Government publicizes deforestation in Cerrado

Compared to the last monitored year (2015), decreases of 43% (2016) and 38% (2017) have been registered.

Brasília (21/06/2018) - The Federal Government publicized the data of deforestation in Cerrado relative to 2016 and 2017. According to the monitoring realized by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe, for the acronym in Portuguese), through PRODES Cerrado, the deforested area corresponds to 6.777 km2 and 7.408 km2, respectively, which represents a decrease of 43% and 38% related to 2015, when the data of Cerrado has last been publicized in 11.881 km2.

Another relevant data refers to the National Policy on Climate Change (law no. 12.187/2009), which stablishes for Cerrado the goal of reducing deforestation in 40% until 2020, relative to the average deforestation registered between 1999 and 2008.

The Minister of Environment, Edson Duarte, remarked that the numbers are expressive and show that the enforcement actions as well as those affirmative focused on the increasingly sustainable development are working. He also affirmed that the numbers are very significant for the period and that the decrease brings confidence around the work that is being done.

Lastly, he highlighted the implementation of the Real Time Deforestation Detection System by Inpe, known as Deter Cerrado, which will give support to institutions in charge of law enforcement, through the emission of daily alerts.

PRODES CERRADO

The monitoring of the disclosed data was made by Inpe within the scope of the Prodes Cerrado Project, supported by the Ministries of Environment and of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MMA and MCTIC, for the initials in Portuguese). Another result of the project is the refinement of the mapping of deforested areas from 2010 to 2015, which resulted in the update of the historical time series and created biennial data for the period between 2000 and 2012, and annual data for the period between 2013 and 2017, encompassing all deforested polygons larger than one hectare. From 2018 on, the mapping of deforestation in Cerrado became annual, just like it is done for Amazon.

Prodes Cerrado integrates the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation and Forest Fires in the Cerrado (PPCerrado). In 2016, PPCerrado started its third implementation phases with execution until 2020. The Plan is coordinated by MMA and counts on the participation of other 11 ministries and 12 federal entities. These data are also base for REDD+ submissions, such as the Forest Reference Emission Level for the Cerrado Biome (FREL Cerrado) and the Technical Annex with RED results for the Cerrado biome to be submitted to the UNFCCC in conjunction of the 3^rd Biennial Update Report of Brazil.

One of the initiatives that contributed for this result is the Amazon Fund.