Brazil: Record deforestation due to the corona crisis (fact check)

In the first three months of this year, around 800 km² of rainforest was destroyed. – An increase of 51 percent compared to the previous year.

Brazil: Record deforestation due to the corona crisis (fact check) – The most important thing to start with:

Environmentalists and scientists assume that controls by authorities have weakened during the corona crisis. This assumption cannot be confirmed with certainty.

Increased deforestation in the Amazon region

In addition to the omnipresent headlines about the coronavirus, other information is getting lost. This also applies to the fact that huge areas of rainforest in the Amazon region are currently being lost.

The reason for this: illegal deforestation.

The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) evaluates satellite images to record deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Changes in the forest are analyzed in real time and show how the forest population could develop over a year.

Reuters reports that around 800 km² of forest was destroyed in the first three months of this year. That corresponds to an area roughly the size of New York. Compared to the previous year, this represents an increase of 51 percent.

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Increasing deforestation due to the corona pandemic?

Environmentalists and scientists assume that controls by authorities have weakened during the corona crisis. The Brazilian environmental agency “IBAMA” would send out fewer inspectors, which is a precautionary measure against the coronavirus. This in turn means there are no controls against illegal deforestation. – The rainforest areas are far less protected.

Fear of economic slumps and poverty is also growing due to the Corona lockdown. This would potentially encourage more people to make money in illegal ways, such as through deforestation.

“There is a risk that the coronavirus and COVID-19 will create the conditions for more deforestation,” says Carlos Souza Jr., a scientist at the NGO “Imazon.”

However, a direct connection cannot yet be confirmed with certainty.

Indigenous peoples threatened

The measures that were decided due to the Corona crisis do not definitely reach the remote areas inhabited by indigenous people.
At the same time, the virus is also reaching indigenous people on protected reservations through loggers and other people who may not be prepared.

A large-scale operation by “IBAMA” was shown on Brazilian television. The reason for this was to drive out loggers and gold prospectors from the indigenous areas of southern Amazonia. According to the “Diário Oficial”, a kind of official gazette, Olivaldi Azevedo, one of the directors of “IBAMA”, was then fired.

Extensive damage

The rainforests in the Amazon are called the “Green Lung of the Earth” for good reason. They produce oxygen, store CO2, are home to many animal species and also influence the weather. Deforestation destroys habitats and contributes to the climate crisis.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro came under massive criticism last year for his handling of the fires in the Amazon region in 2019. He is accused by environmentalists of putting up with fires in order to use the land for agriculture.

During his presidential run, Bolsonaro promised to open the Amazon to more commercial development, including mining and large-scale agriculture.

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Promoting zoonoses

Massive deforestation also promotes zoonoses – diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.
Due to destroyed ecosystems, animals come together that would never have crossed paths before. They can also cross people’s paths. It is possible for viruses to spread from one species to another.

Experts fear that pandemics could occur more frequently if huge areas of rainforest continue to be cut down.

Source: utopia.de / spektrum.de
Article image: Shutterstock / By Richard Whitcombe