Back

LatinNews Daily - 2 September 2015

Brazil: Amazon rainforest deforestation rises

Development: Satellite data released on 1 September suggests a 68.7% year-on-year increase in deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

Significance: The new deforestation figure is the highest recorded in six years, according to the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe) and signals an end to the recent downward trend.

  • According to real time monitoring figures by Inpe, 5,121.92 square kilometres (km2) of rainforest were lost in the Brazilian Amazon between August 2014 and July 2015, compared to 3,035.93km2 in the previous twelve-month period. The new deforested area is equivalent to almost 60 times the size of Manhattan.
  • The figure, however, is bound to be higher as the methodology used by Inpe to monitor the Amazon in real time, the so-called ‘Deter’, does not include small areas of deforestation. The Impe has a more precise monitoring method, the Prodes, which the Brazilian government uses to issue its official deforestation figures, usually in November. Deter and Prodes figures have moved in different directions only twice, one of them last year, when the environment ministry used Prodes data to announce the second lowest annual level of deforestation since records began in 2004. This followed an increase on the 2012-2013 period which broke a nine-year spell of consecutive falls. However, Deter figures showed an increase between 2013 and 2014.
  • But the latest Deter figures matches the findings by NGO Imazon, which uses a lower revolution satellite for its independent monitoring of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. According to data released by the organisation last week, the rate of deforestation was up 63% year-on-year between August 2014 and July 2015, to 3,322km2.
  • The discrepancy in the figures between Imazon and Inpe stems from the fact that Imazon’s satellite has a resolution of 250m, compared to Prodes’s 20-30m. Historically, the discrepancy between the two systems has been of 3,000 km2. This suggests that the official deforestation rate could raise to over 6,000km2 between 2014 and 2015, up 1,000km2 from the previous annual period and higher than the peak of 5,891km2 registered in 2012-2013.

Looking Ahead: Both Imazon and Deter data suggest that the government will have to work harder to convince environmentalists that it remains committed to lowering deforestation levels. In early August the government released preliminary data claiming deforestation had fallen by 15% in 2015, but critics doubted the veracity of the figure, particularly given recent accusations that the government has been embellishing its financial accounts, turning deficits into surpluses.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 414 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

LatinNews
Intelligence Research Ltd.
167-169 Great Portland Street,
5th floor,
London, W1W 5PF - UK
Phone : +44 (0) 203 695 2790
Contact
You may contact us via our online contact form
Copyright © 2022 Intelligence Research Ltd. All rights reserved.