Deforestation, against which the European Union prides itself on fighting, continues to wreak havoc on a large scale, with methods to match. In the Brazilian Amazon, pesticides are now dropped by plane and helicopter to kill vegetation and facilitate deforestation.
According to the American environmental information site Mongabay, this method of spreading has been frequently used since 2018 to reach remote and difficult to access areas of the forest. While this practice is more laborious than using machines, it cannot be detected by real-time satellite images. And therefore allows clandestine land clearers to escape the authorities.
“This way of degrading the forests takes several years, but it is an advantageous process for criminals because the chances of being caught are very low. We can only see the damage when the clearing is already formed,” explains on condition of anonymity an official of the Brazilian federal agency for the environment (Ibama). “A dead forest is easier to remove than a living forest: some pesticides leave only the tall trees standing.”
Glyphosate, carbosulfan and agent orange component
The Ibama specifies that some of these chemicals, acting as defoliants, cause the death of leaves and a good part of the trees. Once the vegetation is poisoned and damaged, all that remains is to burn it all down and finish the job with a chainsaw and a tractor.
Among the substances used: the very controversial glyphosate, carbosulfan – banned in the European Union due to its toxicity – and 2,4-D, a component of agent orange, used massively during the Vietnam War and which still leads to cases of birth defects in the country.
Once the vegetation is eradicated, land clearers airdrop grass seeds in an attempt to pass off an illegally deforested plot as a “farm in formation” and facilitate its sale.
‘Very dangerous for anyone nearby’
“Causing forest degradation by pesticides is a major environmental assault…Animals will eat the poisonous leaves and fruits of the forest,” is alarmed the biologist Eduardo Malta, of the NGO brazilian Socio-environmental Institute (ISA). “It is also very dangerous for anyone who is nearby when the pesticides are dropped.”
The problem is all the more complex in that, although it is prohibited in primary forests, the use of certain pesticides is permitted on farms. The Mongabay media reports that on realizing that the vegetation of a rural property was dry and brownish, Ibama agents, who intervened on the spot, found dozens of empty cans of the herbicide Planador XT.
“The cans [jetés sur le sol, ndlr] were not washed properly, and the rains could have transported the residues”, reports a representative of Ibama dispatched on the spot. “Adults, children and animals live on the site. Everyone’s health is at risk.”
Lack of oversight from authorities
By taking a closer look at the deforested clearings, Ibama found that many of them were located on cattle ranches, mainly in the state of Mato Grosso in central-western Brazil. Farms that have no use for these pesticides.
By his own admission, the head of Ibama explains that this explosion of deforestation with pesticides is linked to a lack of surveillance on the part of the authorities. “We were more focused on tackling blank logging [par machine] due to the increase in their rate in recent years”, he concedes. The few agents in the field is also a problem: in 2019, there were only 591, i.e. 55% less than in 2010. A number that is too low in view of the scope of the task and the territory to be cover.