Deforestation in Legal Amazon 82% lower in last decade

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Aldo Rebelo, reported that from 2004 to 2014, the annual rate of deforestation in the Legal Amazon fell from 27,772 km² to 5,015 km², a drop of 82 percent. "It's an evidence of the success of the country's environmental policy that should be more than recorded, [it should be] celebrated," the minister said.

Data comes from the Program to Calculate Deforestation in the Amazon (Prodes), from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), and was released Friday (Aug. 14), at a press conference by Aldo Rebelo and Izabella Teixeira, Minister of the Environment.

Deforestation in the Legal Amazon also declined from August 2013 to July 2014, related to the previous 12-month period. According to the rate of change recorded by Inpe, there was a reduction of 15 percent. The area deforested in the 2013/2014 period was 5,012 square kilometers (km²), compared to 5,891 km² deforested in 2012/2013.

In order to reach the rate of change, Inpe has mapped 214 satellite images of earth-observing program Landsat 8. Prodes calculates the deforestation areas as larger than 6.25 hectares of old-growth forest clear-cutting, i.e. when there is complete removal of forest cover.

The minister Izabella Teixeira explained that the Prodes monitoring does not distinguish between illegal and legal deforestation, which is authorized on farms according to Forest Code rules.

Legal Amazon is formed by the Brazilian states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta