Emergency? What Emergency? Amazon Deforestation Falls Over 60% Compared With Last July, Says Brazilian Minister
The Brazilian Amazon has witnessed a remarkable 60% drop in deforestation compared to last year. The Guardian has the story.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the Environment Minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian.
The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point.
The exact figure, which is based on the Deter satellite alert system, will be released in the coming days, but independent analysts described the preliminary data as “incredible” and said the improvement compared with the same month last year could be the best since 2005.
The rapid progress highlights the importance of political change. A year ago, under the far-Right then President, Jair Bolsonaro, the Amazon was suffering one of the worst cutting and burning seasons in recent history. But since a new administration led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power at the start of the year, the Government has penalised land grabbers, mounted paramilitary operations to drive out illegal miners, demarcated more indigenous land and created more conservation areas.
The results will bolster Lula, Marina and other Brazilian hosts of an Amazon summit designed to strengthen regional cooperation that will take place in Belém on 8th-9th August with the participation of the nine rainforest nations: Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas territory French Guiana.
Silva said the acute threat of the climate crisis, which has brought record heat to many South American countries, meant the summit had to be more than a show of unity; it needed to produce concrete and continuous results to ensure the Amazon did not reach a point where it starts to dry up and die off, which scientists have warned is drawing closer.
She has proposed that each country produces an action plan, that they jointly create a scientific panel to keep them updated with the latest data, and that they share best practices to achieve the three goals of the summit: protection of the forest and traditional peoples, and to combat inequality and strengthen democracy.
The key to the improvement in Brazil, which is home to 60% of the Amazon, she said, had been a strong target. “The main reason is the decision of Lula to aim for zero deforestation. Since then, we have created new conservation units and indigenous territories that have produced some results … Now we need to move towards a new model of prosperity that is less predatory, less damaging to local people and the forest.”
In the first six months of the year, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 34%, compared to the same period last year, according to the Deter satellite alert system.
The figures for July, which is a more revealing month as it usually marks the onset of the clearance season, are still being collated, but Silva said they would show a significant improvement of “at least 60%” since the same period last year.
Independent analysts believe this might even reach as high as 70%. “It’s incredible, totally crazy,” said Tasso Azevedo, a forest engineer and founder of the MapBiomas analytical group. “This is on course to be the sharpest fall since 2005. We are still figuring out why this is happening so fast.”
Worth reading in full.
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Another Only communists can save the planet! article from the Ugdraain is certainly not worth reading in full. Especially when the except is already chock-full of climate change and other woke phrases. The far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, rumoured to plan a coup all the time while he was still in office by the usual suspects, ought to be remembered for being the guy who refused to let state governors use the military police to enforce their COVID-maniac policies.
And of course Brazil has very green energy because they have been running most of their road vehicles from sugar derived Ethanol. And that has required clearing rain forest so as to grow the sugar.
When it’s all pretty much cut down the percentage fall will be large. Is this what is happening?
It is magic!
Obviously this satellite (and the people who control it) have all realised that the Amazon, no! The Entire Planet will be miraculously saved, if only those naughty “far-right” swine are replaced by genuine Communist jail-birds!
What could go wrong?
The first six months, based on “real” data shows they are over-achieving their Five Year Plan targets!
More communists will ensure that the Amazon Basin will stretch uninterrupted from Tierra del Fuego to the US border and that every tree will be 1,000 metres high!
What could go wrong?!?
Gotta love that satellite!
Indeed, and I’m sure they will turn the fate of the Aral Sea into a triumph of socialism.
And the ubiquitous 5 year plan 🤣🤣
I’m a lifelong conservationist and this should be great news. It is great news if true, but one has to ask why the Guardian is giving us this uncharacteristically good news. Easy, they have to be in support of Lula (good), a globalist stooge, and hammer home that Bolsonaro (bad) was a dangerous right-wing populist who wanted to burn down the rainforests and boil the world. Then, naturally, they have to put all of this in the context of a made-up ‘climate emergency’ that they and others like them are responsible for creating. Because no, we can’t just appreciate the preservation of the rainforest for its own sake, we’ve got to wrap it up in a narcissistic death cult fantasy.
Why don’t they follow Scotland’s lead and fell the lot? Just think of how many wind turbines you could fit in that area!