Data on fires in the Amazon

- Destruction of Earth’s largest rainforest is accelerating ahead of the region’s peak fire and deforestation season, reveals data released today by Brazil’s national space research institute INPE.- According to INPE’s satellite-based deforestation tracking system, DETER, forest clearing in the Brazilian part of the Amazon amounted to 1,391 square kilometers in May. That represents a 67% increase over May 2020 and puts deforestation nearly on pace with last year’s rate, when forest loss in the region reached 11,088 square kilometers, the highest level since 2008.- The figure also represents the highest recorded in any May since at least 2007.- Note: this is an updated version of a story published June 4, 2021. It has been revised using data released today.

- Xingu Indigenous Park shields one of the last remaining large tracts of old growth rainforest in Brazil’s “arc of deforestation,” and is inhabited by dozens of Indigenous communities.- The park experienced a jump in deforestation in 2020, quadrupling the amount of primary forest it lost in 2019.- Most of this deforestation was caused by wildfires, which likely spread from slash-and-burn activity on nearby agricultural fields.- Satellite data and imagery show agricultural fields and fires expanding towards the park in 2021 despite a prohibition on dry-season burning and a drought the likes of which haven’t been seen in nearly a century.

- In recent weeks, nine major fires have been burning in the Brazilian Amazon, heralding an unsettling start to another fire season—which experts say could be a bad one after a particularly dry year.- The first major fire of the year occurred on May 19, near the border of Serra Ricardo Franco State Park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, where all of the nine major fires have occurred averaging around 200 hectares (494 acres) each.- All of the 2021 fires are on land deforested in 2020, emphasizing the connection between deforestation and fire in the Brazilian Amazon.- Looking ahead, one expert says we can expect to see patterns similar to last year, with fires in deforested areas early in the season (June through August), with a possible shift to standing forests as the dry season intensifies.

- In a new report, NGO Forest Trends found that at least 69% of tropical forests cleared for agricultural activities such as ranching and farmland between 2013 and 2019 was done in violation of national laws and regulations.- The actual amount of illegally deforested land is immense during that period – 31.7 million hectares, or an area roughly the size of Norway.- The study notes that if tropical deforestation emissions tied to commercial agriculture were a country, it would rank third behind China and the U.S.- Forest Trends president Michael Jenkins said that when governments view forests like Indigenous peoples do – far more valuable standing than clear cut – conservation at scale is possible.

- Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park is experiencing one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country, and has lost more than a quarter of its primary forest since 2002.- Sources say this deforestation is happening due to settlers who are illegally invading and establishing roads, settlements and farms in protected forest – and clearing it in the process.- Other national parks and Indigenous territories in the Colombian Amazon are also experiencing incursions.- Sources say they are happening at such a scale that the government has been unable to effectively stop it.

- After Brazil, the South American country that lost the greatest area of primary forest over the past twenty years is Bolivia. The past few years, the land-locked nation has experienced vast forest fires that have affected millions of hectares.- In response to this trend, in 2017 a group of citizens led by Gina Méndez, established an NGO called the El Llamado del Bosque and launched a campaign on behalf of Bolivia’s forests, wildlife, and forest-dependent communities- Méndez, who previously served as mayor of Bolivia’s largest city, a member of the national congress, and the country’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights, says she was moved to start the movement by the “heartbreaking” loss of forests.- Méndez spoke about her work, the challenges facing grassroots conservation in Bolivia, and more during a recent interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased and the size of individual patches of cleared land has also grown, pointing to organized efforts at deforestation, according to a new paper.- Under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, the average size of deforested areas increased by 61%, with patches larger than 100 hectares (250 acres) now the norm.- “Nobody cuts down 100 hectares with a chainsaw. It involves giant machines,” says paper author and deforestation policy expert Ralph Trancoso.- Trancoso has called for a reinstatement of deforestation-control policies that Bolsonaro abandoned when he came into office.

- Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area lies in the ecologically rich Xingu Basin in the Brazilian Amazon and spans some 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) — an area more than half the size of Belgium.- Despite its protected status, the area has been heavily deforested, losing 476,000 hectares (1.18 million acres) of humid primary forest between 2006 and 2020, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD), a 32% decrease in total forest cover.- 2020 saw the highest amount of forest loss since the creation of the protected area, nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) — an area nearly the size of New York City; preliminary data show clearing of Triunfo do Xingu’s forests has continued into 2021, with “unusually high” levels of deforestation detected the week of March 15.- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, and sources say the invasions of Triunfo do Xingu are aided by its remoteness as well as lax enforcement of environmental regulations.

- The planet lost an area of tree cover larger than the United Kingdom in 2020, including more than 4.2 million hectares of primary tropical forests, according to data released today by the University of Maryland.- Tree cover loss rose in both the tropics and temperate regions, but the rate of increase in loss was greatest in primary tropical forests, led by rising deforestation and incidence of fire in the Amazon, Earth’s largest rainforest.- The data, which is now available on World Resource Institute’s Global Forest Watch, indicate that forest loss remained persistently high in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, but “does not show obvious, systemic shifts in forest loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to WRI.- Destruction of primary tropical forests, the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems, released 2.64 billion tons of carbon, an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of 570 million cars.

- The transformation of the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests into savanna-like environments will change the makeup of both the flora and the fauna of these biomes.- A study by Brazilian researchers evaluated the impacts of climate change and deforestation on more than 300 mammal species under various scenarios of savannization.- Species like primates, which depend on a dense canopy of trees to survive, could lose up to 50% of their range by the end of the 21st century.- Meanwhile, species from the Cerrado scrubland, such as the maned wolf and the giant anteater, would be able to move into degraded areas of the Amazon even as their own native range is cleared by human activity.