brasil), an ally of Bolsonaro. And, last year, the deforestation figures in the state drew attention.

“It was the only state in the Legal Amazon that had an increase in clearcuts (13%) and this is a direct reflection of the paving of the BR-319 —which is a highway that will cut the largest block of intact forests in the Amazon”, highlights Herschmann . “We are going to see what has already happened in other BRs, which are a major driver of deforestation.”

Last July, Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) approved the technical license for paving the road, even contrary to the body’s own opinions, which pointed to the risk of more land grabbing because of the work.

Currently, the BR-319, which connects Manaus to Porto Velho, has a large section that is impassable in the rainy season. The paving was a Bolsonaro campaign promise.

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