Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Amazon deforestation update in Brazil

Deforestation news. From CNN:

Brazil's Amazon rainforest has been deforested by a record amount in the first half of 2022, according to the country's Space Research Institute (INPE).

Data from INPE satellites shows that 3,750 square kilometers (1,448 square miles) of the world´s largest rainforest were lost in Brazil between January 1 and June 24, the largest area since 2016, when the institute began this type of monitoring.

INPE satellites have been registering new monthly deforestation records since the beginning of the year, and it also registered a record 2,562 fires in the country´s Amazon last month.

May and June generally mark the beginning of significant annual burning and deforestation in the Amazon, due to the dry season.

"Brazil sees record Amazon deforestation in first half of 2022," Rodrigo Pedroso and Jorge Engels, CNN, July 4, 2022.

Update

"Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon dropped by 22.3% in the 12 months through July, government data showed Thursday, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made progress on a pledge to rein in the destruction that happened under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

Some 9,000 square kilometers (3,475 square miles) of Amazon jungle were destroyed in the 12 months through July, according to data from Brazilian space research agency Inpe, down from the 11,568 square kilometers cleared a year earlier.

It was the smallest area cleared since 2018, the year before Bolsonaro took office."

— "Amazon deforestation falls more than 20% to its lowest levels in 5 years," Reuters, November 10, 2023

Previously

In November 2020, there was this:

The world watched as California and the Amazon went up in flames this year, but the largest tropical wetland on earth has been ablaze for months, largely unnoticed by the outside world.

South America's Pantanal region has been hit by the worst wildfires in decades. The blazes have already consumed about 28% of the vast floodplain that stretches across parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. They are still not completely under control.

The fires have destroyed unique habitats and wrecked the livelihoods of many of the Pantanal's diverse indigenous communities. But their damaging impact reaches far beyond the region.

Wetlands like the Pantanal are Earth's most effective carbon sinks — ecosystems that absorb and store more carbon than they release, keeping it away from the atmosphere. At roughly 200,000 square kilometers, the Pantanal comprises about 3% of the globe's wetlands and plays a key role in the carbon cycle.

When these carbon-rich ecosystems burn, vast amounts of heat-trapping gases are released back into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect.

"The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us," Ivana Kottasová, Henrik Pettersson and Krystina Shveda. CNN. November 13, 2020.

And in August 2020:

A Brazilian sanctuary, home to 15% of the world's population of blue macaws, has been consumed by fires -- and there are fears for the well-being of the rare birds.

* * *

Between 700 and 1,000 blue macaws lived on the ranch, she said. "It is the largest known population of free macaws in the world," Barreto told CNN.

"Fires destroy home of one of the world's rarest birds in Brazil," Eduardo Duwe, Marcia Reverdosa and Rodrigo Pedroso, CNN, August 19, 2020.

In October 2022, Lula defeated Bolsonaro.

According to a Jan 22, 2023 AP article, Joenia Wapichana will be

"Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month [February 2023] under newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon’s resources to be exploited at the expense of the environment."

Further reading:

"The Old Man and the Tree: Ecologists thought America’s primeval forests were gone. Then Bob Leverett proved them wrong and discovered a powerful new tool against climate change." Jonny Diamond. Smithsonian Magazine. January 2022.

Archeologists Uncover Lost Cities Of Amazon Rainforest That Were Once Home To Thousands At least 10,000 farmers lived in the dense network of settlements in Ecuador around 2,000 years ago. Christina Larson. HuffPost, January 12, 2024.

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