Amazon deforestation has been growing since 2012 and more recently under record rates. In fact, a new wave of rainforest destruction is on, challenging environmental agencies and policymakers. Political negligence has boosted deforestation in the Amazon, when coupled with deforestation drives that we already know about, as well as exempting environmental offenders and clearing the way to major infrastructure projects, in addition to weakening environmental agencies and command and control policies. In this letter, we share perspectives on the dynamics of deforestation alerts in the Brazilian Amazon and the action of public enforcement agencies, to draw attention to the urgency of supporting these entities for resuming the fight against deforestation. Our results reveal the few enforcement actions on deforestation alerts (1.3%) by the major environmental agency from the federal government. When compared with state government agencies, our in-depth case study showed a higher number of enforcement actions, promoting accountability for illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It is evident that budget cuts for federal environmental agencies and changes in enforcement procedures have jeopardized actions to combat illegal deforestation. Our analysis calls for federal agencies to resume their powers, and for state agencies to recognize their role in environmental reinforcement and assigning liability. In the end, we list five key factors for reestablishing enforcement actions by public agencies for fighting deforestation and improving dissuasive effects.

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In 2020, a total of 3.9 million hectares were burned in the Pantanal biome, which represents approximately 30% of its total area. Of the three existing biomes in the state of Mato Grosso, the Pantanal was the most impacted and, among all the municipalities in Mato Grosso, Poconé had the largest burned area. We aimed to characterize the areas affected by fires in the municipality of Poconé in 2020 to support prevention and adaptation actions in future scenarios. For this, we used the mapping of areas affected by fires made from the detections of active fire collected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor and available by the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED). The results showed that a total of 869,170 hectares were burned in Poconé in 2020. Of this total, 97.3% were in natural areas, viz. forest formations (37%), savanna (2.8%), grassland formations (23.4%), wetlands (29.7%), and vegetation in dried-up rivers and lakes (4.4%). Concerning land categories, almost half of the fires occurred in private rural properties registered in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). In this scenario, we highlighted the importance of monitoring fires and holding those responsible for them accountable. It is also important to implement preventive actions in synergy with managers and local communities as a way of adapting to the climate crisis, intense drought, and less water surface available in the region, which increases the risk and damage of fires.

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