Highlights
- From 2000 to 2020, about 20% of the remaining Brazilian Amazon Forest underwent consistent degradation accentuated by climate change and anthropogenic disturbance.
- Local climate over degraded forest has higher max and mean temperatures and lower evapotranspiration, especially at the end of the dry season, resulting in less rainfall, when compared to non-degraded forest.
- Total annual reductions in evapotranspiration from non-degraded forest amount to 22% for degraded forest and 41% for deforested areas. Much less evapotranspiration resulted in an annual rainfall decrease of 4% over degraded forest and 15% over deforested areas. Furthermore, over the dry season (June-September) these decreases reach 14% and 34% for degraded forest and deforested areas, respectively.
- Climate indices, such as consecutive days without rain and number of days with temperatures above 35°C or above 90% percentile are greater over degraded forest, compared with those of non-degraded forest. Conversely, consecutive rainy days are fewer over degraded forest. Those differences are even more accentuated for deforested areas.
- Climate extremes are exacerbating and becoming more frequent, thus affecting the productivity of single maize cropping, soy-maize double cropping, and cattle ranching. In highly deforested areas of southern Amazon, annual number of days with temperature above 35°C and above 90% percentile and consecutive days without rain have risen 5 and 8 times, and 24% over the last two decades, respectively.
- Crop shortfalls are becoming more frequent, entailing higher insurance premiums and a larger number of payouts, and as a result, demanding more public insurance subsidies.
- From 2010–2023, the Rural Insurance Program (PSR) subsidized 23.5 thousand contracts in Legal Amazon (LA), covering an area of 6.7 million hectares of farming and 133 thousand cattle heads, with premiums totaling USD 244 million, of which USD 83 million consist of federal subsidies.
- We estimate that between 2010 and 2023, the increase in climate extremes due to climate change in synergy with deforestation was responsible for 95% of the USD 115 million payouts to farmers and ranchers in LA under the PSR. In largely deforested areas, the share of deforestation alone accounts for 83%. Yet our dataset represents only 6% of Brazil’s PSR premiums, meaning that our findings might be extended many-fold to the country.
- Of 217,000 rural properties receiving credit between 2017 and 2022, 21% showed evidence of post-2008 deforestation in the LA—98% of which was potentially illegal, lacking proper deforestation authorizations and sufficient native vegetation for composing Legal Reserves. Additionally, 8% of financed properties had active federal or state embargoes, yet continued accessing public credit.
- Brazil’s Central Bank is now tightening rules by requiring satellite monitoring of post-2019 deforestation and proof of legality to access rural credit . Still, lenient transition rules allow financing embargoed properties until 2027. Banks that fail to conduct proper due diligence should be liable for deforestation and climate harm.
- Native vegetation restoration, as mandated by the Forest Code, is essential to mitigate the effects of climate change on farming. Large-scale restoration may reduce by 33% the monetary sum of insurance payouts in LA.
- As climate change intensifies, conserving and restoring native vegetation become ever more essential to maintain the productivity of farming and ranching in the Amazon. Therefore, agribusiness sectors that foment the expansion of pastures and croplands at the expense of native vegetation are committing “agrosuicide”.