BRASILIA, Brazil –
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest slowed by nearly half compared to the year before, according to government satellite data released Wednesday. It’s the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement.
In the past 12 months, the Amazon rainforest lost 4,300 square kilometres (1,700 square miles) of land, roughly the size of Rhode Island. That is a nearly 46 per cent decrease compared to the previous period. Brazil’s deforestation surveillance year runs from Aug. 1 to July 30.
The figures are preliminary and come from the Deter satellite sytem, managed by the National Institute for Space Research, a federal agency and used by environmental law enforcement agencies to detect real-time deforestation. The most accurate deforestation calculations are usually released in November.
Amazon deforestation has steeply declined since the end of far-right President Jair Bolsolonaro’s rule, in 2022. Under his government, forest loss reached a 15-year high.
Still, much remains to be done to end the destruction. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged “deforestation zero” by 2030. His current term ends in January 2027.
About two-thirds of the Amazon lies within Brazil. It remains the world’s largest rainforest, covering an area twice the size of India. The Amazon absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide, keeping the climate from warming even faster than it would otherwise. It also holds about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water and biodiversity that scientists have not come close to understanding yet, including at least 16,000 tree species.
At the same time, deforestation in Brazil’s vast savannah, known as the Cerrado, increased by nine per cent. The native vegetation loss reached 7,015 square kilometres (2,708 square miles) — an area 63 per cent larger than the destruction in the Amazon.
The Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse savannah, but less of it enjoys protected status than the rainforest to its north. Brazil’s boom in soybeans, the country’s second-largest export, have largely come from privately-owned areas in the Cerrado.
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