A technical note from Ipam (Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia) points to the explosion of deforestation on federal public lands in the Amazon since the beginning of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, destruction that has reached an alarming level, say the researchers.
Scientists at the institute, a non-governmental organization, showed that the annual average loss of the Amazon rainforest was 56.6% higher, from 2019 to 2021, compared to the period before the Bolsonaro government, from 2016 to 2018 — a deforestation trend, and electoral periods, such as 2018, tend to record higher rates of destruction.
From 2019 to 2021, more than 32,000 km² of forest fell to the ground, equivalent to about 21 times the size of the city of São Paulo.
The data used by the scientists come from Prodes, a program by Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) that annually reports the deforestation of national biomes.
“The disruption of the environmental governance apparatus, which took place from 2019 onwards, has influenced the increase in deforestation as a whole, both in private lands (rural properties and lots in rural settlements) and in public lands, especially in land categories. of less restrictive protection (APAs) and those without any destination.”
Just over half (51%) of deforestation since 2019 has taken place on public lands, most of which (83%) are federal.
The technical note cites, as factors that favor the growth of deforestation, the budget cuts in the entities that carry out inspections.
A document by the Climate Observatory, released earlier this week, showed that, amid the increase in deforestation in 2021, there were the fewest fines in decades and only 41% of the available budget was used for inspection.
According to the Ipam note, the replacement of directors and heads of operations at Ibama, changes in the assessment process, flexibilization of penalties and institutional dismantling in operations also contribute to the increase in deforestation, “due to the empowerment of the Brazilian Army to carry out the oversight”.
Since the first year under Bolsonaro, when there was an explosion of fires in the Amazon and a great deal of international attention focused on the matter, the government has relied on the Army to fight environmental crimes in the forest. The military action, however, has not presented solid results, with annual and historical increases in the destruction of the biome.
The Army’s actions have also been criticized by specialists, who claim, as the Ipam note points out, that there is military inefficiency in the actions. According to environmentalists and researchers in the area, the most logical thing would be for the Armed Forces to only give assistance to environmental agents from Ibama and ICMBio, who are specialized in combating environmental illicit.
According to Ipam researchers, deforestation in the Amazon is, in general, speculative and targets the illegal appropriation of land, in particular, areas in public forests that are not destined, which concentrate about a third of what was deforested in 2019. to 2021.
It is also possible to observe an increase in deforestation, always in relation to the triennium prior to the Bolsonaro government, in conservation units. According to the technical note, despite the fact that deforestation data on indigenous lands is also at a higher level compared to before, there has been an annual reduction in this data.
Still talking about protected areas, Pará was the state that most contributed, from 2020 to 2021, to the deforestation of this group. The entity concentrated 72% of deforestation in this land category. The main victims were conservation units and indigenous lands in the Terra do Meio region and around the BR-163.
Amazonas has been showing annual increases in deforestation, which worries researchers, considering that the state has vast areas of well-preserved forests outside protected areas.
According to the Ipam study, the increase in deforestation in the Amazon is concentrated mainly in non-destined public forests, on the Amazonas-Acre-Rondônia border, a region known as Amacro.
The institute’s researchers also pinpointed the critical areas in each state. In addition to the places already mentioned in Pará, the municipalities of Altamira, São Félix do Xingu and Novo Progresso deserve attention.
recent report from leaf showed that, according to Greenpeace, the mayor of São Félix do Xingu occupies public lands with illegal deforestation and cattle ranching.
In Amazonas, the junction between the BR-319 and Transamazônica highways in the south of the state, near Humaitá, in addition to Apuí, Lábrea and Boca do Acre, is critical.
In Rondônia, the surroundings of Porto Velho draw attention to deforestation.
In Mato Grosso, there is concern about Colniza and Aripuanã. In Acre, the framework applies to the regions of Feijó, Tarauacá, Sena Madureira —around the BR-364 in these three cases— and Rio Branco.
Finally, in Roraima, the critical areas are in the region of Alto Alegre, Iracema, Mucajaí and Caroebe, as well as along the BR-174.
Source: Folha
