Brazil Spotlight: "Amazon Under Pressure"

The worst year for deforestation in the last two decades was 2003 with a record total loss of 30,596 square miles. The trend decreased to 10,730 square miles in 2010—showing that the problem has a solution and is manageable—but it has since accelerated, with 19,430 square miles of rainforest destroyed in 2018. The destruction of forest tripled every year between 2015 and 2018.

Deforestation over the past two decades amounts to a total loss of 320,637 square miles of forest: about 8 per cent of the total 3.9 million square miles of forest that existed in 2000 and an area of devastation equivalent to that of the territory of Spain. According to the ‘Amazon Under Pressure’ atlas, agriculture is the primary source of deforestation, responsible for 84 per cent of the devastation.

The social and economic realities are different in each of the nine countries in the Amazon Basin. Ecuador, which contains just 1.5 per cent of the Amazon, is home to 18 per cent of the Amazon’s active hydroelectric power plants. Roads, oil wells and hydroelectric power plants in Peru together threaten 42 per cent of the forest. In Brazil, which contains 61.8 per cent of the Amazon territory, the deforestation is driven by so-called “changes in land use”. Bolivia and Colombia are also experiencing higher deforestation in recent years.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has totaled 264,144 square miles over the last 18 years; in Bolivia, it totals 19,808 square miles; and in Colombia, 12,747 square miles.

The ‘Amazon Under Pressure’ atlas also shows that maintaining protected natural areas and indigenous territories, even with varying degrees of legal and political protection in each country, constitutes an effective deterrent to the progress of deforestation: of the deforestation detected between 2000 and 2018, 87.5 per cent occurred outside indigenous territories and conservation areas. However, since 2015, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela have registered illegal mining and clearing land with fire, even within protected territories.

Mining has been a constant pressure in the Amazon for decades. Data collected through 2020 has identified 4,472 illegal mining activities in the region affecting 664 indigenous lands and 129 protected natural areas, directly impacting rivers and forests.

More than half of illegal mining (53.8 per cent) occurs in Brazil. The situation is also alarming in Venezuela where, despite occupying just 5.6 per cent of the Amazon, it is home to 32 per cent of illegal enterprises.

The country most affected by agriculture-induced deforestation isn’t Brazil, but in fact Bolivia: 27 per cent of its rainforest has been devastated. Since 2001, an average of 105,012 square miles of the Bolivian Amazon has burned annually.

Every month, Story Productions publishes a new Brazil Spotlight column by Ricardo Arnt, a Brazilian journalist and author with more than forty years experience. His works include director of Planeta magazine and TV Bandeirantes, editor of Exame magazine, Folha de São Paulo and Superinteressante (published by Editora Abril), and international editor of Jornal Nacional on TV Globo.

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