Deforestation in the Brazilian cerrado has grown by around 25% compared to the last measurement and has reached 10,688.73 km². It is the highest number since 2015 when 11,129.06 km² of deforestation were recorded, and the second largest increase ever computed. Furthermore, it is the third year in a row that devastation has increased in the biome. The deforested area is equivalent to about seven cities in São Paulo.
The data comes from Prodes Cerrado, a program by Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) that measures deforestation in the biome. The numbers are recorded from August of one year to July of the following year, that is, the amount of deforestation released this Wednesday (14) took place from August 2021 to July of this year.
In the previous period, the devastation of the cerrado had been around 8,531 km². In 2019, the first year of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government —in which forest destruction exploded in the Amazon—, the cerrado recorded 6,319 km² of deforestation. Since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, 33,444 km² of cerrado have been cut down, according to INPE data.
Devastation in the Brazilian cerrado, the most biodiverse savannah in the world and with an important role in Brazilian hydrographic basins, is not so far numerically from the deforestation registered in the Amazon in the same period — 11,568 km².
Translated by Cassy Dias