Brazil’s Amazon rainforest lost at fastest rate in 15 years

DEFORESTATION in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has risen to the highest level in 15 years, official figures show, casting doubt on promises by Jair Bolsonaro’s government to reverse the trend with “forceful” action.

The 5,110 sq miles of forest lost from August 2020 to July 2021 was the largest area since 5,516 sq miles were cleared in 2005-06, according to an estimate by INPE, Brazil’s national space research institute.

It is the third consecutive year that Amazon deforestation has risen under President Bolsonaro, whose encouragement for farming and mining activity has been blamed by the opposition for the increase.

Joaquim Leite, the environment minister, admitted the figures represent “a challenge” and promised to be “more forceful against environmental crimes”.

He also insisted the data “does not exactly reflect the situation in the last few months”.

However, INPE said it had registered the worst October on record for deforestation, with an area more than half the size of the city of Rio de Janeiro cleared. Brazil was among the signatories to a pledge made at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow to end deforestation by 2030.

Mr Bolsonaro went even further by pledging to eliminate illegal deforestation in the South American country – which is home to 60 per cent of the Amazon – by 2028, pulling forward a previous target by two years.

“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Marcio Astrini, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental non-profit groups, said.

“We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy.”

The Climate Observatory accused the government of hiding the data until after Cop26, but ministers denied any cover-up.