Brazil reduced the loss of primary forest by 36% in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to data released this Thursday (4) by the organization Global Forest Watch, showing the greatest reduction in the speed of deforestation since 2015.
The study, carried out by GFW with data from the Global Land Analysis and Discovery Laboratory at the University of Maryland, shows that Brazil is still the country with the highest annual forest loss, due to the size of the forest it has, but has lost relative importance in the world. In 2022, the country represented 43% of forest loss in the world, and reached 30% of the total in 2023.
The Brazilian reduction, the second largest in the world after Colombia, which reduced by 49%, was offset by increases in Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, according to the study.
The reduction coincides with data on the drop in deforestation collected by the Brazilian government in 2023, and the study attributes the change to policies implemented by the government after the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“Since his election, President Lula has taken measures to reduce forest loss, including revoking measures against the environment and reinforcing supervision. These changes appear to be having an impact on the speed of forest loss, although it still remains higher than its nadir in the early 2010s,” the study says.
The survey highlights, however, that the decline is concentrated in the Amazon, as the Brazilian government's deforestation data also shows. The Cerrado had a 6% increase in the rate of loss of vegetation cover, maintaining a pattern of the last five years. The Pantanal, due to the 2022 fires, also had a peak increase, but still lower than in 2020, the worst year for the region.
Between August 2022 and July 2023, the reduction in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was 22.4% according to official government data from the Prodes system. However, alert data from the Deter system for the full year 2023 points to a 50% drop compared to 2022.
In the Cerrado, government data also shows a worrying increase in deforestation, and Deter data shows 7,800 km² under deforestation alert.
Information from Lisandra Paraguassu, from Reuters
Source: CNN Brasil
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