Deforestation in the Legal Amazon, from August 2023 to July 2024, reached 6,288 square kilometers (km²), a value that represents a reduction of 30.6% in compared to the previous year (2022/2023)reported the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), this Wednesday (6).
The data comes from the Satellite Monitoring of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon Project (Prodes), a system maintained by Inpe that makes an annual assessment of forest suppression in the nine states that make up the Legal Amazon.
As a result, deforestation was the lowest percentage value in 15 years, according to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA). In terms of deforested area, the value now measured in the Amazon is the lowest since 2015 (6,207 km²).
Prodes monitoring is carried out from August of one year to July of the following year, between the driest seasons in the forest, and is considered the most reliable result by scientists, in which satellite detection achieves an accuracy of 10 meters over clear cuts. and deforestation through progressive degradation, such as fires.
“We achieved important results last year and this year, again, a highly significant result”, assessed the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, in announcing the results to the press, at Palácio do Planalto. The minister highlighted, for example, that over the last two years, the reduction in deforestation in the Amazon was 45%.
“A contribution for ourselves and the world, in the context in which the problem of climate change is an overwhelming reality”, recalled the minister, citing extreme climate events, such as frosts in Africa, floods in Spain and heat waves in others European countries.
In relation to the states, the best reduction rate was measured in Rondônia, with a 62.5% drop in deforestation, followed by Mato Grosso (-45.1%), reported Inpe. Pará (-28.4%) and Amazonas (-29%) also had drops. Roraima registered a 53% increase in deforestation over the last period analyzed.
Among the 70 highest priority municipalities for combating deforestation in the Amazon, 78% of them had a reduction in forest suppression, according to the MMA. Another 23% saw an increase in forest felling.
According to the federal government, the reduction in deforestation in the Amazon has made it possible for a volume of 359 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas that most contributes to global warming, to stop being emitted into the atmosphere.
The drop in deforestation was celebrated by civil society organizations, but the demand is to improve these results even further.
“A significant drop in deforestation in the Amazon for the third consecutive year is undoubtedly good news, but it is not enough given the size of the climate and biodiversity preservation challenges we face. We cannot forget that 2024 was a year of several climate tragedies in the Brazil. And if we want to avoid the worst scenarios of extreme events in the country, such as what happened in Rio Grande do Sul and the fires in the Pantanal, we need to ensure that the drop in deforestation is maintained and accelerated in the coming years”, pondered Mariana Napolitano, strategy director at WWF-Brazil.
Cerrado
In the Cerrado, the official deforestation rate, measured by Inpe’s Prodes System, was 8,174 km², between August last year and July this year. Thus, there was a 25.7% drop compared to the period from August 2023 to July 2024, the first reduction in deforestation in four years in the biome.
Around 76% of this deforestation remains concentrated in four states: Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, states that form the acronym Matopiba, the main agricultural frontier in the Cerrado today. In these states, however, Prodes recorded a significant drop in deforestation, comparing 2023/2024 with the immediately previous period. In Bahia, for example, the reduction was 63.3%, followed by 15.1% in Maranhão, 10.1% in Piauí and 9.6% in Tocantins.
* Text changed at 8:46 pm. Contrary to information, the value of deforested area is the lowest since 2015, not 2013.
