According to preliminary data on deforestation in the Legal Amazon in October this year, the region lost 795.1 km². With data up to October 29, 2021 became the second worst index for October in the history of monitoring carried out by the Terra Brasilis platform.
The tool, developed by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), gathers alerts and monitors deforestation in the Amazon region since 2015 — with data for the first semester only being computed as of 2016.
So far, the highest deforestation rate in October was registered last year: 836.23 km².
The year 2021 already accumulates 7,806.23 km². Compared to January to the end of October in previous years, 2020 and 2019 registered a greater deforested area in the Legal Amazon region, with 7,899.37 km² and 8,425 km², respectively.
However, 2021 exceeded that recorded in the same period in 2018 (4,607.38 km²), in 2017 (2,909.7 km²) and 2016 (5,468.32 km²).
The month with the greatest deforestation in the Amazon in 2021 was July, with 1,497.93 km². The affected area then fell in August, which totaled 918.24 km². Deforestation, then, started to grow again in September, showing an increase of 7.23%, with 984.61 km².
In comparison with the preliminary data for October – as it is still necessary to count two days – the deforested area fell 19.2%.
Logging
The data analyzed encompass the areas within the Legal Amazon region affected by deforestation with exposed soil, deforestation with vegetation and mining.
According to Inpe, the calculated deforestation rates are based on deforestation areas larger than 6.25 hectares.
Reference: CNN Brasil
