Illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is on the rise. According to a new data analysis from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, illegal land clearing has just reached its highest level in eight years.
The trend carries with it increasing "fears that the country could lose a decade’s worth of progress in forest protection," Jeff Tollefson writes in Nature. Senior Researcher Paulo Baretto of Imazon, a foundation grantee, spoke with Tollefson about the impact the economic recession in Brazil has had, diverting money and attention away from crucial environmental enforcement.
Arguing that solutions to reverse the trend must be implemented urgently, Tasso Assevedo, a forester, sustainability advocate and adviser to the foundation's Andes-Amazon Initiative, responds with an op-ed in Brazil's O Globo. Every lost hectare of forest, he explains, worsens climate-related problems and reduces our ability to adapt.
In a related article for the Washington Post, Chris Mooney quotes Daniel Nepstad, senior scientist and executive director at the Earth Innovation Institute, and former chief program officer for Moore's Environmental Conservation Program: “This is a big deal. It is the highest deforestation number since 2008. Compared to the lowest deforestation number, in 2012, it means an extra 150 million tons of CO2 went up into the air through forest destruction.” Mooney goes on to explain that "the loss of tropical forests is a crucial factor in the warming of the planet. Deforestation and the degradation of forests accounts for between 8 and 15 percent of the globe’s total emissions."
With a longstanding commitment to the long-term ecological integrity and climatic function of the Amazon basin, our Andes-Amazon Initiative works with partners across the region, including those in Brazil, promoting conservation and sustainable development by working with and supporting NGOs, indigenous organizations, research institutions, governmental agencies and committed private sector partners. Learn more about the initiative's current approach here.
In addition, the foundation's Forests and Agricultural Markets Initiative grantees engage with the private sector and focus on soy and beef production — in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and the Chaco in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia — to shift practices towards improved agricultural production of these globally traded commodities.
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