Deforestation in Brazil and Argentina

Brazil

Brazil has asked its security forces to help fight deforestation in the Amazon. The Brazilian government is worried that a dangerous level of trees is being cut down in the world's largest rainforest. There are fears that there could be a big increase in deforestation in 2020. The year has already started badly for the trees and our environment. Deforestation in the Amazon doubled in January compared with the same month in 2019. A new report says that many areas of the Amazon produce more CO2 than oxygen. The reverse is meant to happen. The Amazon is often called "the lungs" of the planet. It plays a vital role in helping the Earth's environment as it changes CO2 into oxygen.

Brazil's Justice Minister, Sergio Moro, approved the setting up of a special security force to help track down and stop illegal loggers. There was a big increase in the amount of illegal logging in 2019. This happened at the same time as damaging fires that swept across large swathes of the rainforest. The security force will consist of police with special military-style training. They will work with environmental agency officials. Change also needs to come from regional governments. Some governments in the region are selling off land to developers. This is accelerating the pace of deforestation. To make things worse, the regional governments are doing little to replenish the jungle.

New images show soy-linked deforestation in Argentina

Argentina exports soy to China that is associated with deforestation. When Chinese soy demand and that of other countries increases, the agricultural frontier tends to expand at the expense of native forests. All in violation of the Forest Law that sought to preserve them.

A new study by Greenpeace records - visually and statistically - the extent forest loss in four Argentine provinces, where 112,766 hectares were deforested in 2018. Of those, 40,965 were in areas where industrial exploitation is prohibited or restricted by law. “We see the before and after to verify if there is a change in land use, or deforestation,” said Hernán Giardini, head of the Greenpeace forest campaign, who added that the organization works in the provinces of Santiago del Estero, Salta, Chaco and Formosa, which account for 80% of Argentina’s deforestation over the past 30 years.

Greenpeace attributes deforestation to the advance of the agricultural frontier, mainly for soy cultivation, but also livestock. Since the enactment of the Forest Law at the end of 2017, 2.6 million hectares have been deforested, 840,000 of which were supposedly protected. The Rosario Board of Trade estimates that 17.6 million hectares of plantation will yield around 55 million tons of soy in the 2018-19 harvest. This would represent a 27.5% increase on the previous period. Production of wheat, corn and other cereals has also showed an uptick since 2015. Most soy is exported. Argentina consumes scarcely any.

Half full or half empty?

Argentina’s decade old Forest Law had been viewed optimistically and pessimistically in almost equal measure. There are facts to justify both positions.

Since the law came into force, the rate of forest loss has slowed by half from 300,000 hectares per year to around 150,000, but conservation is still woefully underfunded – it receives on average 5% of the budget it should under the Forest Law. Meanwhile, deforestation continues in prohibited areas, owing to provincial exemptions.

"Some owners present silvopastoral [also known as agroforestry] plans and then we see that in reality more trees are taken,” says Juan Pedro Cano, director of forestry at the Environment and Sustainable Development Secretariat. “They leave only patches of trees."

Cano said Greenpeace’s numbers match official data and agreed that the expansion of the agricultural and livestock frontier, not just soy, drives deforestation. Cano claims that when soy prices go up, agricultural activity and deforestation also rise in the rush to capitalise.

Argentina’s constitution gives the provinces responsibility to manage their own natural resources, even if national minimum budget laws are enacted that constrain choices, as has been the case with forests and glaciers.

Giardini said that when illegal deforestation is detected companies incur measly fines, if they have to pay anything at all. "It depends on each province, the fine, or the type of infraction. Fines of two million pesos (US$50,000) are paid for clearing 500 hectares, a figure that doesn’t discourage," he says. For this reason, Greenpeace presented a bill to reform the penal code and to make environmental crimes offenses that can lead to imprisonment.