Amazon deforestation dropped by 33.6 percent during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term, according to new government satellite data.
Data produced by Brazil's national space research agency Inpe indicated that 2,649 square km of rainforest were cleared in the region in the first half of this year, the lowest for the period since 2019. (Reuters)
The plunge represents a turnaround after four years of rising deforestation under the last government, and is an encouraging sign for Lula, who on the campaign trail promised to reduce illegal logging.
Environment Minister Marina Silva said in a press briefing that the fall in deforestation was a direct result of the Lula government ramping up resources for environmental enforcement.
This year’s data includes a 41% reduction in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump. (Guardian)
Still, despite the drop, the area cleared during the first half of this year is still greater than the size of Luxembourg, notes Deutsche Welle.
And according to satellite monitoring, there were 3,075 fires in the Amazon in June alone, which marks the beginning of the dry season — the most since 2007. The jump is due to the clearing of areas deforested in the second half of 2022, Schmitt said. In the Amazon, fires are mostly man-made and occur after clear-cutting of the forest, reports the Associated Press.
Last year Brazil’s deforestation was the highest in the world: it accounted for more than 40 percent of tree loss globally, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bolivia, according to the World Resources Institute’s annual survey. (New York Times)
Bolivia
Deforestation in Bolivia went up 32 percent in 2022, the highest rate on record for that country. A powerful driver of destruction has been a government policy that encourages farmers to clear vast tracts to secure land titles, Marlene Quintanilla, a research director at the Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza told the New York Times. (via Latin America Brief)
Venezuela
An entire contraband supply chain has sprung up to keep illegal mining functioning in Venezuela’s southern Yapacana National Park. Security forces are often complicit in smuggling merchandise, “providing more evidence of how the security forces will work with criminals they favor and punish those they don’t,” reports InSight Crime.
More Brazil
Brazil's lower house of Congress approved the main text of a tax reform that will restructure the country's complex consumption taxes, early this morning. Lula hailed the reform — which previous administrations tried and failed to pass — as a "great victory,” reports Reuters.
Colombia
FARC dissident commander Ivan Márquez has died in Venezuela, reports Reuters. "The information provided by the group is that he died in a hospital in Caracas, where he received medical attention for serious injuries he suffered in an attack in Venezuela at the end of June 2022," said a source close to the Segunda Marquetalia, a dissident group that took up arms after the FARC demobilized under a landmark 2016 peace deal.
Renewed turf wars in Buenaventura, where a negotiated truce between gangs was heralded as a victory for dialogue, bode ill for “total peace,” in Colombia, reports El País.
Guatemala
The unexpected electoral success of Guatemala’s anti-corruption Movimiento Semilla in the June 25 presidential election, and the subsequent backlash at the entrenched political elite has attempted to disqualify the results, “have galvanized a citizen-led movement that is now working to ensure that the will of the people is heard,” write Anita Isaacs, Rachel A. Schwartz and Álvaro Montenegro in a New York Times op-ed.
Citizens are leading a social media campaign challenging claims of fraud, are volunteering to observe the audits of vote tallies, Indigenous organizations have promised to protest attempts to manipulate the election and even members of the business community have urged respect for the electoral results, they note in the piece. (New York Times)
Regional Relations
Several Republican presidential hopefuls in the U.S., and party members of Congress, want to use the U.S. military to battle drug cartels, reports the Wall Street Journal.
“The problem that needs to be addressed is real and tragic. … But the idea that using U.S. military force would solve the problem is delusional,” write Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post.
Mexico
The violent Familia Michoacana cartel in Mexico is suspected of leaving a severed human leg found hanging from a pedestrian bridge in Toluca, Mexico state’s capital. Parts of at least two bodies turned up around the city on Wednesday. (CBS)
Cuba
More than 100,000 Havana residents are without water, as much as 10 percent of the city’s population are affected by shortages linked to the island's aging, decrepit infrastructure, reports Reuters.
Colombia
Twelve-year-old Gabriela Brito, AKA Lela MC, is a Venezuelan migrant who is establishing herself as a major presence on Bogotá’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, reports the Guardian.
Critter Corner
Capybaras, caimans, ocelots and birds galore at Argentina’s Ibera National Park, a Rewilding Argentina safari — Independent.
A rare Somali Wild Ass foal was born in a Chilean zoo, sparking hope for a critically endangered species with less than 200 mature individuals left worldwide. (Reuters)