Deforestation in the Matopiba region, comprised by portions of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, may jeopardize the water supply of at least 373 cities, according to a study released on Wednesday (22) by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam) and MapBiomas. The analysis published with Agência Pública brings data on five river basins, and indicates that the flow of rivers in the Cerrado, the Brazilian  may fall by up to 34% by 2050 due to the loss of native vegetation.

The basins of the Tocantins, São Francisco, Parnaíba, Itapecuru and Araguaia rivers, which had the highest deforestation rates in 2022, are fundamental for the water supply of urban and rural populations. The consequences for water quality and the risk of water shortages may be even greater than the 373 municipalities pointed out in the analysis.

The Brazilian agriculture and cattle-raising sector ended 2022 with a retraction of 1.7% when compared to 2021. The information is from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which released on Thursday (2) the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report for the 4th quarter and for the whole of last year.

“Soy, the main product of Brazilian farming, with an estimated drop in production of 11.4%, was the one that most pulled down the result of Farming in the year, being impacted by adverse weather effects,” explained Rebeca Palis, coordinator of National Accounts at IBGE, in a note.

A study published in Nature magazine proved a clear correlation between deforestation and reduction in rainfall. The researchers found that as more and more forest is removed from tropical areas, the less local farmers will have rain for their crops and pastures. The article raises fears that the degradation of the Amazon is reaching a critical point, after which the rainforest will no longer be able to generate its own rain and the vegetation will dry up.

Jair Bolsonaro administration released 2,182 pesticides between 2019 and 2022, the highest number for a presidential administration since 2003, according to data from the General Coordination of Pesticides and Related Products (CGAA) of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The survey shows that pesticide registrations have been growing year by year in the country since 2016. It also points out that of the 2,182 pesticides released in the Bolsonaro government, 98 are totally new, which is also an all time high for a government in the historical series; the rest are considered generic, i.e., they are “copies” of raw materials or final products based on ingredients already on the market; of the total releases, 1. 816 are chemical and 366 are biological: the biologicals have low environmental impact and are focused on organic agriculture – under Brazilian law, they are also called pesticides; the registrations of biologicals during the Bolsonaro government also broke a record for a presidential administration.

Last year alone, 652 pesticides entered the market, the highest number for one year in the historical series. The figure also represents a 16% increase over the 2021 total, which had already been a record. Of the 35 released for rural producers, 22 were considered “very dangerous to the environment” by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).

The president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was sworn in and took on as president of Brazil on Sunday, January 1st. In his inauguration speech at the National Congress, Lula included several promises and ambitious goals for his government ‘s socio environmental agenda. He said that the goal is to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and to promote an economic transition that puts Brazil on the path to sustainability. 

“No other country has the conditions of Brazil to become an environmental super power based on creative bioeconomy and biodiversity entrepreneurship”, said the president. “We will kick start the energy-ecological transition to more sustainable agribusiness and mining, with a greener industry and a stronger small scale agriculture” (…)”We want to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and also zero GHG emissions from our energy matrix. We want to recover and use already degraded areas such as pastures. Brazil does not need more deforestation to keep and expand its strategic agriculture frontier”, he added, reassuring that the government will continue to secure farmers the “freedom and opportunity to sow, plant and reap”.

“However we can not admit a “lawless land”, and we won’t tolerate violence against small farmers, deforestation and environmental degradation that caused far too much harm to our country”, he stressed. According to Lula, the need to protect the forest is one of the key reasons for the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. “Nobody knows our forests, or is better prepared to stand for them, than those who have been here since immemorial times. Each demarcated indigenous land is a new environmentally protected area”(…) “we bear a historic debt and owe these Brazilians respect; we will revoke all injustices committed against the indigenous peoples”. 

The indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire, 90, ancient leader of the Kayapo people, told the press he was happy to be invited by Lula to join him at the inauguration ceremony. Chief Raoni is internationally recognized as a historic defender of indigenous people and was attacked several times by former president Bolsonaro; he was one of seven representatives of Brazilian social diversity to pass on the sash to president Lula at the presidential palace. 

“Now, we have approached the government and want the indigenous people to be remembered. I asked Lula to help indigenous people and reminded him of the still non demarcated lands. I hope that the government demarcates the lands to secure peace to indigenous people. To my indigenous relatives, I declare I did my part, took the opportunity to speak to the president and called his attention to us”, affirmed Raoni.

During the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), 14,549 people were poisoned by pesticides in Brazil. Soybean, tobacco and corn crops are champions in poisonings. An unprecedented survey conducted by Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil, with data from 2019 to March 2022 from the Ministry of Health’s notification system, shows that these poisonings led to 439 deaths – equivalent to one death every three days.

In this period, Brazil broke the record for pesticide approvals, with more than 1,800 new registrations, half of them already banned in Europe. Today there are 3,748 agrochemical products commercialized in Brazil.

Bolsonaro’s administration has also been marked by the progress of Bill 1459/2022, nicknamed the “Poison Package,” which could further facilitate the approval of these substances.

From August 2021 to July 2022, the deforestation in the Cerrado biome, the Brazilian savanah, increased by 25.29%, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). In all, an area of 10,688.73 km² was deforested.

Besides the deforested area passing the 10 thousand km² milestone, the data presented today show that in 2022 there was a 25% increase in the devastation of the biome compared to the previous year, when the annual rate reached 8,531.44 km². This is the third consecutive year of increased destruction in the Cerrado, a situation never seen since the monitoring started in 2000. During the Bolsonaro government, deforestation in the biome accumulated an area of 33,444 km2, more than six times the area of Brasilia, the country’s capital.

“We need to change the trajectory of Cerrado deforestation urgently, after 3 straight years of increased destruction. Preserving the biome is fundamental to maintaining the waters that irrigate both commodity production and family agriculture, and fill hydroelectric dam reservoirs across the country. Cutting down the Cerrado is acting against the agribusiness, against the fight against hunger and inflation – less Cerrado means more expensive food and electricity”, says Edegar de Oliveira Rosa, WWF-Brazil’s Conservation and Restoration director.

In 2022, the states with the greatest destruction were those in the region known as Matopiba, reaching 71% of the total deforested in the biome. The state of Maranhão leads the devastation ranking with 2,833.9 km², 27% of the total deforested in the biome. Next come Tocantins (2,127.52 km²) and Bahia (1,427.86 km²), along with Piauí (1,189 km²).

The disclosure of the figures comes just one week after the approval of the European anti-deforestation law, which prohibits the entry into the European market of commodities produced in deforested forest areas after December 31, 2020. The law does not include ecosystems such as the Cerrado and the concern is that, by restricting production with deforestation in the Amazon, the Atlantic Forest and the Chaco, the most typically forested biomes in South America, the new regulation may cause “leakage” of deforestation to the Brazilian savannah, increasing its destruction.

The year 2022 has not ended, but the Amazon is already experiencing its most devastating calendar year in records. According to the DETER/INPE system, the accumulated deforestation alerts between January 1st and October 21st is 9,277 km2. With two months until the end of this year, the total area affected by deforestation in 2022 already exceeds the total of the worst year of records so far, 2019, when the alerts totaled 9,178 km2.

Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, says that deforestation in the Amazon is out of control and the scenario for the environmental crime “has never been so favorable.” “There is no action by the federal government to stop deforestation in the Amazon. Decreasing it is not a concern of the Bolsonaro government,” he explained.

In addition, the Amazon also set a new record for deforestation in September, with a high of almost 50% compared to the previous year.

The investigative journalism agency Repórter Brasil launched the second edition of the tool that monitors how Congress representatives are positioned in relation to the environment agenda and rural workers. The “Ruralômetro 2022” shows that 68% of the representatives voted against the environment. 

That means that these are representatives who “presented bills and voted on legislative changes that harm environmental inspection, favor predatory economic activities, to make labor legislation precarious, to make access to social benefits difficult and to stop agrarian reform, among other setbacks pointed by socio-environmental organizations”, says the story that presents the project.

To measure the “rural fever” of parliamentarians, the tool gave each representative a score, ranging from 36⁰C to 42⁰C. The more aligned with the work of the ruralist caucus, the higher its temperature.

The evaluation was based on the analysis of 28 roll call votes and 485 bills presented in the current legislature.

Members of a rural community in the Para municipality of Anapu are under threat: they have been victims of attacks by hooded and armed men, who burned down two houses. According to the families, the invaders claimed that they were claiming back the land. The community is located in lot 96 of Gleba Bacajá, a region that is the target of dispute between groups of small farmers and the heirs of rancher Antônio Borges Peixoto.

Two days. That’s the time span that separates one death caused from agrochemical poisoning from another in Brazil. Among the victims, 20% are children and teenagers up to 19 years old. The data comes from a report published by the environmentalist network Friends of the Earth Europe, which maps the alliance between European agrochemical companies and the agribusiness lobby in Brazil.

Bolsonaro administration is the record holder in releasing new agrochemicals. Of the 3748 agrotoxic products marketed in the country, 1682 were approved during his administration, according to data from Robotox, a bot created by Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil to monitor the release of new pesticides.

A study conducted by the NGO Greenpeace has exposed a scheme of land grabbing in an area of the Amazon rich in biodiversity, located between the states of Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia.

The region, known as Amacro (the acronym for the three states), covers 454,220 km², almost the size of Spain, and is home to the “Gleba João Bento”, a “target of a chain of fraudulent titles, leading to the appearance of hundreds of purchase and sale deeds and duplicate property registrations,” according to an article in O Estado de São Paulo. Glebas are large areas of government property not yet designated, i.e. public lands that should be transformed into areas of conservation or sustainable use.

President Jair Bolsonaro said that the war between Russia and Ukraine offers “a good opportunity” for the Congress to approve the bill 191/2020, which authorizes mining and other large enterprises on indigenous land. He argued that with the international conflict, Brazil may have difficulty continuing to import fertilizers from Russia and Belarus, which are among the main suppliers and account for about 85% of the fertilizers used in large-scale agriculture.

“Now then, with this international crisis and given the war, Congress has signaled to vote this project in an urgency regime. I hope that it will be approved in the House as early as March and in 2 or 3 years we will be able to say that we are not dependent on potassium imports for our agribusiness,” declared the president, as reported by the website Poder 360. The Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, denies the risk of shortage.

In an article on the occurrence, the Amazônia Real portal traced the history of PL 191 and the exploitation of potassium in the Amazon region by private initiative.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the second part of its 6th report, focusing on impacts and solutions to curb climate change. The first part, released in August 2021, highlighted the impact of human action on the Earth’s climate system.

The O Eco website made a thorough analysis of the main impacts expected for Brazil. If the levels of greenhouse gas emissions remain high, the Northeast region may have a reduction in rainfall of up to 22%, becoming a semi-desert region, and “droughts in the Amazon region associated with deforestation and fires, could transform the humid forest into a savanna region,” indicates the article. Among the other impacts of climate change for Brazil are lethal heat waves, floods and the colapse of agriculture.

“Brazil is not adapting to climate change. There is the National Adaptation Plan, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. Look at the issue of reforestation of hillsides, which is an adaptation technique to avoid extreme climate events, if it had occurred in Petrópolis, we wouldn’t have had this disaster that we saw. Any climate adaptation mechanism that does not take into account the functioning of ecosystems is obviously doomed to failure,” said Paulo Artaxo, one of the researchers involved in the report.

The bill 6.299/2002, which eases the rules for the adoption of pesticides in Brazil, was approved in the House of Representatives, in an emergency vote, by 301 votes in favor and 150 against, with two abstentions. Now the bill will be voted in the Senate.

Criticized by environmentalists and parliamentarians, the proposal has been dubbed the “poison package” for making the process of registering pesticides more flexible, facilitating their approval. As a maneuver, the text also calls for the replacement of the term “agrotóxico” by “pesticide”, to avoid the “demeaning” character of the former, according to the project’s rapporteur, Congressman Luiz Nishimori (PL-PR).

Since the beginning of the mandate, the Bolsonaro government has already approved 1552 new pesticides products, breaking its own record in 2021, with 550 released against 474 in 2019 and 493 in 2020.

The extreme heat wave that hit South America at the beginning of the year reached the southern region of Brazil.

In Rio Grande do Sul states, cities registered 43°C and, on the West Border, which borders Argentina, thermometers reached 44°C. According to Climatempo meteorologist Fabiane Casamento, heard by the G1, this was the largest in the last 62 years in the region.

The newspaper O Estado de São Paulo highlighted the great impact on agricultural production caused by the extreme heat not only in Rio Grande do Sul, but also in Paraná, Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso do Sul states. According to the story, the losses –especially in soy and corn plantations, amounts for R$ 45.3 billion. The situation is exacerbated by the drought that has persisted since last year.

A study conducted by the international think tank Carbon Brief places Brazil in fourth place in the ranking of the most polluting countries in the world, considering the historical accumulation of carbon gas emissions from 1850 to 2021. The survey includes data on emissions from fossil fuel burning, changes in land use, deforestation and cement production. 

In Brazil, most pollution comes from the clearing of forests and the use of land for agriculture and cattle ranching, two major vectors of the current environmental devastation underway in the country under the Bolsonaro administration. Heard by BBC Brazil, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, Marcio Astrini, commented on the history of emissions in the country. “If you take the last 30 years, 73% of the planet’s emissions are in the energy sector. If you take the last 30 years in Brazil, 55% of emissions are from deforestation. If you include emissions from Brazilian livestock, we reach 80%”, he said.

Brazil lost 21 million hectares of the Amazon between 1997 and 2020, according to a study by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). In 23 years, the region known as Legal Amazon lost 8% of its public forests and 75% of the deforested areas became pasture, emitting 10.2 gigatonnes of CO2, the equivalent of five years of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

According to Paulo Moutinho, from IPAM, land grabbing is “a risk factor for the planet’s climate balance” and has intensified over the last ten years.

The purchase of tractors and other agricultural machinery with heavy suspicions of overbilling was financed with public funds from at least 30 parliamentarians, indicates an  investigation of O Estado de São Paulo.

The investigation reached the full list of names crossing information from an internal spreadsheet of the Ministry of Regional Development and a report from the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU), prepared after the newspaper revealed in May that the ministry received R$ 3 billion (USD 600 million)  in amendments to help the government’s allied base in Congress. 

According to the newspaper, Rep. Vitor Hugo (GO); Senator Davi Alcolumbre (DEM-AP); and Rep. Domingos Neto (PSD-CE), general rapporteur of the 2020 budget, participated in the scheme.

President Jair Bolsonaro signed decree 10.833/2021, which amends decree nº 4.074/2002, that regulates the Brazilian laws on pesticides (7802/1989). The measure was criticized by environmentalists who claim that it is worrying and dangerous for the health of the population to be more flexible in the approval of pesticides that cause serious diseases, such as cancer, and even genetic alterations, as indicated by an article by Pública.

For the doctor and researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FioCruz), Karen Friedrich, the decree 10.833/2021 is a way of passing the Bill 6.299/2002, known as the “Poison Package”, which encountered barriers in the Legislative branch. “The Poison Package” is already on the way. This “ox has been passing through the fence (an allusion to the agribusiness and cattle ranching-backed wave of legislation being approved in the country recently) through various infra-legal devices”, she declared to Pública.

In the following week, the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Life published a technical analysis that identified the main 17 amendments to the presidential decree.

Since the beginning of his mandate, Bolsonaro’s government has approved more than 1400 new pesticide products, almost 40% of the total commercialized in Brazil.

The fire in the municipality of Alto Paraíso de Goiás (GO), which started on September 12th and has since spread out to the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, has burned about 36,000 hectares of Cerrado vegetation so far. The data is provided by ICMBio institute, the federal agency responsible for managing the park.

The Police has five main lines of  investigation about the origin of the fire in the region and has three main suspects. Among them is a farmer in the region who allegedly started the fire on his property