Amazon Deforestation Sends Mixed Messages

The extensive brown regions of the Amazon Rainforest depict high levels of deforestation comparable to 2021 (Wikimedia Commons).

Satellite images released on November 12 show a rise in deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest during the month of October, according to Reuters. ABC News reports that according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Deter monitoring system determined that 877 square kilometers of vegetation were cleared in October. This marks a 4.9 percent increase compared to deforestation levels in October 2020 and the highest deforestation levels in October in five years.

Al-Jazeera claims that the rise in deforestation directly contrasts with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s promises to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon. According to ABC News, in September, Bolsonaro congratulated his administration at the UN for the reduced number of deforestation alerts during the month of August. At the UN climate conference in Glasgow (COP26), Reuters reports that Environmental Minister Joaquim Leite announced on November 10 that the Bolsonaro administration is pushing up its goal to achieve zero illegal logging by 2028. The new target date is two years earlier than the administration’s previous goal, which Bolsonaro had announced at the April climate summit in Washington, D.C. When probed about the INPE-released October deforestation data released at a press conference in Glasgow on November 12, ABC News reports that Leite responded, “I haven't seen these numbers, I heard they came out today, but my concentration is here in [COP26] negotiations.” At COP26, Brazil signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, an agreement designed to both accelerate forest restoration and invest in sustainable management, conservation, and indigenous communities, says NPR.

Despite these recent promises, Bolsonaro’s administration continues to promote deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Between 2009 and 2018, the average yearly deforestation levels in Brazil hovered around 6,500 square kilometers. In the first two years of Bolsonaro’s presidency, those levels rose to nearly 10,500 square kilometers. As president, Bolsonaro called for development within the Amazon and backed lax land legislation that emboldened land grabbers. Reuters claims that although Bolsonaro has taken a softer approach to climate-related issues since President Joe Biden took office, he still deployed troops to stop anti-logging efforts in the Amazon and undermined environmental law enforcement by reducing or canceling fines placed on those accused of environmental crimes.

Scientists and climate activists alike remain skeptical of the Bolsonaro administration’s promises. At COP26, Ane Alencar, the science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, stated, “The world knows where Brazil stands and this attempt to display a different Brazil is unconvincing because satellite data clearly shows the reality.”

The Climate Observatory, which is comprised of various environmental activist groups, released a statement, according to Al Jazeera, saying, “The data from Deter is a reminder that the same Brazil that circulates in the corridors and halls of COP26, in Glasgow, is the same where land grabbers, illegal loggers, and miners have a government license to destroy the forest.”