Deforestation in Brazil’s component of the Amazon rainforest hit a new record in February, according to new data, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration struggles to end years of widespread devastation.
Satellite tracking detected 322 km2 (124 square miles) of forest canopy destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon last month, a 62 percent increase from the previous record in February 2022, according to data from the area’s national firm released Friday.
In the Cerrado, a biodiverse tropical savannah south of the Amazon, satellites have recorded 558 km2 (215 miles) of destruction.
That’s a 99 percent increase since February 2022 and nearly double the previous record of 283 km2 (109 square miles) since February 2020, according to the data.
The peak of destruction marked the difficulties Brazil’s new president, known as Lula, faces in addressing the endemic deforestation that flourished under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
The far-right former army captain, who lost a tight runoff to Lula in October last year, has scaled back enforcement of environmental law in the Amazon, which environmental and indigenous teams have blamed for rising illegal mining and violence.
Bolsonaro’s 4 years in place have seen average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increase by 75% in the last decade.
The factor has been an external concern, as the billions of carbon-absorbing trees in the Amazon provide a critical buffer in the global fight against climate change.
In November, Lula made a notable appearance at the United Nations’ COP27 meteorological summit in Egypt, pledging to reaffirm Brazil’s position as a protector of the environment and deforestation in the Amazon to zero. “Brazil is back,” he said.
Lula took the first steps to fight environmental destruction, adding the reconstruction of Brazil’s environmental agencies, reviving an old national action plan for the rainforest and convincing foreign donors to revive the so-called “Amazon Fund,” which includes more than $580 million for deforestation operations. .
After his electoral victory, Lula also appointed the famous enlist Marina Silva as the country’s minister.
However, the reversal of trends by observers will be a slow process.
“It is difficult to face the damage of an anti-environmental policy in such a short time,” Frederico Machado of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) office in Brazil said Friday.
“Deforestation alleviation will only happen when there is a coherent strengthening of the establishments guilty of controlling it,” he said.
The latest figures came after encouraging data from January, Lula’s first month, which showed deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon had dropped by 61 percent from last year.
In a presentation last week, a scientist at area studies firm Inpe blamed the gigantic monthly fluctuations in the cloud canopy that obscured deforestation in satellite photographs in January, only to reveal them in February.
Meanwhile, Environment Minister Silva last month called the maximum rate of deforestation shown in early February “a kind of revenge for the measures already taken. “
She said the deforestation point was earlier in the year, when heavy rains make it difficult for loggers to paint in the forest.
“We will continue to paint our target,” he told reporters.