• Over the course of twelve months, 13,235 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest were destroyed — just under the area of Trentino-Alto Adige.
• According to some NGOs, the Brazilian government deliberately waited until the end of Cop26 before making this information public.
• The Jair Bolsonaro administration also committed to ending deforestation by 2030. A goal that seems very far off.

Among the reasons why Cop26 in Glasgow will long be remembered is undoubtedly the historic commitment by one hundred governments to end deforestation by 2030. With impeccable timing, the official estimates on deforestation in the Amazon over the past year were published only after the negotiations had ended. The numbers speak for themselves: between 1 August 2020 and 31 July 2021, a forested area of 13,235 square kilometres was destroyed — 22 per cent more than the year before.

Deforestation in the Amazon is at its highest since 2006

Two agencies monitor the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, using different methodologies: Inpe (the National Institute for Space Research) is a public body, while Imazon (Instituto do homem e meio ambiente da Amazônia) is an independent NGO. The former states that in October 2021, 877 sq km of forest were destroyed, 5 per cent more than in the same month of 2020.

Imazon instead reports 803 sq km of Amazon rainforest destroyed in October. The estimate itself is therefore lower, but what is cause for concern is the total recorded from January onwards: 9,724 sq km, equivalent to the area of the Marche region. That is 33 per cent more than in 2020, a year that had already proved extremely critical for the health of the Amazon.

Imazon @Imazon

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📍Com isso, o acumulado desde janeiro de 2021 também ficou como o pior da década: 8.939 km², 39% a mais do que no mesmo período em 2020.

♥ 3💬 1 20 ott 2021 · Apri su X →

A few days later, on 18 November, Inpe also published its preliminary analysis of satellite monitoring carried out between 1 August 2020 and 31 July 2021. The figures appear to confirm the most pessimistic forecasts. Over twelve months, 13,235 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest were destroyed — just under the area of Trentino-Alto Adige. Deforestation in the Amazon has been increasing year on year since 2012, but this time it marked a leap of as much as 22 per cent compared to the 10,851 square kilometres of the previous year. Such a severe figure had not been recorded since 2006.

The timing of the Brazilian administration also sparked considerable controversy. The Inpe communiqué, as the NGO Observatório do clima points out, is dated 27 October 2021. More than three weeks passed before it was made public; according to the NGO, the decision to wait until the end of Cop26 was no coincidence.

Observatório do Clima @obsclima

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Reparem na data da nota do Inpe.
O governo foi para a #COP26 SABENDO DO DADO DE DESMATAMENTO e o ESCONDEU.

Parabéns ao ministro @Astro_Pontes.

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Bolsonaro is also among the signatories of the anti-deforestation pact

Already during the climate summit organised by US president Joe Biden for Earth Day 2021, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had promised to end unauthorised deforestation by 2030. Bolsonaro was not at Cop26, but his delegation reiterated this position by joining the coalition of one hundred states committed to halting deforestation and land degradation processes by the end of the decade.

These are targets viewed with considerable scepticism by environmentalists, coming as they do from an administration that has so far hardly distinguished itself in protecting the planet's green lung or the indigenous peoples who inhabit it, as the continuously worsening data demonstrate. "We are in a scenario still very far from achieving the targets set," warns Antônio Fonseca, a researcher at Imazon.

Article published on 17 November 2021 and updated on 19 November 2021