The government under Lula da Silva that returned to power in Brazil in 2023 stepped up enforcement against illegal deforestation with a crackdown on illicit clearing by miners, loggers, and farmers. It has been effective.
According to satellite data, in the period from August through the end of January, the Brazilian Amazon has seen just 516 square miles of forest cleared, which is the lowest figure for this period since 2014.
Deforestation contributes about 50% of Brazil’s total emissions. When trees are felled, much of the carbon stored by them is released back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. The recent drop in deforestation has put a sizeable dent in the country’s emissions, which dropped by their biggest margin since 2009.
But stopping deforestation does not just reduce emissions. Once trees are felled, evapotranspiration reduces, as does the return of moisture to the atmosphere. This leads to less convection rainfall and drier conditions, and the climate becomes warmer, harming the activities such as agriculture that the forest is cleared for. Compared with dense rainforest, regions that have seen heavy forest clearing are about 5 degrees warmer during the dry season. Without trees to fuel downpours, deforested regions see around 25% less rain and Brazilian farmers are heavily dependent on the rain generated by the Amazon rainforest.
In a new study, researchers found that the rainfall generated yearly by the Amazon rainforest is worth roughly $20 billion to farmers in surrounding regions.
