Brazil’s NASA Says Amazon Deforestation is Way Down

August 6, 2012, 10:20am

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has just announced that data from its satellite monitoring system shows that deforestation in the Amazon is down a hefty 23% this year, which is good news for those who appreciate the planet’s lungs.

The science journal Nature parses the findings, and notes that the news could be viewed “as an initial indicator that deforestation is likely to hit a fourth consecutive record low in the season that ran from August 2011 through July 2012. The latest official figures, released in December, show deforestation dropping to 6,238 square kilometres last year.”

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The numbers are a little uncertain, because monitors have to deal with unruly cloud cover while making the calculations, but there’s clearly reason to be optimistic.

Nature agrees:

Just as a thought experiment: If these numbers were to hold up, it would represent a 75-percent drop below Brazil’s official baseline of 19,500 square kilometres annually (the average from 1996-2005). Again, for perspective, Brazil has committed to reducing deforestation by 80 percent – by 2020. Which helps explain why environmentalists have been pushing the government to adopt an even stronger target (zero deforestation, for instance).

Deforestation is down for a number of reasons; stricter anti-deforestation government policies are one, financial incentives from international donors are another—Norway, for example, has donated $1 billion to the Amazon Fund to help seed projects that will create sustainable employment in deforestation-ravaged regions.

Despite the rosy news, there’s still plenty of reason for concern. Just check out this NASA (actual NASA, not Brazilian NASA) satellite image, taken just a couple days ago, of the scale of deforestation in the Amazon since the 70s.

That dense green area used to be all trees, obvs. And illegal ranching and tree-cutting is still rampant. Still, progress is progress, and it’s harder to cheat on your conservation goals with those satellites keeping their watchful electric eyes honed on the most important carbon sink on the planet. This trend is promising for sure.