Brazil’s Amazon skyrockets to 12-year high

Deforestation in

DEFORESTATION in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged to a 12-year high in 2020, official government data showed on Monday, with destruction soaring since President Jair Bolsonaro took office and weakened environmental enforcement.

In 2020, destruction of the world’s largest rainforest rose 9.5 per cent from a year earlier to 11,088 square kilometres (2.7 million acres), according to data from Brazil’s national space research agency Inpe, seven times the size of London. That means Brazil will miss its own target, established under a 2009 climate change law, for reducing deforestation to roughly 3900 square kilometres.

The consequences for missing the target are not laid out in the law but could leave the government open to lawsuits. The official annual measure, known as PRODES, is taken by comparing satellite images from the end of July 2020 with those from the beginning of August 2019.

These dates are chosen to coincide with the Amazon’s dry season, when there is less cloud cover to interfere with the calculations. The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest and its protection is crucial to stopping catastrophic climate change because of the vast amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

The latest annual destruction is a substantial increase from the 7536 square kilometres that were deforested in 2018, the year before Mr Bolsonaro took office.

Picture: REUTERS Picture: REUTERS/FILE An aerial view shows a tree at the centre of a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil on August 14, 2020. Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil on September 10, 2019.