Deforestation in protected areas of the Brazilian Amazon rises 79% under Bolsonaro government

The deforestation in the protected areas of the Brazilian amazon during the three years of government of Jair Bolsonaro It grew by 79%, compared to the devastation suffered by the reserves of this biome between 2016 and 2018, according to a study released by the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA).

Among all protected areas, indigenous reserves were the most affected since the far-right leader came to power on January 1, 2019, where devastation grew 138% compared to the vegetation they lost in the previous three years. .

The data is from an analysis carried out by the human rights organization Instituto Socio Ambiental (ISA), based on official data on deforestation released by the Government and which is compiled via satellite by the state Institute of Space Research (INPE) .

To do this, it uses the data collected by the Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Amazon by Satellite (Prodes), a system that measures annually – between August 1 and July 31 of the following year – the rates of devastation in the jungle. and which is considered the most reliable.

According to the study, of the 268 indigenous reserves, 20 concentrated 80% of deforestation this year.

In 2021, 32,864 hectares of native vegetation were devastated on indigenous lands, the equivalent of more than 18 million collapsed trees, according to ISA’s analysis.

“Deforestation in Indigenous Lands (TI) in 2021 was 18.6% lower compared to 2020, and represents 2.5% of total deforestation in the Amazon,” the study indicates.

However, ISA experts point out that when comparing the accumulated deforestation in these reserves during the current Bolsonaro government (from 2019 to 2021), with the three previous years (from 2016 to 2018), “the deforestation of IT experienced an increase of 138% ”.

According to the analysis, the most devastated protected territory in the Brazilian Amazon was the Triunfo Xingu Environmental Protection Area, with more than 53,000 hectares of forest deforested in 2021 alone, an increase of 21% compared to what was reported last year.

The study highlights the rise in environmental crimes in the reserves such as illegal logging and mining, arson and land grabbing.

Likewise, he notes that the continuous growth of deforestation reflects the lack of supervision by environmental authorities and the reduction of the budgets assigned to combat this type of crime, which only in 2021 have lost 40%.

The Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometers of vegetation cover between August 2020 and July 2021, the largest degraded area for a twelve-month period in the last 15 years.