Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what estimate her Department made of the amount of deforestation in Brazil in the (a) last and (b) next decade.

HMG officials draw on a range of sources to regularly assess deforestation levels across all of Brazil's important biomes. The last decade of deforestation in Brazil has been a mixed story: between 2004 to 2012, deforestation rates in Brazil reduced by over 80% but have risen since and most sharply in recent years. The UK is of course deeply concerned by the latest data for 2020-21 released by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) PRODES (Measurement of Deforestation by Remote Sensing) system on November 18th 2021, which suggests a surge in deforestation.

Looking ahead to the next decade, we welcome Brazil government's recent commitments made at COP26 to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and to eliminate illegal deforestation by 2028. We are also pleased to see Brazil's commitment, as part of the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration at COP26, to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. To support implementation of these commitments , we will build on the established partnerships HMG has with the federal and subnational governments in Brazil.