New data has revealed that deforestation in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon rainforest reached a new record high in February, highlighting the challenge faced by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to reverse years of environmental destruction. Satellite monitoring detected 322 sq km (124 sq miles) of forest cover destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon last month, an increase of 62% from the previous record in February 2022. In the Cerrado, a biodiverse tropical savanna to the south of the Amazon, satellites identified 558 sq km (215 sq miles) of destruction, up 99% from February 2022 and nearly double the previous record of 283 sq km (109 sq miles) from February 2020.
The spike in destruction underscores the difficulties that Brazil’s new president faces in addressing the rampant deforestation that flourished under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro’s four years in office saw average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surge by 75% compared with the previous decade. The issue has been of international concern, as the hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees in the Amazon offer a critical buffer in the global fight against climate change.
In November, Lula made a high-profile appearance at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt, pledging to reassert Brazil’s place as an environmental protector and get Amazon deforestation down to zero. He has taken early action to address the environmental destruction, including rebuilding Brazil’s environmental protection agencies, relaunching a defunct national action plan to protect the rainforest and convincing international donors to revive the so-called “Amazon Fund”, which includes more than $580m for anti-deforestation operations. Following his election victory, Lula also appointed noted environmentalist Marina Silva as the country’s minister of environment.
However, observers have said reversing the trends will be a slow process. “It’s difficult to reverse the damage of an anti-environmental policy in so little time,” said Frederico Machado of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Brazil office. “Reducing deforestation will only happen when there is a consistent strengthening of the institutions responsible for policing it.”
The latest figures came after heartening data from January – Lula’s first month in office – showed Amazon deforestation in Brazil had fallen by 61% compared with the previous year. In a presentation last week, a scientist with the space research agency, Inpe, blamed the large month-to-month fluctuations on cloud cover that hid deforestation on satellite images in January, only for it to be revealed in February. Meanwhile, environment minister Silva last month called the high rate of deforestation shown in early data from February “a kind of revenge against the actions already being taken”. She said the level of deforestation was unusual that early in the year, when heavy rains make it difficult for loggers to work in the forest. “We will keep working towards our goal,” she told reporters.