With the Army in the Amazon, Burning Decreased but Deforestation Increased

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In the first month of action by the Armed Forces in the Amazon to fight the forest fires, the number of fires decreased, but there was a reduction in the number of assets seized, such as logs and chainsaws, as well as infraction notices, compared to the same period in the previous year. In addition, the numbers of deforestation continue to advance.

The information is from a document from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) obtained by the newspaper Estado. When the number of outbreaks skyrocketed in the Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro published a decree of Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO), with the sending of military personnel, which was extended until October 24th.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defense defended the “effectiveness” of the operation in the forest and also said that the presence of the military in the region inhibits crimes, which reduces the fines.

From August 24th to September 24th, however, the total seized assets were less than half of those seized in the same period in 2018, when no police operations took place. The total amount of wood seized in this one-month interval, in 2018, was approximately 5,264 m³. In the GLO period, approximately 1,909 m³ of wood were seized, a drop of 63.7 percent.

The infraction notices issued by IBAMA in the States of Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, and Roraima were 258 in this same period last year, totaling R$139.5 million. This year, the number dropped to 128 while the GLO was in effect, in the amount of R$42.9 million, according to a document that was sent by the Coordination of Inspection Operations of IBAMA to Vice Admiral Ralph Dias, who commands the GLO, and to the Military Command of the Amazon.

Burning and Deforestation

The number of fires, the main objective of the GLO, decreased 25.1 percent in September compared to last year; there were 18,558 outbreaks until this Thursday in the Amazon biome, compared to 24,803 from September last year. Historically, the forest fires usually peak in September. As 30,901 outbreaks were recorded in the biome in August, the record for the month since 2010, there was a fear that the situation this month would be even worse.

The most visible threat to the forest, the fires are usually the last stage of a process of forest destruction. Less noisy and visible, the deforestation continued rising in the GLO period. In August, alerts from the Deter system, of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), indicated that the deforestation was 1,702 km² in the Amazon, compared to 526 km² in August of 2018. This month, until September 20th, the alerts indicated 1,173 km², compared to 739 km² in September of last year.

The two months follow the upward trend that has been established in the region since May. The period, from August of last year to July of this year, closed with the number of alerts of 6,841 km², and increase of almost 50 percent in relation to the previous 12 months, which indicated a loss of 4,571 km². Adding up August and September of this year, the indicated loss is already 2,875 km² for this year in the Amazon, that is more than 60 percent of all the alerts of the period from August 2017 to July 2018.

When announcing the deployment of the Armed Forces, President Jair Bolsonaro had stated, in a speech on the national network, that the government has zero-tolerance for environmental crimes. The ordinance provided for the GLO “in the places of deforestation alerts identified by the Deter/INPE system,” although the government contests the total numbers of the institute. And, in response to the governors’ request, the president authorized the military to act both in the fight against fire and against illegal deforestation.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo