The Amazon lost 99 km² of forest in January this year, according to data from Deter, the alert system of Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), published this Friday (27). Updated until the 20th, the numbers should still increase until the end of the month, but they are well below the 430 km² registered in January of last year, under the management of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The number so far is the third lowest in the recent historical series of Deter (Real Time Deforestation Detection System), started in 2015. It is above 2017, which recorded 58.2 km², and 2021, with 82, 8 km² of forest felled.
The indicators are the first in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), which has Marina Silva (Rede) who returned to the command of the Environment portfolio 15 years after his first passage and in a much more complex context for the fight to deforestation.
With enforcement weakened in recent years, criminal organizations have increased gold mining on indigenous lands, land grabbing and illegal logging schemes.
Still, the Lula government needs to face this scenario to fulfill the promises of zero deforestation and reduction of emissions, reinforced in the inauguration speech and even before it.
In November last year, the then president-elect went to COP27, the UN climate conference (United Nations) held in Egypt, and signaled that his government would be different from that of Bolsonaro, marked by friction with the international community and with sources of resources from abroad, such as the Amazon Fund.
The first operations against deforestation in the Amazon began last week, when Ibama agents led raids against deforestation in Acre, Pará and Roraima.
On January 16, Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples) revoked the normative instruction that made logging more flexible in indigenous lands, allowing non-indigenous people to participate in management.
The government is also betting on donations from the Amazon Fund, reactivated on January 1 of this year, to resume inspection. On January 18, Marina Silva said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the fund’s donor base can be expanded to reinforce the fight against environmental crimes.
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