Sources: Brazil deforestation data withheld till summit’s end
BRASILIA, BRAZIL >> Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Environment Minister Joaquim Leite both knew the Amazon region’s annual deforestation rate had surged before the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, but kept results quiet to avoid hampering negotiations, according to three Cabinet ministers who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Data from the National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system released Thursday showed the Amazon lost 5,110 square miles of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021. That’s up 22% from the prior 12-month period.
The three ministers as well as a coordinator at the space institute that compiles the data, all of whom spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity due to concern about reprisals, said the annual deforestation report was available on the government’s information system before talks in Glasgow began on Oct. 31.
Six days before that, at a meeting in the presidential palace, Bolsonaro and several ministers discussed the 20202021 deforestation results and determined they wouldn’t be released until after the climate conference, said the three ministers, two of whom were present.
Later that same day, the government launched a program to promote green development. Official speeches resembled a dress rehearsal for efforts to project responsible environmental stewardship at Glasgow after two years of historically elevated deforestation.
One of the two ministers who participated in the earlier meeting said the decision to withhold data was part of a strategy to recover environmental credibility abroad. This wasn’t an intent to lie, the person said, but rather a means to highlight positive developments, particularly year-on-year declines seen in preliminary deforestation data for July and August from the so-called Deter monitoring system. Bolsonaro highlighted that same data when speaking at the U.N. General assembly in September. The Deter system in the two months since, however, has shown significant year-onyear increases.