August 2016 - July 2017; Brazil Lost 660,000 Hectares Of Forest (2X Area Of Metro London)
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NGO Observatorio do Clima published a list of ten reasons of why the announcement should not be celebrated. Besides the government’s embrace of the beef caucus agenda, it mentions this year’s long drought, with a record of 106,000 forest fires in September alone, as well as a lack of policies beyond enforcement, as the Sarney Filho himself admitted.
“The 2017 Brazilian Amazon deforestation rate released by the federal government is still alarming. We lost 6,624 sq km, despite the fact that there is already nearly 100,000 sq km of pastureland under-utilised in the Amazon,” said Paulo Barreto, a researcher with NGO Imazon, which has a parallel deforestation monitoring that had already forecast the slowdown of the deforestation. “The burning of this area released greenhouses gases equivalent to 2.3 times all the 49 million cars in Brazil during a year.”
“The drop is likely to be the result of some restoration of enforcement efforts by the government, but also due to the reduction of cattle prices associated with the Brazilian recession. Several studies have shown that the cattle price is a good predictor of the deforestation rate since pastureland occupies nearly 65% of the cleared areas,” said Barreto.
According to the researcher, the government’s July decision to pardon grileiros, or land-grabbers, “sends a clear signal to grileiros and environmental criminals: Keep deforesting illegally. Politicians will pardon you.”
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http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/10/19/brazilian-amazon-loses-660000-hectares-forest-one-year/