Amazon’s Recent Threats: Deforestation and Violence
Ending deforestation - mainly in the Amazon rainforest - was considered one of COP26’s first major deals and was endorsed by more than 100 world leaders. Biden and Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro also agreed during the Summit of Americas to join efforts to combat deforestation. However, this issue still seems far from a resolution. The deforestation in Brazil's Amazon surged to record levels in April, nearly doubling the area of forest removed in the same period last year. Images from the National Institute for Space Research shows deforestation in the Amazon totaling 390 square miles in just one month, one of the worst results so far. It has increased since Brazil’s government weakened environmental protection, allowing for more logging, mining and farming in the area. The numbers are alarming: more than 400 sq miles (1,000 sq km) of the Amazon has been felled on Brazilian soya farms over the past decade, while in just one year logging cleared an area three times the size of the city of São Paulo.
Alongside deforestation, the current situation in the rainforest also presents another concerning problem: violence, especially against environmental activists. Dom Phillips, a British journalist based in Brazil who had written for several news organizations and was a leading chronicler of the devastating environmental effects of deforestation in the Amazon, was killed in the remote Javari Valley of western Brazil. He was with Bruno Araújo Pereira, an expert on the country’s Indigenous people, who was also killed. They were traveling by boat on the Itaquai River in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, known in recent years for growing violence by illegal fishermen, loggers and drug dealers. Last week, human remains retrieved from an isolated forest location were identified as belonging to Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira. Three suspects are in custody, and one of them - a fisherman - has confessed. Mr. Pereira had previously intercepted people fishing illegally within the Indigenous territory and received several threats.
The tragic deaths of Messrs Pereira and Phillips highlights other threats beyond deforestation that Amazon faces today. In the past years Brazil has become a big consumer and exporter of cocaine, and as a consequence organized crime has strengthened its presence and power across the Amazon. The Javari joins the Amazon where Brazil intersects with Peru and Colombia, and has become an important drug route. Environmentalists have denounced that narcotraffickers have diversified into environmental crimes, such as smuggling ill-gotten timber and endangered animals. Also, the murder rate in rural areas in the Amazon has been rising and is now above the national average.
The backlash imposed by the international community to the deforestation and violence currently taking place in the Amazon was - and has historically been - modest. When several forest fires in the Amazon caught the world’s attention in 2019, some countries suggested Brazil should face economic sanctions if it failed to protect the rainforest. While Bolsonaro angrily rejected those suggestions, the country’s biggest export market is currently China, the world’s biggest polluter.
In relation to the recent increase in deforestation, there has not been a joint reaction by other countries against the Brazilian government or Brazilian companies, but rather specific actions, such as the European Commission proposal last week giving the European Union the power to impose sanctions on future free trade agreement partners that disregard labour and environmental standards. To add up to this already complex scenario, a report by Global Witness indicates that global financiers, UK supermarkets and an Italian leather supplier have supported deforestation, land-grabbing and the use of slave labour in Brazil by funding and stocking products from the Brazilian meat giant JBS.
The current threats the Amazon faces - activists’ persecution and the increase in deforestation - have occupied the news in Brazil, but no formal plan of action to address these problems has been presented by the two main candidates of the presidential election on October, current president Bolsonaro and former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. This inertia by the public power to actively protect the Amazon is ratified by a recent study that quantifies what researchers call the “political negligence”, finding that nearly 98% of deforestation alerts were not investigated by the federal government. Even though the government’s response to this problem is considered slow, experts indicate that time is crucial in this case, as the impacts of degradation are fast and vast, including biodiversity loss and changes in the carbon stocks, affecting the CO2 balance and future climate changes in an alarming magnitude. While the future of environmental policies in Brazil is still unclear, policymakers all around the world should consider the urgency of this topic when elaborating and adopting measures to ensure Amazon’s protection.
References
COP26: World leaders promise to end deforestation by 2030
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59088498
White House says Biden, Bolsonaro agree to work together on Amazon deforestation
https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-says-biden-bolsonaro-agree-work-together-amazon-deforestation-2022-06-10/
Deforestation of Amazon Rainforests Surges to Record Level
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/climate-in-crisis/deforestation-of-amazon-rainforests-surges-to-record-level/2905967/
Dom Philips murdered in Brazil: Will British journalist's book on Amazon see light of day?
https://www.firstpost.com/world/dom-philips-murdered-in-brazil-will-british-journalists-book-on-amazon-see-light-of-day-10814611.html
Brazil police say remains of journalist Dom Phillips identified
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/17/brazilian-police-say-gangs-not-involved-in-amazon-killings
Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has become more dangerous
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2022/06/23/brazils-amazon-rainforest-has-become-more-dangerous
Amazon has the highest murder rates
https://valor.globo.com/impresso/noticia/2022/06/08/amazonia-tem-as-maiores-taxas-de-homicidio.ghtml
Cash Cow
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/cash-cow/
Unmasking the impunity of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: a call for enforcement and accountability
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5193/pdf
‘Loophole’ allowing for deforestation on soya farms in Brazil’s Amazon
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/10/loophole-allowing-for-deforestation-on-soya-farms-in-brazils-amazon
Illegal logging reaches Amazon’s untouched core, ‘terrifying’ research shows
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/illegal-logging-reaches-amazons-untouched-core-terrifying-research-shows/
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