The destruction of an isolated Indigenous land even under protection of a judicial decision led the Conservation agency ICMBio to set up a task force in the state of Tocantins. Federal agents found cattle inside the “Mata do Mamão”, in the Bananal Island, an ecological sanctuary of primary forest where the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal biomes meet. The Mata do Mamão is also home to Isolated indigenous group Avá- Canoeiro. 

To protect them, since 2019 the passing of non-indigenous in the are was prohibited by the Federal Justice; however, the decision has not been enforced. According to ICMBio, 12 years ago Mata do Mamão was double in size in comparison to today – the legal decision aimed to to contain the illegal occupation by cattle ranchers, but failed. The task force has thus been formed with environmental agents to investigate land related crimes and identify who was responsible.

The new Congress is not only further to the right – it has also become more anti-environmental. The Institute for Democracy and Sustainability (IDS) did a survey through its Green Panel that identified the growth of the anti-environmental caucus and the reduction of the environmental caucus. The percentage of mostly anti-environmental federal deputies rose from 37% to 42.6%, while the percentage of green federal deputies fell from 30% to 27%. The Senate loses two votes aligned with environmental issues and decreases its power to avoid setbacks on the agenda.

André Lima, coordinator of the IDS Green Panel evaluates, however, that “there is room to increase adherence to the environmental vote, working on the dialogue with the caucuses”.

In the specific case of the Legal Amazon region, the IDS report assesses that “the voices that will speak on behalf of Amazonian voters have low adhesion to the climate and environmental agendas”.

A survey by Amazônia Real indicates that the nine states in the region will see the advance of anti-environmental and anti-indigenous agendas and that Bolsonarism has been consolidated by the popular vote. In the state houses of the Legal Amazon, the five parties with the most representation, starting in 2023, will be: MDB (29 seats), União Brasil (26), Republicans (24), PL (22).

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.

“You can rest assured,” said Marcelo Xavier, president of FUNAI, the Brazilian indigenous people agency, to Jussielson da Silva, who replied, “You are my support. Knowing you’re with me makes happy”. At the time, Silva was the head of FUNAI in Ribeirão da Cascalheira (MT). Today, the former Marine, sworn in during Bolsonaro’s government, is in jail for collecting bribes to illegally rent pastures in the Marãiwatséd indigenous reserve.

Silva, and two former police officers, are being investigated for embezzlement and criminal association. The Federal Police investigations found 70,000 head of cattle in 42 locations in the reserve. A Federal Police report forwarded to a Federal Court states that “it is possible to conclude that the president of the agency, Marcelo, is aware of what is going on and that it is possible that he is supporting the illegal activity under investigation (leasing on indigenous land)”.

A new ruling by the Federal Court ordered the National Indigenous Agency (FUNAI) to protect the Ituna-Itatá Indigenous Land (TI), maintaining the previous decision, but this time ordering the Union to remove the invaders and allocate a permanent team to the TI.

The area was under restriction of use since 2011, when Indigenous peoples in volunteer isolation were seen in the region, in the state of Pará. In 2021, however, FUNAI let the restriction expire. The decision keeps the Indigenous protected territory status for another three years. The territory is considered one of the most deforested in the last 10 years.

Illegal fires in the south of Amazonas and southwest of Pará states have compromised the air quality of several cities in the region, where a toxic cloud of smoke has taken over the skies. Among the municipalities hit were Altamira and Novo Progresso in Pará, and the capital of Amazonas, Manaus. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), in August, 16,088 fires were registered in the Amazon.

The Institute of Man and the Environment of the Amazon (Imazon), which monitors the biome via the Deforestation Alert System (SAD), pointed to the record devastation recorded in the last 12 months. From August 2021 to July 2022, 10,781 km² of forest were cut down, an area equivalent to seven times the city of São Paulo. This is the largest deforested area in the last 15 years for the period.

For the Institute, the data is especially alarming, given the global climate scenario. “The increase in deforestation directly threatens the lives of traditional peoples and communities and the maintenance of biodiversity in the Amazon. In addition to contributing to greater carbon emissions in a period of climate crisis,” said Bianca Santos, a researcher at Imazon.

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.

Between 2019 and 2021, Brazil lost 42 thousand km² of native vegetation, according to deforestation alerts detected in the country’s 6 biomes, MapBiomas initiative revealed.

In their new report, the group reports that the country lost 16.557 km2 (1.655.782 ha) of its native cover in 2021. There were 69.796 deforestation alerts detected, 98% with evidence of illegality. 

From the total alerts, 66,8% were in the Amazon (977 thousand ha deforested, 59% of the total deforested area for the period; 15,2% in the Caatinga biome (190 thousand ha, 7% of the total deforested area), 9,9% in the Cerrado biome (500 thousand ha, 30,2% the total deforested area). Combined, the three biomes had 96,2% of native vegetation loss in the country for the period.

In June, the Amazon had the highest rate of deforestation alerts for the month since the beginning of the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) monitoring in 2015. According to data from Deter, the institution’s monitoring program, 1,120 km² of forest were ravaged, an increase of 5.5% compared to deforestation in 2021 and 7.4% higher than in 2020.

The total deforestation for the semester was also a record. In the first six months of the year, four registered historic records of devastation: January (430.44 km2), February (198.67 km2), April (1,1026.35 km2) and June.

For experts, the numbers should continue to rise throughout the year.

“The deforestation alerts for 2022 show that impunity continues to be the greatest vector of pressure against the forest and its peoples. In an election year this becomes even more worrisome, since enforcement efforts usually decrease and the sense of impunity increases, leaving criminals more at ease to advance on the forest,” stated Ane Alencar, Science Director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and expert on fire in the Amazon.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) released on June 1st showed that environmental devastation continues to grow in the country. The Amazon, with 2,287 outbreaks of forest fires, had the highest number of fires since 2004 and was 96% higher than last year.

In the Cerrado, the increase was 35% compared to May 2021, with 3,578 fires, the highest number since 1998, when measurements started. The tendency, according to specialists, is to get worse, since the most intense fire season has not yet arrived. Most of the burning, according to scholars, is done by the agricultural sector.

In January, the Amazon registered the highest deforestation rate for the period since 2016, the year that marks the beginning of measurements by the Deter satellite system, from the Space Research Institute (Inpe). There were 430 square kilometers of forest lost, an increase of 418% when compared to January 2021.

Most of the deforestation alerts monitored by Inpe were concentrated in the states of Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará.

A survey by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) indicates that since the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration, deforestation in the biome has grown 56.6%. The study compared August 2018 and July 2021 to the same period from 2015 to 2018.

According to the study, 51% of deforestation occurred on public lands, with 83% of this total in areas under federal jurisdiction. Proportionally to the size of the territories, Indigenous Lands (TIs) had an average increase of 153% in deforestation compared to the last three-year period, while Conservation Units (UCs) registered an increase of 63.7%.

“When we look at the figures for the last three years, it is clear that Brazil has regressed from what it once was. We are following a path totally opposite to the attitudes that the planet urgently needs right now,” said Ane Alencar, lead author of the study and director of Science at IPAM.

Earlier this year, another study with alarming data on the devastation of the Amazon under the Bolsonaro government was released by the scientific community. According to the Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon (Imazon), in 2021, the Amazon forest suffered the largest deforestation of the last 14 years.

The Cerrado savanna biome recorded the highest rate of deforestation since 2015, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe). According to a technical note from the institute, released on December 31, there was a 7.9% increase in the suppression of native vegetation from August 2020 to July 2021, the official period for measuring annual deforestation from the PRODES system, adding up to 8,531.44 km2.

Historically, the biome suffers from the advance of agribusiness and cattle ranching and had many conflicts over land and water, between landowners and local farmers, ribeirinhos, quilombolas and fishermen, a problem intensified with the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president in 2019.

Of the total deforested area, 61.3% (5227.32 km²) was concentrated in the region known as Matopiba, an agricultural frontier that encompasses part of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, indicates an analysis by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). Ane Alencar, science director of IPAM, says that the data needs to be taken seriously. “This region needs a special look at the conflicts that have become more acute because of this conversion [of native vegetation for agriculture and cattle raising]. The increase in deforestation in the Cerrado shows that the lack of environmental governance and the resulting socio-environmental conflicts are not prerogative of the Amazon alone”.

When heard by Reuters, the researcher stated that the increase in deforestation in the biome registered in 2021 is a reflection of the government’s stance towards the problem. “Deforestation is the most bare indicator of the terrible environmental policy that this government has had,” she concluded.

A study by Brazilian and Portuguese researchers, published in the scientific journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles shows that severe and recurrent droughts have compromised the ability of stretches of the Amazon forest to recover.

According to biologist Fausto Machado-Silva, a researcher at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and author of the study, the periods of 2005, 2010 and 2015 were particularly severe for the region.

The publication analyzed the primary productivity of the forest, measured by the amount of organic matter produced by the vegetation, a common parameter for evaluating the regeneration capacity of ecosystems. The results indicated that carbon uptake during the recovery period of a drought was 13 percent lower compared to pre-drought levels.

As a warning, the researchers reinforce what has already been said by scientists and environmentalists, that fighting deforestation in the Amazon is crucial to curb climate change. 

Despite being numerous, the official Brazilian delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) drew attention for the complete absence of organized civil society and of the indigenous peoples of Brazil.

According to Jamil Chade’s column, the delegation includes “lobbyists who try to show the ‘green side’ of Brazil, governors, mayors, deputy mayors, deputies, senators, industry representatives, in addition to spokespersons for national agriculture. There are even names “without any explanations”, indicated the column.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who did not attend COP26, explained his absence in a brief note from the Special Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom). “Due to agenda reasons, the President of the Republic will participate in COP26 by means of a video, recorded and already sent to the event organizers,” the text says.

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 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

From 1985 to 2020, agriculture and cattle ranching were responsible for the disappearance of 98.9% of the 26.5 million hectares of native vegetation cover lost in the Cerrado biome, according to a study by MapBiomas . The remainder is attributed to urban expansion.

The wetlands, points out an article on the O Eco portal, had their areas reduced by 10.3% in the last 36 years. “These changes are important indicators of alterations from an ecological point of view in these systems, because they point out that in some areas there is a loss of water in these wetlands, as well as a transition to areas of dry field and savanna,” explained Dhemerson Conciani, of the MapBiomas Cerrado team, in the webinar that presented the data.

The study also highlights the loss of vegetation in the agricultural expansion frontier known as Matopiba, a showcase of Brazilian agribusiness that occupies part of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia. Between 2010 and 2020, more than half of the total lost by the biome (3.23 million of 6.04 million hectares) was in the region.