NGO Reveals Increase in Amazon Deforestation Levels

07/18/2013 - 08h21

New figures have indicated a further rise in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. The NGO Imazon (Institute of Man and Environment of Amazônia) recorded an increase of 103% between August of 2012 and June of 2013 compared with the same period of the previous year.

In June alone, the satellites of the Deforestation Alert System (SAD) detected 184 km² of deforestation or degradation, a rise of 437% on the same month last year.

At the end of last year, Brazil celebrated the lowest rate of deforestation since monitoring began in 1988. However, the latest figures show that this trend may be reversing, and government statistics released in recent months have also indicated an increase.

Figures from Deter, the real-time monitoring system run by the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), have also shown a significant rise. Research suggests that as much as 465 km² may have been affected in May of 2013 - an increase of 370% on May of 2012.

"The increase in deforestation rates has been detected by the government as well as Imazon. I think this leaves little room for doubt that something is happening here," says Adalberto Veríssimo, an Imazon researcher and one of the authors of the latest study. "It wasn't just a slight increase."

Neither set of data is yet definitive. Monitoring is hindered by cloud cover, as well as by limited image resolution. The official statistics used by the government come from the Prodes Project, also run by INPE. These figures are more detailed, though they are released just once a year.

"That's the way it should be," says Dalton Valeriano, the coordinator of the INPE monitoring program. "We provide accurate figures which reflect a cycle. Deforestation is not like inflation, which needs to be divulged every month."

Valeriano criticized the methodology used by Imazon and also pointed out that the figures produced by Deter are not produced in order to provide a reliable point of comparison. Rather, they serve as a means of alerting the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) - a government body linked to the Ministry of the Environment.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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	Rodrigo Baleia/Folhapress
	Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest