New study fails to find a link between increased deforestation and the COVID crisis

     After each period of economic depression, the recovery brings with it greater exploitation of natural resources

     After each period of economic depression, the recovery brings with it greater exploitation of natural resources. That doesn't seem to be the case for the post-Coronavirus outbreak, however





    When the Coronavirus pandemic began, and national governments responded with lockdowns and restrictive measures, environmentalists speculated that this could lead to a surge in illegal logging in tropical countries - with few controls and rising unemployment. the rainforests of the world would have been doomed to die prematurely.

    And instead, according to a new study conducted by the Global Forest Watch (GFW), various forces at work in global economic mechanisms have offset the phenomena of deforestation in the world: the increase in deforestation in some areas of the planet is matched by a decrease in the phenomenon elsewhere. . The association showed that the total area of ​​tropical forest decreased by 12,2 million hectares in 2020, 12% less than in 2019 - an area roughly as large as Greece.

    Looking at the data relating to the three-year period 2016-2018, it seems that the loss of forest that occurred in the last year is on average lower than that of previous years. Unfortunately, however, the deforestation of the three most important tropical forests in the world - Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia - has continued despite the health emergency.

    In these countries, the pandemic has made attempts to defend forests, implemented primarily by indigenous people, more vulnerable: measures taken to counter the pandemic, such as the lockdown, have compromised the activism of the police and services control, giving more leeway to illegal logging activities. This has had an effect on the popularity of leaders like Jair Bolsonaro, the controversial Brazilian prime minister: he had initiated policies to destroy the Amazon rainforest long before the Coronavirus spread around the world - it remains to be seen whether the pandemic (and how the country reacted to it) favored or held back its insane campaign of environmental destruction.



    Historically, an emerging economy (such as one that rises after a war or after an economic crisis) tends to increase the levels of deforestation, because the economic boom brings with it a great demand for raw materials and investments. The money 'injected' into the global economy since the pandemic has surpassed that invested in response to other crises in recent history - first and foremost, the great recession of 2008 or the Marshall Plan inaugurated after the end of World War II.

    Indeed, the amount of money invested by some European countries (United Kingdom, France and Germany) was ten times greater than that which the same countries invested to revive their respective economies in 2008. Economists, however, believe that all this economic availability cannot go on much longer and that there will not be a 'golden decade' as there was at the end of World War I in the 20s.

    New study fails to find a link between increased deforestation and the COVID crisis

    @ Forest Policy and Economics

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    Fonte: Forest Policy and Economics

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