Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has been reduced by 49.5% in the January-September period of this year (compared to the same period in 2022). The area of forest areas cut down or burned in the so-called Legal Amazon (an area that encompasses nine Brazilian states) was specifically reduced last September by 56.8% (compared to the same month of the previous year), according to data provisional data published by INPE (National Institute of Space Research of Brazil, responsible for collecting data from satellites). The stop to the loss of forest mass in the Brazilian Amazon region coincides with the first nine months of the government chaired by Lula da Silva, who has reiterated his commitment to the protection of this natural space of global interest.
Ending illegal deforestation is a priority of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration, both internationally and domestically, after rainforest destruction increased during the government of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
In September, Brazil's Environment Minister Marina Silva announced more ambitious climate goals for the country at the United Nations Summit in New York, Reuters highlights. Last August, at a meeting of representatives of the eight states of the Amazon basin, Lula da Silva's government defended the signing of a joint commitment to end deforestation by 2030, but the Brazilian proposal did not achieve the necessary consensus to be formalized. in the final statement of the meeting.
Deforestation and fires typically increase in the Amazon in August and September, when the climate becomes drier. However, fires (one of the drivers of deforestation) in the region last month fell 36%, improving in 2022 from the worst September in more than a decade.
Between January and September 2023, the total area deforested in the legal Amazon was 4,302 square kilometers, approximately half of what was recorded in the same period in 2022. However, the situation continues to deteriorate in the Cerrado region, a tropical savanna. rich in biodiversity and increasingly affected by deforestation, mainly due to the advance of large-scale livestock and agricultural operations. In this demarcation, some 516 square kilometers were deforested in September, an increase of 89 percent compared to the same month in 2022, and a record for a month of September since data collection began in 2018.
