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The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) reported that during the first six months of this 2022, the Brazilian Amazon broke a deforestation record with the loss of at least 3,987 kilometers of vegetation, that is, an area equivalent to five times the size from New York City.
Compared to the period between January and June 2021, the largest rainforest on the planet lost 10.6% more this year. In June alone, 1,120 square kilometers of vegetation were destroyed, the figure is 130% higher than that presented during the same month in 2018.
The impact of deforestation is turning the Amazon into a vulnerable area, which in turn has an impact on climate and rainfall regulation.
“Whether for our agriculture or for the supply of cities and even for the generation of hydroelectric energy, on which the country depends, it is a worrying, alarming route that urgently needs to be reversed,” said Mariana Napolitano, manager of Sciences of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
All the information recorded by experts, including the Climate Observatory, indicates that the rate of deforestation this year will again exceed 10,000 square kilometers, figures that have not been recorded since 2008.
The arrival of Bolsonaro
Environmentalists affirm that the lack of control and oversight by the government of Jair Bolsonaro to attack illegal mining or the illicit trade of wood, facilitates the advance of the mafias. They also denounce that the president promotes and defends the exploitation of the natural resources of the Amazon, even in indigenous reserves where the law prohibits it.
“The Amazon is given over to those who kill and also to those who deforest. Today what we have is an area of two soccer fields being devastated every minute in the Amazon and with Bolsonaro those numbers tend to stay the same or even get worse,” denounced Marcio Astrino, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.
Since January 1, 2019, when Bolsonaro assumed the presidency, the destruction figures in the jungle have been increasing by 73%, affecting more than 13,000 square kilometers during 2021.
72% of mining extraction, mostly illegal, is concentrated in the Amazon, where criminal organizations dedicated to illegal logging also proliferate. 99% of the wood sold by the country comes from that region.
The amount of exploitable natural resources in the area generates a conflict of powers between the mafias that monopolize illegal businesses, increasing violence and trying to eliminate anyone who tries to denounce or expose the situation in the region.
Such is the case of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian indigenist Bruno Araújo Pereira, who were murdered more than a month ago, after they tried to gather information on the threats against the native communities during a visit to the border region with Peru and Colombia.
The government apologizes
The government, for its part, assures that the figures do not reflect the actions they have been carrying out in recent months.
“These figures are always a challenge for us and we will have to be more firm in the face of these crimes, and we will surely expand our actions,” Joaquim Leite, Brazil’s environment minister, told reporters.
The country committed during the COP26 on the climate to eliminate illegal deforestation in its territory two years before what had been established, moving the date from 2030 to 2028.
However, the increase by almost 22% between August 2020 and July 2021, compared to the previous period, represents a record in the last 15 years.
With information from Reuters, AFP and EFE.
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