More than one third of the Amazon Rainforest is already affected by drought, fires, logging and the” edge effects”, according to a study published in the scientific journal Science.

Authored by 35 Brazilian and foreign researchers, the study differentiates between deforestation and degradation. While, in the former, the forest undergoes major changes to make way for a new use – for example, an area that is burned to turn into pasture – degradation is differentiated by involving more changes in forest cover and by not having the objective of transforming the use of that land.

Degradation includes fires; drought (intensified by climate change); selective logging (legal or illegal; “selective” because some commercially interesting trees are removed, leaving others standing); and edge effects (changes in forests near deforested areas, thus a direct consequence of deforestation).

The study estimates that 38% of the Amazon Rainforest is now affected by some type of degradation. “The degraded area in the Amazon and the carbon emissions from degradation are equal or even greater than those from deforestation,” said study leader David Lapola, a researcher at the Center for Meteorological and Climatic Research Applied to Agriculture at Unicamp (State University of Campinas) and a doctorate from the University of Kassel, Germany, to BBC News Brazil.

Scholars from universities in the US, international NGOs such as Greenpeace, and Brazilian organizations such as the Indigenous Peoples Network of Brazil (Apib) delivered a 31-page dossier calling for a thorough review of the US relationship with Brazil. The document points out Donald Trump’s role in “legitimizing Bolsonaro’s authoritarian tendencies” and asks for the restriction of the purchase of lumber, meat and soy, as a response to the high deforestation rates in the country.

The document also mentions minorities, indigenous peoples, democracy, police violence and calls for a revision of the text that allows the commercial exploitation of the Alcântara Space Base in Maranhão, which threatens quilombola [Afro-brazilian traditional communities] territories.

“Anyone in Brazil or elsewhere who thinks they can promote an ambitious relationship with the U.S. while ignoring important issues like climate change, democracy and human rights, clearly has not heard Joe Biden during the campaign,” said Juan Gonzalez, Biden’s advisor who brought the dossier to the core of the government, according to BBC News Brazil.

A study conducted by NGOs Article 19, Imaflora and Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) highlights and reveals the serious setbacks in civil society participation in socio-environmental policies throughout the Bolsonaro’s administration and in access to information. Exclusion of collegiate bodies, reduction of seats in councils, threats to servants and database blackouts are some strategies mentioned.

Of 22 governmental environmental collegiate organizations, more than half were impacted by extinctions or restructuring, points out the “Mapping of transparency and social participation setbacks in Brazilian environmental policy”. The study highlights the weakening of the National Environmental Council (Conama) – which had its number of councilors reduced from 96 to 23 participants, and of the 23 seats for civil society, only 4 remained – and the National Biodiversity Commission (Conabio), whose representatives from academia and society went from 8 to 2.

For Bruno Vello, Imaflora Public Policy analyst, the survey indicates that “setbacks in environmental policies seen over the past few years make it difficult for society to monitor and participate in decisions made by the Executive,” he said in a note published by ISA.

The rumours that European countries would block the EU-Mercosur trade agreement due to the Brazilian environmental crisis were getting steam among european diplomats in June 2020 according to reports from El País. By late August, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had “considerable doubts”  about her support for the agreement because of the rise in Amazon deforestation. 

In September, while Brazil broke new records on forest fires and deforestation rates, the trade agreement was once again threatened, and pressure from corporations and investment funds over the Brazilian government also increased.

On the 09th, an international team of researchers from universities of Oxford (UK), Louvain (Belgium) and Columbia (USA) published a critical analysis of the EU-Mercosur agreement saying that the text of the deal does not secure mechanisms for transparency, sanction and inclusion of local communities, going against environmental regulations from the European Union. The study indicates that the agreement fails to guarantee sustainable chains of production. In that same week, the International Trade Commission from the European Parliament issued a motion demanding more protection rules on the block trade agreements, in yet another sign of the obstacles to ratifying the treaty. 

A week later, on September 15th, two significant open letters tried to exert pressure on the Brazilian government. VP Hamilton Mourao received a document signed by ambassadors from 8 European nations — Germany, UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Belgium — with a clear message: “Brazil is making it harder and harder for corporations and investors to comply with their environmental, social and governance criteria”. The countries who sent the letter take part in the Amsterdam Declaration, a partnership among nations to promote sustainable chains of production that prevent forest destruction.

In the other letter, a coalition formed by 230 organizations and companies linked to agribusiness and environment published a set of six proposals to stop Amazon deforestation. The document was sent to president Bolsonaro, VP Mourão, Federal Ministers, leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, and embassies and members of the European Parliament. “Not only because of the social-environmental losses, but also because of the threats that forest destruction poses to the national economy. There is a clear and growing concern about deforestation from several sectors of national and international society”,  states the letter signed by the Coalition, which includes NGOs such as WWF and agribusiness companies such as JBS, Marfrig, Basf and Bayer. 

Meanwhile, in France, over 20 civil society organizations issued a statement on the 16th demanding the “final burial” of the EU-Mercosur treaty because of the “disastrous impacts” on forests, climate and human rights. The NGOs manifest came out on the eve of a technical report commissioned by the French government on the effects of the commercial agreement. 

On the 18th,  the French government report was published.  According to reports on the 184 page-study by independent experts on economy and the environment, it concludes that “the agreement is a missed opportunity by the EU to use its negotiation power to obtain solid safeguards that respond to the environmental, sanitary and social expectations of its citizens”. The experts estimate that deforestation in Mercosur countries could accelerate by 5% per year due to higher demand for beef in the EU,  increasing greenhouse gas emissions and questioning whether the relative financial gains of the agreement could compensate for the climate damage it would generate. 

Upon the release of the study, president Emmanuel Macron’s government confirmed it will maintain opposition to the treaty as it stands, a position they have been sustaining since 2019, and that it is willing to renegotiate the terms of the accord to secure the Paris Agreement climate objectives.

A new study led by Australian and Brazilian researchers from public universities and the NGO Instituto Socioambiental (Isa) published on scientific magazine One Earth concluded that Bill 191/2020, which aims at allowing mining in indigenous reserves, may lead to the destruction of 160,000 km2 of Amazon forests, or the equivalent to 20 years of deforestation. The research also shows that the bill may cause economic damages of over US$5 billion due to loss of environmental services and agroforestry production. In February 2020, president Bolsonaro sent the bill to the National Congress, where it’s being analysed by the Senate and House of Representatives.

From January to August, fires in the Pantanal had already burned 18,646 km2, or 12% of the total area of ​​the biome, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). INPE also detected 10,316 fires from the beginning of the year until September 3, the highest rate for the period since 1998, when it started to monitor the area. Until that week, the data indicated that in the state of Mato Grosso, 95% of the destruction occurred in areas of native vegetation, according to the NGO Instituto Centro e Vida (ICV). On September 15, the state was the national champion of fires with almost 2,200 hot spots, accumulating 60% of the flames in the country, according to INPE. Alone, Mato Grosso State burned more in that span than the other eight states in the Legal Amazon. Since the fires weren’t controlled, by mid-September, they had already ravaged 23% of the Pantanal biome.

The Pantanal is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, home to around 1200 species of vertebrate animals, including endangered species and the most dense jaguar population in the world. Until 2020, it was also one of the better preserved biomes in the country. In Mato Grosso, the flames have already consumed over 90% of the area of ​​a sanctuary for the blue macaw. The species probably will return to the threatened with extinction list after the fires. The images of jaguars, anteaters, snakes and birds, dead and injured, have gained social media and shocked Brazil and the world.

A report by El País showed that the spread of fire to areas of indigenous reserves, such as the fire in the Indigenous Land Thereza Cristina, of the Boe Bororo people, forced the state government of Mato Grosso to declare an emergency on September 14. More than 100 bororo were hastily removed due to poor air quality; authorities took elderly and pregnant women to the Indigenous Health Center in Rondonópolis. After escaping the fire, the bororo ended up exposed to the coronavirus pandemic. In Rondonópolis, there were 156 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among indigenous people, in addition to 13 suspects and 31 patients, according to the Special Indigenous Sanitary District of Cuiabá, the State capital.

A similar situation occurred in the Xingu Indigenous Park, 900 kilometers away from Cuiabá, the second indigenous land most affected by fires in Mato Grosso. Sixteen houses were burned at the Diauarum post, in the center of the reservation. About six thousand indigenous people of 16 ethnic groups live in the park. In mid-September, 116 indigenous persons were in isolation in the Xingu due to the new coronavirus; 333 cases had already been confirmed.

Pantanal women who live on agro-extractivism (such as the collection of fruits and nuts) are also disproportionately affected by fires. The groups of women supported by the work of the NGO Ecoa – Ecology and Action, in Campo Grande (MS), lost areas of traditional crops in the region, such as bocaiúva, laranjinha-de-pacu and acuri, compromising their source of subsistence and income, in addition to the fire directly threatening their homes. “Here in Mato Grosso do Sul, for example, they are surrounded by monocultures and pesticides. The fires affected directly the reforestation work with native species that they lead”, reported the activist Nathália Eberhardt Ziolkowski.

According to NASA data cited in a report by the Reuters news agency, changes in ocean temperatures are a likely factor in creating drought conditions in the Pantanal and in the southern part of the Amazon, where the fires in August were the biggest in the last ten years.

In 2020, Pantanal experiences one of the worst droughts in its history, with rainfall 40% below the average of previous years. The main river in the biome, the Paraguay River, has the worst level of the watercourse in the last fifty years, aggravating the progress of the fire. According to measurements by the Geological Survey of Brazil, checked by UOL, the Paraguay River is registering one of the 13 weakest ebbs in the last 120 years. For researchers, human interference in the biome with livestock activities and expansion of the agricultural frontier, in addition to the growth of cities, may be exceeding the limits of what the Pantanal supports.

On September 20, dozens of civil society organizations and hundreds of individuals signed and forwarded an open letter to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) asking for the removal and civil, criminal and administrative responsibility of those responsible, by default or action, for the burning of the Pantanal.

An ordinance by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), from September, 2017, which banned the use of the herbicide Paraquat, is under review by the agency. The prohibition of Syngenta’s agrochemical was because of evidence that confirms that its use generates genetic mutation and Parkinson’s disease in the workers who have direct contact with it. The prohibition was scheduled to become effective on September, 22, 2020.

However, the sanitary agency had a board meeting on August 18th and the review of the ban was on the agendas. According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Rômison Mota, rapporteur of the process, voted against the review of the ban deadline, since there was no justifiable reason. Anvisa might discuss the topic again at the next meeting.

In a comprehensive article about the subject, the NGO Repórter Brasil claimed the agency operated with a lack of transparency, since the documents about the meeting weren’t disclosed.

Landowners associations are trying to prove that the paraquat is safe, but there isn’t evidence to support that claim. The agrochemical has already been forbidden in Europe and China. According to Repórter Brasil’s article, the major argument supporting the safety of the agrochemical are two incomplete researches. The Ethics Committee of the Campinas State University (Unicamp) suspended one of them after the NGO pointed out the study as a key-piece of the agribusiness companies campaign to allow the use of Paraquat.

Indigenous populations in the southwest of Pará State are living through a critical situation as the coronavirus pandemic advances in the region. Between May 25th and June 18th, 22 local individuals died from Covid-19. The virus also infected 638 indigenous among the 12 different ethnicities that inhabit the area.

Facing government neglect and lack of public structure to aid the indigenous territories, a team of volunteers — researchers, public servants, missionaries, and concerned citizens from different federal universities, social movements and indigenous groups — formed the Mutual Indigenous Support Network of Southeast Pará.  They demand medical supplies and complain about the under-reporting of Covid-19 cases, which is detrimental to the formation of an organized plan to fight the pandemic. The group says that the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health (Sesai), linked to the Ministry of Health, is taking too long to test and detect the spread of the virus in the region, one of the main deforestation frontiers in the Amazon state of Pará.

A study called “The pandemic impact at the Yanomami Indigenous Land: #OutWithGoldminingAndCovid”, by the Socioambiental Institute (ISA) in a partnership with the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), points that almost 40% of the yanomami indigenous people who live close to illegal gold mining areas at the Indigenous Land Yanomami (TIY) may become infected with the new coronavirus. The research considers invading  gold miners as the major vectors of transmission inside the demarcated territory. The report concluded that the Yanomami Indigenous Land is the most vulnerable territory in the Amazon regarding Covid-19,  once it faces high social vulnerability, precarious local health infrastructure and a history of respiratory ailments among its population.

The coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (Coica) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) received reports about an increased flow of illegal Brazilian miners at the Oiapoque river region, Amapa State, who were heading towards the French Guiana. Deutsche Welle Brasil (DW) talked with researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Federal University of Ceará who stated that the Oiapoque is the primary route for smuggling of gold and other minerals illegally obtained. Claudette Labonté, president of the French Guiana Parikweneh Federation and a member of Coica said the police “let their guard down” during the pandemic. In February, the Brazilian government presented a bill that aims to legalize mining in indigenous territories.

The pollution caused by the oil patches that reached over 1000 locations on the Brazilian coast lingers six months after the mysterious environmental disaster that struck the country in 2019. In the Northeast, the most affected area, federal university researchers say that even though the patches are no longer visible, the sea remains polluted and it will take some time before the researchers can properly assess the damages. Investigations are stalled, and the origin of the oil spillage remains unknown. According to authorities, there is little hope that the federal police will find the culprit.

A study by the Biology Institute of the Federal  University of Bahia (UFBA)  showed that after the oil spill, the coral mortality on the coast of Bahia increased ten fold. According to the researchers, the bleaching rate for the corals, which is usually around 5% -6% of the organisms per year, is now in 52% in the studied regions. The study also detected  impacts on biodiversity of species; before the oil, there was an average number of 88 species; after, the number fell to 47.

Since the beginning of the oil spill crisis, federal universities and research centers have played an important role in the monitoring, analysing and supporting of the cleaning efforts, often standing in opposition to the official narrative of “it’s not so bad, you can eat the fish, everything is under control” adopted by the government. Researchers from Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) said that the monitoring of the affected areas need to be sustained for years to come, with periodic, constant analysis, to make sure people are not going into intoxicated zones. Another UFBA researcher said that governments do not want to call much attention because a case like this affects tourism, but there are health issues, both to who goes to the beaches and to those that make a living fishing in these regions”.

A research group at UFBA investigated 38 marine animals from the spill  areas and found oil in their digestive systems; although the level of  toxicity was not yet clear, health officials advised people to avoid consuming fish and seafood from the affected regions. Researchers made clear that the damage is serious and will last decades. 

By November, there was research about the oil spill ongoing at Federal Universities in Pernambuco,  Rio de Janeiro, Ceará, Alagoas and Bahia. The engagement of the Federal Universities and public research centers  is especially relevant as they have also been a target of the dismantling, anti-science policies of Bolsonaro’s presidency, facing budget cuts above 30% and being targeted by fake news coming from the Ministry of Education.