Deforestation doubles in the Cerrado and accelerates in areas without land information

Released this Thursday (13) by SAD Cerrado, the Cerrado Deforestation Alert System, the data reveals a trend of acceleration in deforestation in areas without land information, which do not have a determination of public use by the federal or state governments, nor private ownership.

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“The areas of native vegetation in the Cerrado without land information occupy 13,5% of the biome and we noted, with concern, an increase in the speed of deforestation in these regions. Deforestation in these areas is a reflection of the dismantling of the environmental management structure that ends up favoring the advancement of land grabbing, which in addition to the Amazon, also affects the Cerrado”, explains Ane Alencar, director of Science at IPAM and coordinator of MapBiomas Fogo.

The rate of deforestation in August and September, months in which the drought in the Cerrado is at its peak, was 2.285 hectares felled per day. The average size of deforested areas throughout the biome is 9 hectares per deforestation alert, however, more than a third (34,9%) of the deforestation alerts detected, refined and validated by SAD Cerrado correspond to the deforestation of areas larger than 50 hectares.

The Matopiba region, which comprises the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, continues to concentrate deforestation in the Cerrado. For the period analyzed, Maranhão was the state that deforested the most, with 44% of the entire area felled in the biome. SAD Cerrado researchers observe an acceleration in deforestation in the state, which until then accounted for around 25% of the deforested area in the Cerrado across the country.

In 2022, deforestation has already reached 617 thousand hectares of the Cerrado – an area larger than that of the Federal District. According to SAD Cerrado, 71% of the areas deforested during the year are in private rural properties registered in the CAR (Rural Environmental Registry). So far, deforestation in areas without land information corresponds to 21% of the total.

Savanna formations, among the different types of vegetation in the Cerrado, were the most affected by deforestation in 2022: 67% of the deforested area is concentrated in this vegetation. An alarming fact is that, despite representing 10,6% of the remaining natural vegetation area in the biome, grassland formations already account for 23% of total deforestation in 2022.

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