Palm Oil Driving Deforestation In Brazil's Remote Roirama State, Pressuring Even More Destruction
For years, Roraima’s remote location helped it mostly dodge the rampant deforestation plaguing other Amazon states like Pará and Mato Grosso. Nearly 80% of Roraima’s rainforest is still intact, despite the rapid advance of agriculture and cattle ranching in recent years. But the pressure on Roraima’s forests is growing. From 2008 to 2020, the state lost 850,000 hectares of tree cover, totaling 4.7% of its forests, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on Global Forest Watch. The deforestation rate jumped 216% in 2019, hitting new heights with 61,700 hectares of forest lost.
In the four municipalities where palm oil is booming, clearing also appears to be surging. Since the start of the year, UMD recorded 46,881 tree cover loss alerts in this region – with 65% of these registered in the week of March 15 (it should be noted that these alerts may reflect canopy loss in tree plantations as well as clearing of natural forest). Deforestation is also now encroaching on nearby Indigenous territories like Waimiri-Atroari, Pirititi and Waiwai, threatening the communities that live there.
Satellite images show recent deforestation near Waiwai Indigenous Territory.
Brazil’s rush to plant oil palm began more than a decade ago, fueled by a federal scheme aimed at expanding sustainable palm oil production in the Amazon and the Brazilian northeast. The idea was that companies would transform degraded areas where cattle once grazed into palm oil plantations, providing small farmers with a sustainable income without the need to encroach on intact forests. “It was marketed as a really positive thing,” said Paulo Barni, a professor of forest engineering in the State University of Roraima in Rorainópolis. “The discourse of these companies was all about capturing carbon and reversing environmental degradation. It was seen as a part of this new green economy.”
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Palm oil companies maintain that they only plant in areas that were cleared before 2008. But, even though most plantations in Roraima do occupy land that once served as pasture, data shows nearly 4% of the terrain the companies use to grow oil palm was cleared between 2008 and 2019, according to an analysis done by researcher Glauria Gomes de Morais at the State University of Roraima.
And pressure on the buffer zones around plantations – meant to serve as a protective barrier for the Indigenous lands that lie beyond – is also mounting. Some 5,359 hectares have been cleared since 2008 in the buffer area around Palmaplan’s plantations. Around plantations owned by BioFuels, 10,572 hectares were razed in the same time period, Morais’ research shows.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/new-palm-oil-frontier-sparks-scramble-for-land-in-the-brazilian-amazon/
