“We really have a trend that is spectacular,” rejoices the protection NGO Canopée

A report released Monday shows that by the start of 2024, 196 km² of the Amazon have been deforested, a reduction of 63% compared to the same period last year.

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is doing better and this is good news for the tropical forest campaign manager within the Canopée network. “We really have a trend that is spectacular, the figures are really impressive”, rejoices Klervi Le Guenic Tuesday March 19 on franceinfo. A report from the Imazon association published Monday shows that at the start of 2024, 196 km² have been deforested in the Brazilian Amazon, a reduction of 63% compared to the same period last year.

Results obtained thanks to the proactive policy of Brazilian President Lula since he came to power: “We have a drop in deforestation, particularly illegal deforestation,” underlines Klervi Le Guenic. The Brazilian president uses several levers such as “the seizure of land illegally exploited in protected areas, the hiring of thousands of analysts to strengthen surveillance, the reestablishment of controls by public agents who had been undermined during the presidency of Jaïr Bolsonaro”. The objective stated by the Brazilian president’s policy of “zero illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030” “is completely achievable” estimates campaign manager Canopée.

A mixed decline in deforestation in Brazil

Klervi Le Guenic, however, has a reservation, which concerns the transfer of deforestation in the Amazon to other neighboring regions. “At the same time as this deforestation is decreasing in the Amazon, it is increasing in other ecosystems, and in particular in the Cerrado, which is an immense wooded savannah, which stretches under the Amazon.” There is therefore the risk that “this fight against deforestation in the Amazon” be done “to the detriment of other ecosystems” and therefore cannot permanently resolve the problem.

She points out in particular the differences in legislation between the two Brazilian regions, where in the Amazon, “we are only allowed to deforest 20%” of his lands against “80% in the Cerrado”which shows, for Klervi Le Guenic, that the problem is also in the legal deforestation authorized in Brazil.

For the campaign manager, “agribusiness” is clearly responsible, “in the context of the Amazon, it is largely cattle breeding, and in the case of the Cerrado, it is linked to the production of soy which will then be exported for animal feed”mainly for “poultry and pork”. It therefore supports the need to “put pressure on French companies that buy this soya and ensure that they are sourcing their supplies from non-deforested areas”.