According to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), the Amazon and Cerrado biomes recorded critical rates of deforestation in March, the highest in recent years.

This is the worst rate recorded in the Legal Amazon region for the month since 2015: 368 square kilometers of forest were deforested, a number that has been growing steadily since 2019, when it reached 251 km, jumping to 327 km in 2020. In the Cerrado, the situation is even more worrysome. In March, 529 square kilometers were lost due to deforestation, more than double the number recorded in the month in 2019, when it hit 215 km.

As the article in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo highlights, given the chronic weakening of environmental protection agencies under the current government, the prognosis should worsen and raises a red flag, according to environmentalists.

A coalition of 21 Brazilian state governors are drafting a letter to USA President Joe Biden. Their aim is to promote an environmental protection agreement between the countries. In the electoral race, Biden promised to mobilize large investments to preserve the Amazon, of which the group intends to become a beneficiary.

According to the newspaper Valor Econômico, who had access to the draft letter, the initiative “seeks to promote the governors as players that are committed to forest protection, reforestation, and the development of a green economy. Faced with the states’ responsibility to comply with the Paris Agreement, the group wants to create the “largest decarbonization economy on the planet” in partnership with the US. For this, the plans contemplate not only the Amazon, but also other biomes with large carbon stocks, such as the Atlantic Rainforest, the Caatinga and the Pantanal – which had 12% of its area devastated in 2020.

Besides the reduction of greenhouse gases and investment in renewable energy sources, among the points highlighted in the draft letter, are “the fight against deforestation, compliance with the Forest Code for the conservation of forests, improving efficiency in agriculture and cattle ranching, protection of indigenous peoples and the search for ways to enable ‘massive reforestation”, says the article.

The ministers of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araújo, and of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, participated in a videoconference with John Kerry, special representative on climate for the new president of the United States, Joe Biden.

In a brief note about the meeting, the Brazilian government said that “possibilities for cooperation and dialogue between Brazil and the U.S. in the area of climate change and combating deforestation were examined”.

Since the election of Biden, who criticized the devastation of the Brazilian Amazon and indicated the environmental agenda as a priority for his government, there has been speculation about the relationship between Brazil and the United States, after the Bolsonaro’s bet on a unilateral partnership with former President Donald Trump and his negationist and anti-human rights agenda. The departure of both ministers, both of whom are outspoken climate deniers, has already been mentioned in the press as a necessary measure for a possible reconciliation between the countries to happen.

BNP Paribas, the largest French bank, has announced that it will no longer finance companies that buy cattle or soy produced in the Amazon on land that was deforested after 2008. The promise also applies to grain or beef from the Brazilian Cerrado biome. The institution informed that it will only finance companies that commit to zero deforestation by 2025, according to the Reuters news agency.

The BNP’s stance is in line with the French government’s tightening siege on Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy, as exemplified by president Emmanuel Macron’s recent threat to discontinue the importation of Brazilian soybeans.

Following the trend of cuts and low budget execution, the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), spearheaded by Ricardo Salles, presented for 2021 the smallest budget proposition of the last twenty-one years, indicates the report “Passando a boiada”, produced by the Climate Observatory (OC). The Annual Budget Bill (Ploa), which the National Congress probably will approve in March, foresees R$ 1.72 billion reais for all MMA expenses – since 2000, the authorized amount has never been less than R$ 2.9 billion reais. Another fact draws attention: after a year of record deforestation and burning rates, the ministry starts the year with a 27.4% reduction in the budget for environmental inspection and forest fire fighting.

The proposal “crowns the Bolsonaro government’s environmental dismantling strategy,” analyzes the organization, reminding that the president fulfilled his promises made in 2019. “It is a destruction project that is being carried out,” says Suely Araújo, a senior public policy specialist at the Climate Observatory.

Justice Carmen Lúcia, of the Supreme Court, ordered President Jair Bolsonaro and the minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles to provide information about the record-breaking annual deforestation data and the measures adopted by the government to fight it, as reported by the website G1. A lawsuit filed by the Sustainability Network party (Rede), which denounces the failure in the government’s environmental preservation policy and calls for concrete measures, was the responsible for the court’s decision.

In 2020, the Amazon saw record-breaking deforestation. Between August 2019 and July 2020, more than 11,000 km² were devastated, an increase of 9.5% compared to the previous period. The Pantanal was another biome severely affected: more than 10% of its area was ravaged by fires this year.

The situation of the Cerrado biome is also worrying. Between August 2019 and July 2020, there was a 13% increase in deforestation compared to the previous period, according to the National Institute for Space Research Institute (Inpe). As reported by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, 7,340 km² of native vegetation was lost, the highest value since 2015. The article points to the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Matopiba region as the major threat to the biome.

The record increase in fires and deforestation rates is reducing Brazil’s attractiveness for foreign investors. According to the newspaper O Globo, in the first eight months of 2020, more than US$15 billion in capitals left the country, the highest volume since 1982. Analysts and managers believe that the environmental crisis may worsen this situation. In an audience at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) on climate change on the 22nd, the former president of the Central Bank, Armínio Fraga, spoke about the worsening of Brazil’s image abroad: “Deforestation and other environmental crimes, in addition to aggravating the global problem, bring enormous risk to the agribusiness ecosystem, our most successful sector, and also to the energy supply in our country “.

Sensing the pressure, on the 23rd, JBS, the largest animal protein producer in the world, launched a plan to “increase the siege on the beef supply chain (…) to ensure that the meat that reaches the consumer does not contribute to the overthrow of the Amazon: the suppliers of their suppliers“. The so-called “Green Platform JBS” intends to use blockchain technology to process data from all farms, whether owned by direct or indirect suppliers to verify compliance with social-environmental legislation. JBS (owner of the Friboi and Seara brands) also announced the creation of a fund with an initial value of R$ 250 million to finance conservation and economic development actions in the region.

JBS ‘“Green Platform” plans to have full control of direct and indirect cattle suppliers by 2025. Environmentalists recognized the importance of the plan but criticized the five-year deadline to clean up the production chain and questioned the company’s ability to carry out such measures without support from the government.

Nordic investment funds Nordea Asset and KLP, which have already banned JBS from their portfolios, also consider that the proposal presented by the company has a term “too long to be satisfactory”. With R$ 3.4 trillion of assets in its portfolio, the Finnish Nordea Asset banned JBS from its portfolio in July, after a joint press investigation revealed that the slaughterhouse bought cattle raised in an area of ​​deforestation in the Amazon.

An investigation by the NGO Repórter Brasil, disclosed on the eve of the announcement by the agribusiness giant, reaffirmed the problems in the JBS production chain. Part of the fire that devastated Mato Grosso’s Pantanal originated from ranchers’ farms that sell cattle to the Amaggi and Bom Futuro groups, which supply not only to JBS but also to other multinationals like Marfrig and Minerva. The survey was based on a study by the NGO Instituto Centro e Vida, which identified the origin of the fires in five properties in Mato Grosso, analyzing fire hotspots between July 1 and August 17, 2020.

Smoke from the forest fires in Amazon, Pantanal and Cerrado reached the South and Southern regions of the country at the end of Winter season in subequatorial Brazil. On September 14th,  residents from São Francisco de Assis, in Rio Grande do Sul state, collected dark water from the rains that fell over the region. Experts heard by the press said that the phenomena could be a result from the Pantanal fires. The state of Santa Catarina also saw the occurrence of dark rain.

On September 18th, satellite images from Inpe showed that clouds of smoke and soot from forest fires in the Center-west of the country arrived in São Paulo state. On the same day,  an airplane in which president Bolsonaro and his entourage were travelling had to make a forced lash out when trying to land at Sinop airport in Mato Grosso state due to lack of visibility caused by smoke from forest fires in the region.  The management for the airport confirmed that there was smoke at the time of the landing. Right after the episode, in a speech to an audience of local representatives of the agribusiness sector, president Bolsonaro once again complained about the critics of Brazilian environmental policies and insinuated vested economic interests against the country.  

A day later, on the 19th, new satellite images from Inpe showed that smoke from the forest fires had spread throughout more than 4,000 km, affecting at least five neighbouring countries – Peru, Bolivia, Paraguai, Argentina and Uruguay.

On September 15th, vice president Hamilton Mourão accused public servant experts from Inpe, the National Institute on Space Research, of making political opposition to the federal government. According to the VP, positive results about reducing forest fires were not being publicized by the Institute — that is the federal organ in charge of monitoring deforestation in Brazil.  “Someone from the inside is opposing the government. I want to make this very clear here”, he said, citing official data that showed that the country registered 5,000 fire hotspots less in 2020 compared to the same period on January-August 2019. However, data from Inpe contradicts the VP’s narrative, indicating that there were more fires in the Amazon in the first two weeks of September 2020 (20,485 hotspots) than for the entire month of September in 2019 (19,925 hotspots). 

According to satellite monitoring experts, Inpe’s system is unique in the world, allowing real time follow up, data transparency and civil society participation. 

Beyond the attacks coming from the presidential wing, in an inquiry at the Unions Finance Court (TCU) about the purchase of satellite images, the Federal Police declared that Inpe provoques disinformation against new monitoring initiatives in order to maintain control over the narrative and knowledge of deforestation in Brazil. The Federal Police also called Inpe’s work “insufficient” and accused it of not doing enough for public safety. On September 19th, finance court minister Ana Arraes suspended the R$49 million reais contract between the Federal Police and satellite company Planet, alleging that the purchased system does not aggregate advantages when compared to the technology already in use by Inpe. The contract between the Federal Police and the company Planet was funded by the Ministry of Justice. 

Three days later, Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment announced an international deal with Kongsberg Satellite Services together with companies Planet and Airbus to supply free, universal access to tropical forest satellite monitoring in the world, including Brazil. According to the Norwegian government, Planet will supply high resolution maps and monthly updated information for visualization and download, as informed by website O Eco.

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.

On September 11, Brazil celebrates the Cerrado National Day. The second largest Brazilian biome, the Cerrado occupies 22% of the Brazilian territory and is of strategic importance for water supply and biodiversity preservation. The biome, according to official estimates, is home to around 10,000 plant species, 800 birds and 160 other mammals, concentrating 5% of the diversity of these species on the planet. The Cerrado is known as the “Birthplace of Waters” because it encompasses three important South American hydrographic basins – Tocantins – Araguaia, São Francisco and Prata.

The Cerrado is also one of the most threatened biomes in the world, under pressure from agriculture and livestock, as well as logging for charcoal production. Between 2018 and 2019, deforestation advanced over 6,483 km2 of the biome, or four times the area of ​​the city of São Paulo. From January to August 2020, the state of Mato Grosso lost 1.7 million hectares to forest fires — 31% in savanna areas. In Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, the fire has already ravaged 2,000 hectares of native forest.

A report by the Jornal Nacional published on September 17 exemplified the dynamic of destruction: the TV report accompanied an inspection operation by the Brazilian Institute of Biodiversity and Renewable Resources (Ibama) in the Cerrado region of Matopiba area, in Tocantins. They showed the use of “chains” and burning to clean the land. Ibama inspectors covered over 7 thousand kilometers in the Nascentes do Parnaíba National Park and in the Jalapão State Park, verifying about twenty thousand hectares of illegal deforestation. Part of the destruction occurred within private rural properties, in areas destined to the Legal Reserve — which were to remain intact under the Forest Code. The MPF is investigating the complaints presented by Ibama. According to experts heard in the report, this deforestation affects the availability of water in the region; some municipalities in Matopiba already face problems in supplying the population.

Environmental analyst Welington Fernando Peres Silva, a public servant at the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), died of burn injuries suffered during a fire-fighting operation carried out in Emas National Park, in the cerrado region of Goiás State. He he was battling fires on August 21 when the wind changed direction and he got caught in the middle of the fire. Between August 1 and 31, the State of Goiás recorded 964 hotspots according to state government data, an increase of 38.1% compared to August 2019.

The Public Prosecutor on Labour issues (MPT) of Mato Grosso do Sul State informed that mass testings done in meat processing plants belonging to JBS and BRF corporations located in the municipality of Dourados point to over 1,000 infected people among its employees.

The municipality is also home to the Dourados Indigenous Reservation (RID), the most populated indigenous reservation in the country, inhabited by 15,800 indigenous individuals. The first confirmed case in the reservation was of an indigenous woman who works at JBS. In May, independent media observatories, such as Agência Pública and De Olho Nos Ruralistas, had already informed that the JBS factory was a dangerous vector of Covid-19 transmission among the indigenous.

Agência Pública contacted JBS for a statement, who said that it “adopts a rigorous control and prevention protocol inside their units”. BRF, according to a UOL article, stated that it started voluntary adopting testing protocols to prevent the spread “and keep the operations running with safety.”

NGOs and civil society organizations published a full-page ad at the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and repudiated the suggestions from the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, to deregulate environmental laws and norms while the pandemic distracted the public and the press. The text, signed by Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), SOS Mata Atlântica, Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), ClimaInfo, and the Climate Observatory asked for the firing of the minister.

Two days later , 70 agribusiness and corporate organizations, among them the National Agriculture and Stock Farming Association (CNA) and Soy Producers Associations (Aprosoja Brasil), published a response in the same space. They wrote that the “bureaucracy is destructive” and fully supported Minister Salles.

The first ten indigenous individuals who tested positive with Covid-19 at the Indigenous Reservation of Dourados, at Mato Grosso do Sul State, were infected at their workplace, in a JBS meat processing  plant at the municipality, according to a report by the website specialized in agribusiness De Olho nos Ruralistas. JBS is a Brazilian Meat and Food company, one of the largest in the world, sourcing from cattle ranching farms in the Amazon and Cerrado regions.

Chief Gaudêncio Benites, of the Guarani Kaiowá ethnicity and leader of the Bororó Village, states that, by May 19th, there were 30 individuals with symptoms. The spread could cause a tragedy to over 19,000 Guarani Kaiowás and Terenas that live in the territory.

A female JBS worker, who is a resident  in the Bororó village, was the first case confirmed among indigenous in the State, according to the Health Secretary of Mato Grosso do Sul  on April 13th.

The State Government of Mato Grosso do Sul said, in a statement , that it is trying to gather data on all people who had contact with the contaminated worker. According to chief Benites, the company tested only its workers, leaving out their families and community members. He also denounces that JBS is not supporting the sick and their families.

A regional newspaper published an open letter signed by 20 indigenous leaders from cerrado state of Tocantins, calling on authorities to “expand and implement the Action Plan to Prevent the new Coronavirus (Covid-19)  to the indigenous peoples of Tocantins“, developed by indigenous activist Narubia Silva Werreria. The group stressed the vulnerability of the indigenous populations regarding the virus and the need of “urgent and effective preventive measures” to stop the pandemic in indigenous territories.

President Jair Bolsonaro issued provisional measure 910/19 that allows concession and regularization of titles to public land grabbers and invaders. Among the proposals, the access to titles without previous inspections in lands up to 1400 hectares in some Amazon municipalities, as well as authorizing invaders to become owners of lands grabbed until December 2018. For the measure to become law in effect, it needs to be voted by the House of Representatives in a 120 day timeframe. In an interview with Deutsche Welle – Brazil, Raul Valle, a director for social environmental justice for WWF-Brasil, said that the measure “rewards those who invaded and expelled small farmers and traditional communities from public lands”.

The Cerrado has lost  almost half of its native vegetation  and  continues to be threatened by monoculture and cattle ranching  expansion with the support of the government. According to INPE, the biome lost 7.697 km2 of vegetation in the last year. The destruction of the Cerrado happens at a more intense pace  than Amazon’s deforestation. In  the past 5 years, Cerrado lost 56.300 km2 of native coverage, while the Amazon (twice the size) lost 35.800km2. The main deforestation hotspot in the Cerrado is the Matopiba region, seen as the last agricultural haven in Brazil. According to a Greenpeace report,  486.000 km2 of native Cerrado had  been turned into pasture for cattle until 2017.

After a process that started with a Provisional Measure (MP 867), issued at the end of Temer’s Presidency in 2018,  the Chamber of Deputies approved a new Bill of Law that allows the clearing of 5 million hectares of forests in the country, while creating obstacles to reforest another 4 million hectares. MP 867 originally proposed to extend the deadline to landowners and agricultural producers to register and adequate their operations to  the Federal Forest Code. However, when the MP reached the Congress it was turned into a project of Law; as it was processed by different Commissions at the Senate and the House, 35 amendments were further added to the original text. Environmentalists accused Congress of “disfiguring the Forest Code”, saying that the new bill only favors further concentration of lands in the hands of a few owners.