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The Legal Amazon had an area of 836.23 km² low deforestation alert in October, the highest of the month since monitoring began in 2015, according to data updated on Friday (13) by the Space Research Institute (Inpe).
The alerts were made by the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (Discourage), which produces daily signs of forest cover change for areas larger than 3 hectares (0.03 km²), both for totally deforested areas and for those in the process of forest degradation (logging, mining, burning and others).
Deforestation alerts in October in the Amazon (2015-20)
Source: Deter / Inpe
Deter data is always updated on Fridays, considering the deforestation found until the previous week. For example: this Friday (13), the consolidated data appears until the last Friday (6).
The deforested area for October, 836.23 km², appeared for the first time in the Inpe system on day 6. On that date, however, the update considered the alerts until October 30 (the previous Friday), without the last day of the month.
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In the update of this Friday (13), which considers the data up to November 6, there are no new deforestation alerts for October 31, the day that was missing in last month’s monitoring. Therefore, the total area under alert remained at 836.23 km².
According to Inpe, the measurement of deforestation on the 31st may have been prevented by clouds. In that case, the alerts for that date would be included in the following days. In the first 6 days of November – the most recent data – there are 60.91 km² of the Legal Amazon area under deforestation alert.
The Deter system points out areas with marks of devastation that must be inspected by Ibama, and not official deforestation rates, which are usually higher than those registered by Deter (see details below in this article).
The Legal Amazon corresponds to 59% of the Brazilian territory, and covers the area of 8 states (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins) and part of Maranhão.
Most of the forest cut in October was in the by (which deforested 398 km², around 48% of the total calculated for the month). The state also had the highest deforestation numbers in September and August.
Deforestation area of the Amazon in October, by UF (in km²)
Source: Deter / Terra Brasilis / Inpe / MCTIC
The municipalities that deforested the most in October were:
- Porto Velho (RO): 52.74 km²
- Labrea (AM): 36.67 km²
- Pacajá (PA): 36.55 km²
- São Félix do Xingu (PA): 28.09 km²
- Portel (PA): 27.76 km²
- Plates (PA): 23.97 km²
- Senator José Porfírio (PA): 23.26 km²
- Altamira (PA): 22.93 km
- Anapu (PA): 21.31 km²
- Uruará (PA): 18.51 km²
Aerial view of the burned area in the Amazon, near Apuí, Amazonas, on August 11. – Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters
Deter’s warnings, however, do not represent the official rate of deforestation. It is measured with another Inpe system, the Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Legal Amazon by Satellite (Prodes).
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The official rate is published once a year and also considers the figures from August of one year to July of the following year. The 2019-2020 data has yet to be released, but last year the official rate was 42% higher than what Deter satellites reported.
Prodes’s numbers are historically higher than Deter’s.
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Deforestation and fires are related. Fire is part of the strategy to “clean” the soil that was cleared for later use in livestock or sowing. It’s called the “cycle of deforestation of the Amazon.”
The number of fires in the Amazon has also reached record highs: the fires in the forest this year have already surpassed the sightings for all of last year. In October, the biome recorded the largest accumulated forest fire since 2010: 93,356.
Accumulated fire points in the Amazon (January-October)
Source: Inpe
