Of the total 573 Indigenous Lands (ITs) in Brazil (considering their various phases of recognition and demarcation, including with interdiction ordinance), 232 (40.5%) had at least one deforestation event in 2021, according to the most recent edition of the Annual Report on Deforestation in Brazil (RAD),from MapBiomas. The number of ITs that had some deforestation between 2019 and 2021 reached 326 (57%). Of this total, only 11 (2%) had more than 500 ha deforested. The ITs with deforestation are located in eight states: AM, PA, RO, RO, MA, MT, PR, AC and RR.

The largest deforestation occurred in the Apyterewa (8,247 ha), Trincheira Bacajá (2,620 ha), and Cachoeira Seca (2,034 ha) Indigenous Lands, all in the state of Pará. Kayapó and Apyterewa were the ITs with the highest number of alerts in 2021, with 531 and 514, respectively. 

The deforestation that occurred in ITs represented 4.7% of the total number of alerts and 1.9% of the total area deforested in Brazil in 2021. Most of the alerts and the area deforested in ITs are found in the Amazon biome.

The 2021 DAR is the third in a series that aims to consolidate and analyze information on all deforestation detected in the six Brazilian biomes, by the multiple alert systems available, and which were validated, refined and published by the MapBiomas Alerta project.

Deforestation in Conservation Units (UCs) increases

166,895 hectares of deforestation were detected inside Conservation Units (UCs) in 2021, which represents 10.1% of the total area detected in Brazil in 2021. Of the 2,181 federal and state land UCs registered in the National Registry of Conservation Units (CNUC), 252 UCs (11.6%) had at least one deforestation event of at least 1 hectare in 2021 - a number close to that observed in 2020 (254 UCs). 

Of these 252 UCs, 21 had more than 1,000 hectares deforested, 12 of them APAs. They are located in ten states: PA, RO, BA, TO, AC, CE, MA, PI, MG and GO. The two UCs with the largest deforested areas were the Triunfo do Xingu APA (PA), with 48,971 ha, and the Jamanxim FLONA (PA), with 18,281 ha. The area with the highest number of alerts was the RESEX Chico Mendes, in Acre, with 1,078 alerts.

Most of this deforestation occurred in sustainable use UCs (91.9%). Although in the fully protected UCs this percentage was only 8.1% of the total observed in Conservation Units, it was in this category where the problem has advanced the most.

>> Pará foi o Estado com a maior área desmatada em 2021

>> Estudo mostra que o desmatamento em 2021 cresceu em todos os biomas do Brasil