Deforestation in the Cerrado breaks new record in April

O deforestation in the Cerrado between January and April 2023 was the highest in the last 5 years, reaching 2.133 km². The value is around 14,5% higher than that recorded in the same period last year (1.886 km2). The data are from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) collected from the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (Deter), available at TerraBrasilis platform.

Considering only the month of April, deforestation alerts in the Cerrado are 31% higher this year, compared to 2022.

O Cerrado In the month of April alone, it lost 708,58 km² of vegetation, an area larger than the capital of Bahia, Salvador (693 km²). The number represents a record for the month in INPE's historical series which, for the Cerrado biome, starts in 2019.

Around 80% of deforestation alerts occurred in areas of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piaui e Bahia — a region called Matopiba — which maintains the main frontier of agricultural expansion in Brazil and one of the major fronts for the destruction of biomes in the world.

In the last decades, the Cerrado lost more than 50% of its original vegetation cover. The biome is mainly responsible for the country's water security and for housing river basins and important water supply reservoirs for large cities.

Bahia was the state where the most deforestation occurred in Cerrado, with 757,65 km² suppressed, followed by Maranhão (339,2 km²), Tocantins (324,4 km²), Piauí (275,8 km²) and Mato Grosso (133,5 km²). The other eight states within the biome totaled 302 km² of deforestation.

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