Deforestation soars in the Amazon
Illegal loggers, miners thrive as pandemic hobbles enforcement
RIO DE JANEIRO—Since coming to office, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has enabled increased razing of the Amazon rainforest.
Now, the coronavirus has accelerated that destruction.
Illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers have cleared vast areas of the Amazon with impunity in recent months as law enforcement efforts were hobbled by the pandemic.
Those recently cleared areas will almost certainly make way for a rash of fires even more widespread and devastating than the ones that drew global outrage last year. The newly cleared patches are typically set ablaze during the drier months of August to October to prepare the land for cattle grazing, often spiralling out of control into wildfires.
“The trend line is shooting upward compared to a year that was already historic in terms of a rise in deforestation,” said Ana Carolina Haliuc Braganca, a federal prosecutor who leads a task force that investigates environmental crimes in the Amazon. “If state entities don’t adopt very decisive measures, we’re looking at a likely tragedy.”
The fallout from the pandemic has exacerbated the ecological degradation set in motion by government policies under Bolsonaro, who favours expanding commercial development in the Amazon and views environmental regulations as a hindrance to economic growth. But some career civil servants are still working to enforce environmental protections.
An estimated 1,200 square kilometres of Amazon tree cover was slashed from January to April, a 55 per cent increase from the same period last year and an area roughly 20 times the size of Manhattan, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, a government agency that tracks deforestation with satellite images.
Last year, deforestation in the Amazon already had reached levels not seen since 2008. At the same time, the coronavirus has killed more than 34,000 people in Brazil, which now is recording the highest daily number of deaths in the world. It has also fuelled political polarization and dominated headlines and policy debates, eclipsing the increased damage to the rainforest.
Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who supports Bolsonaro’s loosening of environmental regulation, said in late April that he saw the pandemic as an opportunity to reduce restrictions while attention was focused elsewhere.
“We need to make an effort here during this period of calm in terms of press coverage because people are only talking about COVID,” he said during an April 22 cabinet meeting.
A video of the meeting was made public. The remarks, which Salles later said referred to his efforts to streamline red tape, led federal prosecutors to call for an investigation into what they said amounted to dereliction of duty.
The association that represents government environmental workers issued a statement calling Salles a “criminal” who has been “hollowing out” his own ministry.
Enforcement actions by the country’s main environmental protection agency, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, or IBAMA, fell sharply during 2019, Bolsonaro’s first year in office, according to an agency document obtained by the New York Times.
In 2019, IBAMA reported 128 instances of environmental crimes, a 55 per cent decrease from the year before. The amount of illegally logged timber seized by the agency fell by nearly 64 per cent from 2018 to 2019, according to the document.
Government officials and environmental activists say the rise in deforestation is being driven by a prevailing sense among illegal loggers and miners that tearing down the rainforest carries minimal risk of punishment and yields significant payoff.
Bolsonaro’s government fired three senior officials at IBAMA in April after the agency carried out a large operation targeting illegal miners in Para state in the north.
In May, a law enforcement official in uniform was swarmed by illegal loggers in Para after a truck with timber was intercepted. After a small mob heckled the agent, one of the loggers struck him in the face with a glass bottle, according to a video of the incident.
Later in May, the government transferred oversight of federal natural reserves from the Ministry of the Environment to the Ministry of Agriculture, paving the way for commercial development in protected areas.
The government is also championing legislative initiatives that would give land titles to squatters who have taken possession of tracts in the Amazon and other biomes.
Roughly 50 per cent of the tree cover lost during the first four months of this year was on public land, according to IPAM Amazonia, an environmental research organization. Ane Alencar, director of science at IPAM Amazonia, said much of the destruction is by people who expect to be ultimately recognized as rightful owners of the land.
“I see opportunism fuelling illegality as people take advantage of the fragility of the moment we’re living, politically as well as economically,” she said. “This coronavirus crisis is turning into an environmental crisis, too.”
Eduardo Taveira, the top environmental official in Amazonas state, said illegal loggers, who usually take pains to avoid being fined and having their equipment destroyed by federal agents, are operating more openly than in years past.
“There’s a sense that the government is focused only on fighting the coronavirus, so this type of illegal activity is happening more boldly than in recent years,” he said.
Fearing a new wave of international condemnation, the Bolsonaro administration in May dispatched a few thousand troops to the Amazon and tasked them with preventing environmental crimes for 30 days. “We don’t want Brazil to be portrayed in front of the rest of the world as an environmental villain,” Vice-President Hamilton Mourao said as the initiative was launched.
In an emailed statement, the Defence Ministry said it had devoted 3,800 service members, 11 aircraft, 11 boats and 180 vehicles to support the mission. The operation, it said, “clearly demonstrates Brazil’s firm determination to preserve and defend the Amazon.”