The new record of deforestation alerts in the Legal Amazon recorded in the first quarter of 2022 is “worrying”, according to the assessment of Carlos Bocuhy, who is the president of the Brazilian Institute for Environmental Protection (Proam). In an interview with CNN Radio, he criticized the “continuous process of environmental degradation”, which has been going on for years, and the lack of public policies to reverse the situation.
According to the expert, there are three factors happening at the same time that favor deforestation: “alteration of the regulatory system that removed the incidence of fines to curb environmental crime, the second is the depletion of the IBAMA inspection system and the non-functioning of the National Council of the Legal Amazon, which today is made up of representatives of the ministries, without involving states and municipalities.”
This situation makes the “conditions for containing crime to get worse, this means that we have a higher incidence of deforestation and breaking records and worse, it is a situation of limit of destruction by the so-called ‘tipping point’, or point of no return. ”
The 64.19% growth in deforestation this quarter compared to the same period last year, according to Bocuhy, “demonstrates that we are in a situation of loss of control, of land grabbing, in a process of deforestation for agriculture and mining.” In order for the course to be corrected, Bocuhy is categorical: supervision is needed.
“It is necessary to have people at the moment or before the crime happens, it also depends on states and municipalities, which propose an emergency action plan to contain crime, but the federal government has been silent in implementing control mechanisms against deforestation.”
Carlos Bocuhy warned that “the pace of devastation in the Amazon cannot continue without consequences for the ecosystem.”
He mentions that the forest can lose its ability to absorb carbon, and that it can enter the “bankruptcy phase”: “It loses the ability to have life, the urgency is great.” This crossing the point of no return would mean “loss of life across the continent, it would be a disaster.”
Source: CNN Brasil
