Amazon damage worst in 15 years
RIO DE JANEIRO The area deforested in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest reached a 15-year high after a 22 per cent jump from the prior year, according to official data published Thursday.
The National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system showed the Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometres of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021. That’s the most since 2006.
The 15-year high flies in the face of Bolsonaro govern- ment’s recent attempts to shore up its environmental credibility, having made overtures to the administra- tion of U.S. President Joe Biden and moved forward its commitment to end illegal deforestation at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow this month. The space agency’s report, released Thursday, is dated Oct. 27 — before talks in Glasgow began.
The Brazilian Amazon hadn’t recorded a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometres of defor- estation in over a decade before Jair Bolsonaro’s term started in January 2019. Between 2009 and 2018, the average was 6,500 square kilometres. Since then, the annual average leapt to 11,405 square kilometres, and the three-year total is an area bigger than Maryland.
“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental non-profit groups, told The Associated Press. “We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmen- tal destruction its public policy.”
Bolsonaro took office with promises to develop the Amazon, and dismissed global outcry about its de- struction. His administration has defanged environ- mental authorities and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers. This week at a conference in the United Arab Emirates to attract investment, he told the crowd that attacks on Brazil for deforestation are unfair and that most of the Amazon remains pristine.
Brazil’s Environment Ministry didn’t immediately respond to an AP email requesting comment on the Prodes data showing higher deforestation.
The state of Para accounted for 40 per cent of defor- estation from August 2020 to July 2021, according to the data, the most of any of nine states in the Amazon region. But its year-on-year increase was slight com- pared to Mato Grosso and Amazonas states, which together accounted for 34 per cent of the region’s destruction.