A drop of 33.6% in one year. Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest fell between January and June 2023 compared to the same period last year, official data showed Thursday.
The fight against the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest is one of the main objectives of the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who became president of Brazil again on January 1.
Satellite images from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) thus reported 2,649 km2 of deforestation in the first half of the year, compared to 3,988 km2 between January and June 2022.
At that time, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, widely criticized for his management of the Amazon, was still in power. “We are coming to a steady downward trend in deforestation in the Amazon,” said Environment Minister Marina Silva at a press conference on Thursday.
According to her, these results are the fruits of “President Lula’s decision to make the fight against climate change and deforestation a government policy”. In June alone, deforestation plunged 41% from 2022.
Since his re-election, Lula has promised to undo his predecessor’s environmental policies and end illegal deforestation by 2030.
Under the mandate of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), deforestation in the Amazon had jumped 75% compared to the average of the past decade.
In June, Lula revealed his action plan in this area, including the immediate seizure of half of the illegally exploited areas inside the protected areas, the creation of three million additional hectares of these protected areas by 2027, as well as hiring thousands of specialists on the subject.
This announcement followed a decision by parliamentarians to significantly limit the portfolio of the Ministry of the Environment, by withdrawing from it the powers of water resources management and the cadastre of rural land.
To achieve his goals, Lula regularly tries to convince the richest countries to finance the safeguarding of the forest. Norway and Germany have already contributed to the Amazon Fund created for this purpose.
The environment is at the heart of negotiations between Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay Venezuela) and the EU, which recently urged South American countries to be more demanding in the fight against environmental crimes, before being able to finalize a bilateral free trade agreement.
