Although President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration strives to put a stop to years of widespread destruction. Fresh data shows that deforestation in Brazil’s share of the Amazon rainforest reached a new record high in February.
According to statistics from the national space agency released on Friday, satellite monitoring found 322 sq km (124 sq miles). The forest cover burned in the Brazilian Amazon last month, up 62 percent from the previous record in February 2022.
Satellites found 558 sq km (215 sq miles) of devastation in the Cerrado, a biodiverse tropical savanna south of the Amazon.
The data showed that this was nearly double the previous high of 283 sq km (109 sq miles) from February 2020 and was up 99 percent from February 2022.
The increase in devastation has highlighted the challenges facing Brazil’s new president, Lula. Moreover, in stopping the widespread deforestation that thrived under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
The extreme right-wing former army captain, who narrowly lost the election to Lula in the run-off in October of last year. Reduced environmental enforcement in the Amazon, which environmental and Indigenous groups attribute to an uptick in violence and illegal mining.
The Brazilian Amazon’s average yearly deforestation increased by 75% during Bolsonaro’s four years in government compared to the prior ten years.
The hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees in the Amazon provide a crucial buffer. In the global fight against climate change, therefore the issue has generated worry on a global scale.
At the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula made a prominent presence and made a commitment to reestablish Brazil’s position.
As an environmental defender and end Amazon deforestation. Brazil is now back, he declared.
Lula has reformed Brazil’s environmental protection agencies, relaunched a dormant national action plan to protect the rainforest.
And persuaded international donors to revive the so-called “Amazon Fund,” which includes more than $580 million for anti-deforestation operations. Lula has taken early action to address environmental destruction.
Nonetheless, analysts have noted that changing the trends will take time.
The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Brazil office’s Frederico Machado said in a statement on Friday. That it was challenging to undo the harm caused by an anti-environmental policy in such a short amount of time.
Only until the institutions in charge of enforcing it are consistently strengthened will deforestation be reduced, he asserted.
The most recent results followed encouraging information from January, Lula’s first month in office. Showing that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region had decreased by 61 percent from the previous year.
An Inpe scientist who gave a presentation last week blamed the significant month-to-month variations on cloud cover for hiding deforestation. On satellite pictures in January only to expose it in February.
Silva, the environment minister, described the high rate of deforestation in early February data as “a type of retaliation against the efforts already being done” last month.
While severe rains made it impossible for loggers to work in the forest thus early in the year, she said the extent of deforestation was unusual.
