Mapbiomas data indicate a 32.4% reduction in the devastated area in all Brazilian landscapes in 2024. Cerrado was the most destroyed bioma. In 2024, the rhythm of deforestation fell across the country. The total devastated area decreased by 32.4% compared to the previous year, which had also recorded a 26% reduction. The data are part of the annual deforestation report (RAD) completed by the Mapbiomas initiative and published on Thursday (15/05).
This is the first time that a retreat, recorded in the six national biomes, has been identified by Rad since 2019, when the report started doing. In most indigenous lands (67%), in the period there was no deforestation event. However, last year the country lost 12,420 square kilometers (km²) of native vegetation.
The Cerrado was the bioma that recorded the largest deforestated area, concentrating 52% of the total loss of the natural panorama in the country. The Amazon is available in second place, followed by Caatinga, Pantanal, Atlantic Forest and Pampa.
Given the numbers, Tasso Azevedo, Coordinator of Mapbiomi, prefers not to comment if the recorded fall is satisfactory to face the ongoing climatic crisis, aggravated by the deforestation.
“Rad does not carry out this type of evaluation. We observe the data. From the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions, when the deforestation is reduced in emissions. Looking at the fact itself, having a lower deforestation is better for the climate”, Azevedo replies to DW.
The most destroyed
In Cerrado, where a significant increase in devastation was recorded last year, a 41.2% reduction in deforestation occurred. In this great Brazilian savannah, one of the most biodiversity poles in the world, the loss of vegetation has reached 6,521 km². The bioma occupies the largest area of the country and mainly covers the central plateau.
The Matopiba region, acrony of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, had the largest devastated area of Cerrado, about 75% of the total. “This region focuses more deforestation than the entire Amazon if we consider the 2024 data,” says Roberta Rocha, of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), which is part of the Mapbiomas initiative.
According to the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (Embrapa), Matopiba has experienced a great expansion of the agricultural border since the mid -1980s. The Region, officially delimited by the presidential decree, covers 337 municipalities and became an important production center, corn and cotton.
In the ranking of the ten cities with the largest areas of the destroyed native vegetation, the champion is in the Cerrado. “São wants, in Bahia, occupies this place for the second consecutive year. In this city, the only pressure carrier of the deforestation is agriculture”, explains Rocha the engine behind the destruction of 1,800 km² in the municipality in 2024.
Devastation of the Amazon
After reaching the peak of the last decade on 2022, with 12,468 km², the deforestation in the Amazon followed the reduced trend last year, when the deforestated area was 3,777 km². The same model has been observed in conservation units and indigenous lands.
“Almost 99% of all the forest deforestation detected have as a pressure vector of agriculture,” says Larissa Amorim of the Amazzonia Institute of Man and the Environment (Imazon).
This scenario is observed above all in the United States in the area known as Amacro, which includes Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia, where agriculture has expanded with greater intensity, in a rhythm similar to Matopiba.
Pará, which will host the next United Nations climate conference, is still the state in which the Amazon rainforest disappears faster, indicates the RAD of 2024.
Authorized record deforestation
As in the Cerrado and in the Amazon, agriculture was also the activity that led the most the disappearance of the CCAatinga. In addition to this economic activity, renewable energy companies also appear as a cause of deforestation.
“These projects are increasingly spaced by bioma”, comments Diego Costa, researcher of the Feira de Santana State University (UEFS).
According to Rad Information, the warnings captured by the satellites by 2024 indicate that the area deforested in the bioma was 1,745 km². The warning that caused the largest deforestation event in the country started from the corner of Buriti and Pavussu, Piauí, and caused the cut of 140 km² of vegetation.
“This is authorized deforestation. The identified pressure carrier was agricultural,” adds Costa, stating that the municipalities limit with Matopiba.
Another fact that has attracted the attention of the researchers is the cutting of the CCAATINGA in the territories that are part of the desertification nuclei. The most critical cases occurred in the Sertão de São Francisco region, Bahia; Irauçuba, Ceará; CabroBó, Pernambuco.
Pantanal and Pampa
The Pantanal was the bioma with the largest proportional drop: the deforestation retreat was 58.6% compared to 2023.
“In short, there have been few deforestation events that represent large deforested areas,” says Eduardo Rosa di Mapbiomi. “Compared to all biomes, the Pantanal has the highest average speed for the notice of deforestation, which are 10,000 square meters per day,” he adds.
After the negative record he hit in 2023 in the Pantanal, which recorded 563 km² of devastation, the total of last year was 232 km² – the lowest level ever considered and similar to 2019.
The pampa had the lowest deforestated area according to RAD: 0.1% of the national total. But the data can be underestimated, since the automatic detection and validation systems used have limitations to identify the suppression in national environments, the experts affirm.
“We estimate that the loss of country vegetation has an order of magnitude up to 60 times larger than we refer to the forests,” says Eduardo Velez by Geokarten on the Pampa and on the technological challenges that researchers try to overcome.
The impact of extreme events
In the Atlantic Forest, the historically most destroyed bioma in the country, extreme climatic events recorded in 2024 left signs that influenced the lost vegetation.
“Rio Grande do Sul was the third state with the largest deforestation within the bioma due to the impacts of extreme climatic events. Floods, landslides and twenty have caused a significant loss of native vegetation,” says Natália Crusco of the Mapbiomas team.
In 2024, the cut of this tropical rainforest remained stable after a drop of almost 60% in 2023. If the rains of April and May of last year had not caused so much damage in the South, the bioma would have recorded a reduction of at least 20% in the period, concludes Crusco.
Source: Terra
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