In final days before Bolsonaro’s defeat, deforestation boomed in Brazil

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued on an upward trajectory through October 2022 as citizens of South America’s largest democracy faced a choice between two presidential candidates with radically different agendas for Earth’s largest rainforest.

According to data published today by Brazil’s national space research agency INPE, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon amounted to 904 square kilometers in October, raising the accumulated forest clearing through the first 10 months of the year to 9,494 square kilometers, the highest tally since Brazil implemented its current near-real-time tracking system in 2006. By comparison, at this time last year, accumulated deforestation stood at 7,887 square kilometers.

The figures came less than two weeks after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro in a run off election. Lula, who presided over a sharp drop in Amazon forest deforestation during his terms in office between 2003 and 2010, made saving the Amazon a key part of his bid for the presidency in contrast to Bolsonaro, whose administration has dismantled the infrastructure that underpins conservation in the Amazon.

Deforestation in the Amazon has surged under Bolsonaro, last year reaching the highest level in 15 years.

Numerous scientific reports have warned that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point where deforestation and the impact of climate change will drive vast areas of rainforest to transition to a drier savanna-like ecosystem. Such a shift would release billions of tons of carbon through tree death and increases in fires, while diminishing rainfall across large swathes of South America and negatively impacting the region’s forest-depedent people and wildlife.

Header image: Fire near the Manicoré River in Amazonas state in August 2022. Photo © Christian Braga / Greenpeace