Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped nearly 46 percent from August last year to July — the biggest annual decline in two decades, the government said on Thursday.
Analysis of satellite imagery by the National Institute for Space Research shows an estimated 7,008km² of forest were cleared during the 12-month period, the lowest rate since the government started monitoring deforestation in 1988.
“The new deforestation data represents an extraordinary and significant reduction for Brazil,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a statement.
The numbers have been falling since 2004, when they reached a peak of 27,000km² cleared in one year, the space research institute said.
The government credited its aggressive monitoring and enforcement measures for the drop, as well as its promotion of sustainable activities in the Amazon region, an area in northern Brazil the size of the US west of the Mississippi River.
Paulo Gustavo, however, environmental policy director of Conservation International, said a major factor is the drop in world prices for beef, soy and other products that drive people to clear land for agriculture in the rain forest.
“The police control has improved a little, there has been success in controlling deforestation,” Gustavo said. “But the main factor is the drop in commodity prices, which are the main factor in speeding up or slowing deforestation.”
Satellite images from the space research institute have allowed government inspectors to increase enforcement, the government said.
The Brazilian Environment Institute reported confiscating about 230,000m³ of wood, 414 trucks and tractors and 502,000 hectares of land linked to illegal deforestation activities from August last year to July.
The government has also issued US$1.6 billion in fines, the statement said.
Amazon deforestation causes 75 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gases said.
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