The survey derived from the Deforestation Alert System - SAD Caatinga, an integral part of MapBiomas Alert, based on satellite images, shows that deforestation continues to advance in the Caatinga: 115,894 hectares in 2021 compared to 68,304 hectares in 2020 - an increase of 70% in just one year. Of this total, 80.7% was deforested in just four of the biome's nine states: Bahia, Ceará, Pernambuco and Piauí.
The data is part of a survey that MapBiomas presented in a webinar with WRI Brasil on National Caatinga Day, celebrated on April 28. The aim was to highlight the connections between land use and sustainable development in the region.
"In addition to the concentration of deforestation in four of the nine states of the biome, it can be seen that in all of them, most of the deforestation takes place in a few municipalities. In the case of Sergipe, Minas Gerais and Piauí, for example, five municipalities accounted for 65.7%, 43.3% and 37.1% of the deforested area in these states, respectively," explains Washington Rocha, MapBiomas' Caatinga mapping coordinator. "This data can certainly help governments to monitor the legality of this suppression of natural vegetation," he adds.
"The Caatinga biome is one of the most vulnerable to climate change in Brazil, and the advance of degradation in this ecosystem is worrying," says Jeferson Ferreira-Ferreira, Data Science Coordinator at WRI Brasil. "But there is a huge opportunity for sustainable development in reversing this situation. Our experience shows that it is possible to restore native vegetation and, at the same time, guarantee income generation for the families involved," he says.
Deforestation numbers
MapBiomas shows deforestation in the biomes in two ways: by the number of alerts identified and the area deforested. The number of alerts shows how many deforestation actions there have been. But as the area deforested can vary with each alert issued, MapBiomas also provides the hectares of natural vegetation suppressed.
In terms of the number of alerts, i.e. deforestation actions identified, there was an 87% jump between 2020 and 2021, from 5,645 to 10,571. Bahia (3,080), Ceará (2,564), Pernambuco (1,532) and Piauí (1,074) accounted for 78% (8,250 alerts) of the total number of alerts identified in 2021.
In terms of area, 115,894 hectares were deforested, which represents a 70% increase in deforested area compared to 2020 with 68,304 hectares. The area deforested in Bahia (46,811 hectares), Ceará (20,584 hectares), Pernambuco (14,149 hectares) and Piauí (12,023 hectares), totaled 93,568 hectares, corresponding to 80.7% of the area deforested in 2021.
Agriculture appears as the main driver of deforestation, both when we analyze the number of alerts (73%, or 7,716 of the alerts identified in 2021) and when we count the area deforested (74%, or 85,762 hectares of the total deforested in 2021).
The number of municipalities with at least one identified deforestation alert also increased: from 712 in 2020 to 938 in 2021, which is equivalent to 77.6% of all municipalities in the Caatinga.
The municipalities with the largest areas of deforested Caatinga are Jeremoabo (BA), with 3,708 hectares; Parnaguá (PI), with 3,147 hectares; Wanderley (BA), with 2,586 hectares; Santa Rita de Cássia (BA), with 2,394 hectares; and Santana (BA), with 2,068 hectares.