Amazon rainforest deforestation down 11 per cent from last year, report says

The Amazon rainforest is the most biodiverse forest in the world, and the home of tribes that have lived in the forest for thousands of years, some of them living in isolation.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday. The data was released by the National Institute for Space Research.

The agency’s Prodes monitoring system shows the rainforest lost an area roughly the size of Qatar, some 11,600 square kilometres (4,500 square miles) in the 12 months from August 2021 to July 2022.

That is down 11 per cent compared to the previous year, when over 13,000 square kilometres (5,000 square miles) were destroyed.

For more than a decade it looked as though things were getting better for the Brazilian Amazon. Deforestation had declined dramatically and never rose back above 10,000 square kilometres. That was before the presidency of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, beginning in January 2019.

This will be the last report published under Bolsonaro, as he lost his reelection bid and will leave office Jan. 1. But part of the destruction that took place on his watch will not appear until next year, including the key months from August to October of 2022.

A preview of those months comes from a different federal satellite system that issues faster but less accurate data: It shows deforestation skyrocketed 45 per cent over the August to October period the prior year. Traditionally, that time of year sees peak destruction, due to the dry season.

An analysis of the new yearly data from Climate Observatory, a network of environmental groups, shows that in the four years of Bolsonaro’s leadership, deforestation rose 60 per cent over the previous four years. That is the largest percentage rise under a presidency since satellite monitoring began in 1998.

In one state, Para, a fierce rate of destruction went down by 21 per cent yet it was still the center of one-third of all Brazil’s Amazon forest loss. Part of the tree cutting and burning happens in areas that are ostensibly protected. One such area is Paru State Forest, where the nonprofit Amazon Institute of People and the Environment registered two square kilometres (0.7 square miles) of deforestation in just October.