Deforestation and environmental imbalance in the Amazon
QUALIFICATION OF DATA AND IMPROVEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL INSPECTION IN THE STATE OF PARÁ
Despite the availability of advanced environmental monitoring and inspection systems in Brazil, there are still important gaps in understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics and the effectiveness of different control instruments.
Afters significant decline in deforestation in the Legal Amazon in the period from 2004 to 2012, deforestation rates began to grow again. The estimated rate of deforestation reached around 11 thousand km2 in 2020, the highest observed since 2008. This project seeks to better understand the relationship between deforestation (legal and illegal), environmental inspection (federal to state) and administrative accountability in the state of Pará, which leads the history of deforestation accumulated in the Legal Amazon since 1988. Estimates of the cost-effectiveness of the available accountability instruments (infraction notices, embargoes, seizures and destruction of equipment) are analyzed in light of the spatio-temporal dynamics of deforestation in order to support the improvement of command and control actions, including the identification of priority areas for planning inspection in the state territory in the coming years.
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METHODOLOGY
In order to measure the effectiveness of different forms of command and control, a spatially explicit model was developed to estimate the risk of deforestation for each rural property in CAR, as well as its status under the Forest Code (i.e. active/passive, etc.) . Subsequently, the effects of command and control instruments on the dynamics of deforestation at the level of rural properties and nearby areas are evaluated and simulated using geostatistical methods.
RESULTS
It is observed that most of the deforestation recorded between 2009 and 2019 occurred in rural properties registered in CAR and in settlements. The deforestation density map points to a spatial distribution that covers all regions of the state. However, there are hotspots, that is, areas that concentrate high occurrences, spread across the Southeast, Southwest and Northeast regions of Pará. Pressure is also observed around protected areas in the most central portion of the state. The action of federal agencies to embargo deforested areas is more dispersed compared to state action, whose efforts are concentrated in some regions. Regarding the punitive capacity of the federal government, there is evidence that, although Verde Brasil operations have intensified inspection efforts in terms of numbers of infraction notices and embargoes, they have not been able to reverse the historical trend of weakening command and control. Nor were they successful in reducing deforestation considering the historical series. See maps and graphs below.
