Deforestation in the Amazon this year may exceed that recorded last year and reach more than 15,000 km² of destruction, which would be the highest value since 2006, when it was 14,300 km². In 2021, the affected area was 13,200 km².
The estimate is from the artificial intelligence platform PrevisIA, developed by Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia) and Microsoft, with support from Fundo Vale.
The PrevisIA alert takes into account areas at risk of deforestation. For this, the program includes information on, for example, clear-cutting in the past, topography, distance to protected areas, socioeconomic data, distance to rivers and distance to official and unofficial roads — an important point when thinking about deforestation because it is known the concentration of destruction in the areas close to the roads.
Artificial intelligence, based on satellite images, detects and monitors illegally opened roads in the middle of the forest, an important predictor of deforestation.
Imazon also warns that 2022 is an election year, when, historically, deforestation rates in the Amazon tend to increase. And not just there.
A study published last year in the journal Conservation Letters pointed out that, in election years, destruction grows even in the Atlantic Forest, the most devastated biome in the country.
PrevisIA data indicate that the state of Pará has the largest area at risk of deforestation, more than 6,000 km². The state is usually the one with the highest annual rates of deforestation, according to Prodes, an Inpe (Space Research Institute) program that measures forest destruction.
After Pará, PrevisIA indicates Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rondônia as the states with the highest risk of deforestation.
Amazonas, in the latest data released by Prodes, for the period from August 2020 to July 2021, ranked second in terms of deforestation. In third came Mato Grosso, which usually took second place.
The Imazon and Microsoft program also point to high or very high risks in 37% of protected areas and in 24% of indigenous lands in Brazil.
